John Moloney (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail)

I am replying to this Adjournment matter on behalf of the Tánaiste and Minister for Education and Skills. I thank the Deputies for raising this matter and apologise to the students affected by this incident. We fully appreciate this is a highly stressful time for students taking State examinations. Everything possible should be done to ensure the smooth running of the exams for candidates.

The matter is being taken extremely seriously by the Department of Education and Skills and the State Examination Commission, SEC. The Tánaiste and Minister for Education and Skills has spoken to the SEC's chairperson who advised her it is reviewing the issues which arose with examination preparation and production this year. The chairperson has assured the Tánaiste and Minister for Education and Skills that he and the other members of the commission will be considering these issues as soon as possible with a view to making any changes needed to avoid a recurrence. The chairperson will be reporting to the Tánaiste and Minister for Education and Skills on the outcome of this work.

Due to the review being in progress, it would not be appropriate to comment on the matter in detail until the report of the review has been completed and presented to the Tánaiste and Minister for Education and Skills. It is expected that a report relating to the production and collation of the examination papers, and what future steps can be taken to reduce the risk of recurrence, will be available by the end of July.

The three-hour leaving certificate accounting examination took place on Monday afternoon, 21 June. Accounting was offered as a subject in 514 schools for 5,171 candidates at higher level nationwide. A production error in the examination papers affected 207 of these candidates across 16 schools in south Dublin, 4% of the higher level candidates.

Upon learning of the error, arrangements were immediately made by the SEC to provide the students affected with the correct version of the paper by fax and e-mail. The SEC gave an instruction that students should start the exam using the original paper provided and be given the correct version as soon as it became available in the school. The SEC also advised the school authorities that additional time should be given to students to make up for any time lost that may have arisen as a result of a delayed start to the examination, or otherwise, as a result of dealing with this error.

The length of time each of the 16 schools took to deal with the error would obviously vary depending on several factors such as the time taken to contact the SEC for instructions, the time involved in collecting the incorrect paper and distributing the correct paper and the number of candidates in the centre.

While arrangements were being made in the affected schools to provide copies of the correct papers, the SEC gave the instruction that candidates should be advised to commence working on the paper which had been provided to them as it contained the entire section 1 of the examination.

The SEC has also apologised to schools and candidates for the error. It has operational responsibility for the operation of the certificate examinations. Running the examinations is an immense logistical operation. The 2010 examinations involve over 116,000 candidates in over 4,700 main examination centres and 8,000 special centres. Over 250 different test instruments, 90 curricular and 15 non-curricular subjects, over 6000 examiners, 3 million individual exam papers comprising over 34 million pages, and just under 2 million test items are involved in this process. Of the 3.1 million examination papers produced by the SEC, approximately 85% are printed by external printing companies while the SEC has the capacity to print the remaining 15% of the requirements internally.

In the case of the leaving certificate accounting higher level paper where a production error affected 207 candidates in 16 schools, the SEC can confirm that those papers were printed internally.

This gives a background to the scale of the operation which is undertaken by the SEC each year in providing the State examinations across 13 days each June. While not negating the impact on the students who were affected by this incident, it is important to keep in mind the majority of State examinations take place without any difficulties.

One of the key objectives of the SEC is the provision of an examinations system of the highest possible quality. The aspiration of any examining body, including the SEC, is to preside over a system that is completely error free. Although the SEC has in place a range of procedures to enhance reliability and to minimise error, it is an unfortunate fact that errors can occur on examination papers. Such errors are most regrettable. When the error in the leaving certificate accounting paper higher level was brought to the attention of the SEC on Monday last, it immediately took steps to address the issue. In a large-scale, point-in-time examination such as exists in this country it is inevitable that unforeseen circumstances will arise in the course of the examinations. Although the SEC has in place a range of procedures to enhance reliability and minimise error, it is an unfortunate fact that errors can occur on examination papers. The issue for the SEC is how to deal with these errors as they occur.

In light of the huge volume of papers, some 3.1 million examination papers made up of 34 million A4 pages, produced each year the SEC has a formal process for scrutinising examination papers after they have been printed. The issue with the leaving certificate accounting higher level was a production error which was not identified by the SEC as part of its quality assurance processes. Once alerted to the error, the SEC took all reasonable steps to ensure the examination could proceed for the candidates concerned.

I confirm to the Deputies that a review of the issues that have arisen this year with regard to examination paper preparation and production is being carried out by the SEC and this will be the subject of early consideration by the chairperson and members of the commission. The review will also address any concerns in respect of the SEC processes that may have given rise to these issues and will inform any actions deemed necessary to prevent the recurrence of such difficulties in the future. The Tánaiste has asked the commission to keep her informed of its actions and its ongoing reporting to her on the conduct of the examinations will make specific reference to these particular issues.

As previously stated, this incident will be reviewed thoroughly by the commission and the Department looks forward to receiving a report on the matter and details of any changes in procedure to help ensure this will not reoccur in future. I thank the Deputies again for raising this matter and I apologise once again to the students concerned.

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