Aodhán Ó Ríordáin (Dublin Bay North, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister for his responses to others. He has already responded to many of the issues I wished to raise. I want him to publish the public health advice he has received in respect of cancelling the leaving certificate. I appreciate it was a difficult decision and I know it was not taken lightly. The Minister stated in his he got advice from NPHET which he has published, but I want to know if NPHET or Dr. Tony Holohan gave him advice to cancel the exams and if that was the basis on which he decided to cancel the exams. If that was the basis, if we cannot have 18 or 19 year old adults doing written exams in August, how can we expect infants to go to overcrowded primary schools in September? I again ask the Minister to publish the advice.

On the appeals process and the timeline of what will happen after this process has been completed, the ASTI has told its members that the marking itself cannot be appealed. Will the Minister, through his Department, please communicate directly with principals and set out exactly the timeline and appeals process? Apparently, students who are not happy with the assessed grades they receive have two options. First is to submit an appeal, which will not take into account the grade he or she got, and second is to sit the written exam whenever that might take place. Will the Minister confirm to the House that this is the case? If it is the case, will he please communicate directly with principals so that they know the exact timeline and process involved?

On school profiling, the Department's website states, "estimated marks from each school will be adjusted to bring them into line with the expected distribution for the school". I sometimes wonder if enough people in the House or society have any comprehension of what it is like to attend a DEIS school and the number of barriers between the pupils and their ability to maximise their potential in this Republic. I sometimes wonder if people really know what it is like. This is probably the only opportunity in many instances for students to break out of poverty and disadvantage. The one opportunity they have is a written exam or an exam where the person marking the exam does not know who they are, where they are from or the school they attend.

The Minister has school league tables within his Department and it is not even possible to make a freedom of information, FOI, request for them because the Department knows they are unfair and give an unfair representation of the education system. Those tables are published in newspapers and every year, education spokespeople and Ministers come out and criticise them and they cannot be requested from the Department by FOI. Yet, this is the very profiling information that will be used to assess an individual's leaving certificate. How devastating must it be for students to grind through situations where they teach themselves honours mathematics, honours Irish or another higher level subject because it is not available in their schools? That is the determination some young people in this country have to break out of disadvantage and poverty. They knew that when the script was being marked, it would be anonymous. That is gone now, however, because the very profiling the Minister will not allow to be requested by FOI from his Department will be used to assess somebody's expected distribution from the school.

With the greatest of respect, I cannot accept the answer the Minister gave to other Deputies regarding school profiling. The Labour Party will accept the assessed grades system as proposed by the Minister. We appreciate there is no other option at this stage but we will not accept the school profiling. We cannot do that because it is fundamentally unfair. The simplest thing for the Minister to do now is to delete that from the process and to let each script and assessed grade stand on its own merits. I state that because I do not agree with the Minister when he states that an average student from a fee-paying school will not be advantaged by this system. If I was an average student from a fee-paying school, I would be much happier today than were I an exceptional student from a disadvantaged school. That is because students will be assessed by the history of their schools and, inevitably, someone from a fee-paying background or who has access to tutoring outside the school system will benefit from that. I ask the Minister to please just get rid of the school profiling aspect and then we can all move on together.

Regarding additional needs, and the issue of July provision has been raised by other Deputies, the Minister has said he is open to expanding it and I accept his statement. Turning to SNAs, however, there is still a level of confusion concerning them. I also refer to the level of disrespect they have received through this process, as has been mentioned elsewhere. The goodwill the SNAs have shown has not been replicated by the Department. It has been said to me many times that the Department understands dealing with school buildings and teachers but it does not know how to deal with things that are not school buildings or teachers. A direct communication from the Minister to SNAs, not via a trade union or the HSE, would be greatly appreciated.

My last point, and I will appreciate the Minister's response, is that leaving certificate applied students feel as if they are not involved in this conversation. When the Minister refers to the leaving certificate, will he please put it on record that he also refers to the leaving certificate applied? Otherwise, students taking that option feel they are being relegated in this conversation. For those students we hope and expect will be sitting a written exam in 2021, namely, fifth year students watching this entire situation with great uncertainty and upset, I ask the Minister to speak to them, their experience and what they can expect in 2021. They have missed out on a great deal of class time. What sort of mitigation will the Minister make for their school experience?

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