Mick Barry (Cork North Central, Solidarity) | Oireachtas source

I want to make some points about the position facing the leaving certificate students of 2021, the current fifth-year students, but first I want to look at the reason the leaving certificate exams were cancelled. No doubt the official record will show that they were cancelled due to logistical problems related to organising State exams in a pandemic, the need for PPE in the exam halls, the need for social distancing in the exam halls, and the need to recruit a greater number of volunteers etc. I do not doubt for one moment that these and other logistical problems were very significant factors in the decision. However, I do wish to challenge the idea that they were the only or overwhelming factors that contributed to the cancellation. Many people, including parents, teachers and students alike, felt it was wrong to proceed with State exams when the pandemic and the loss of school time arising from it placed such a heavy strain on the mental health of so many young people. Those people exerted pressure on the Department in many different ways, but special mention must go to the students themselves. They spoke out online. They organised a poll of nearly 25,000 students, showing 80% support for cancellation, and they attended online protest meetings in their thousands, a number that was only going to grow without a change in the Government position. For this reason I want to read into the record of the Dáil that the leaving certificate class of 2020 played an important role in securing the cancellation of exams that threatened the mental health of their peers. I, for one, would like to congratulate them on having taken this stand and for having achieved this end.

The new arrangements the Minister has put in place are not satisfactory. Students who were preparing to sit leaving certificate papers outside of a school setting have been left high and dry and that is an issue the Minister must address. I ask him to comment on that in his reply to me.

In particular, I wish to raise an issue that in some way is within the theme of this debate, namely, discrimination against working-class students who go to school in working-class communities, which it seems to me is built into this alternative plan. The plan is very similar to the predictive grade system that pertains in the UK under a Tory Government. The biggest research study in the world on this system, conducted by Dr. Gill Wyness - I hope I pronounced the name correctly - of University College London, shows that applicants from low-income homes are more likely to have their grades underpredicted.

School profiling, which would see a student's grade being marked up or down in line with the past exam history of his or her school or the collective grades in that school, would discriminate in particular against students in schools based in working-class communities. School profiling of this kind should not, and must not, be part of the 2020 leaving certificate. I ask the Minister for further comment on that in his reply. Students should not be pitted against each other in a battle for scarce third level places in this pandemic year. Instead, the Government should open up third level by increasing investment in courses and apprenticeships and offering places for all who want one. In fact, I would argue that third level entry should operate in this way from here on in. This would allow for the abolition of the stressful and outdated leaving certificate exams, which should be deleted from the education system.

As I indicated earlier, I want to talk about the other leaving certificate students: the fifth years who make up the class of 2021. The leaving certificate is a two-year cycle which normally runs over 18 months of classroom time in our schools. The class of 2021, however, will lose the best part of three of those 18 months. Even if the schools open in September, this will represent a very significant portion of the course, especially given that the majority of the course is covered in fifth year. Students who are due to take oral exams next year have already been away from a school setting in which they could practice their oral skills for two months. It is little wonder that stress levels seem to be rising among fifth years. The Minister's Department now needs to consider making changes which would make due allowance for the handicaps under which these students have been placed. I intend to return to this subject in the weeks ahead. Will the Minister comment on whether he is considering making allowances-----

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