Norma Foley (Kerry, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

The SEC which has operational responsibility for the State examinations, has informed me that some 2,800 candidates have applied to sit the November 2020 leaving certificate written examinations. These exams will commence on Monday, 16 November, subject to public health advice.

To ensure comparability with the calculated grades system, the examinations will be based on the normal question paper format, content, structure and duration as in previous years. Candidates will be graded on the basis of their written papers only, except for five subjects where project work had been completed prior to school closure last March and these marks will be included in the grading of these subjects.

The marking of the November examinations will rely principally on the expert judgment of the SEC chief examiner and members of the senior examining team, based on the content of the examination papers and the demands of the marking scheme. This expert judgment approach will ensure that the standards applied in the marking of these examinations will be fair and valid for these candidates who form a small subset of the overall candidature for leaving certificate 2020.

The SEC sets out the national standard for the leaving certificate and other examinations and operates independently of my Department.

Leaving certificate candidates sitting the written examinations in November who opted to receive calculated grades will be credited with the higher subject grade achieved between the calculated grade and the written examination. These results will have the same status as the leaving certificate results for previous years.

The 2020 applicants to the Central Applications Office, CAO, will have their final leaving certificate results forwarded to the CAO, using their best results of the November examinations and their calculated grades, where applicable. They will receive any relevant CAO offers that their results indicate as a deferred CAO offer for 2021-2022 school year.

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