Norma Foley (Kerry, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I reiterate that the development of the model for calculated grades has been a challenging process and would not have been possible without the co-operation of teachers and schools. I absolutely acknowledge that.

For students who are disappointed with their results, the opportunity to avail of the appeals mechanism to ensure there were no administrative errors in processing their results was, as I have already outlined, provided to them. I appreciate that in every examination system and in every leaving certificate system, as we are aware, there are students who will be happy and students who will be disappointed. I absolutely want to acknowledge that. I also acknowledge that it has an impact on entire households in circumstances of that nature. I am aware and cognisant of that.

I also reiterate that students have opportunities at the postponed examinations in November. I believe this is an important avenue open to students should they wish to available of it.

It is important to point out that this year, the CAO was able to make 78,950 first round offers last Friday. That is 6% higher than in 2019. Overall, CAO applications were up only 0.6% as a result of additional places being made available by the Government. This means many more students will have received a CAO offer. Some 52% of students received an offer for their first preference course while 80%, as I said previously, received an offer for a top three preference. Again, given that we are in the midst of a pandemic and given the extraordinary circumstance in which we find ourselves, it is an extraordinarily positive reflection that so many students were in a position to avail of those offers.

Inevitably, there will be students and parents who remain dissatisfied with the outcome of the calculated grades and the CAO process. Every year, students miss out on CAO places as more students seek places than there are actually places available. I would, however, encourage those students to explore the options available to them to achieve their goals and ambitions and I wish them well. I recognise that it can be a difficult time for everybody involved. It was, however, an extraordinary circumstance that meant we had to introduce an extraordinary measure and that was the agreed measure of calculation grades.

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