Gary Gannon (Dublin Central, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister for speaking on the arrangements in the legislation required for the leaving certificate model of 2021. However, a large part of what I wish to speak about relates to the failing of the leaving certificate examination prior to the pandemic and the ambition that both sides of the Chamber should have to change it for the benefit of our younger people.

There is an opportunity for change at this time. The pandemic forced us to cross the Rubicon in terms of the traditional leaving certificate examination. An immovable and archaic institution was forced to evolve and adapt in mere months. The first examinations took place in 1924 and, prior to 2020, the format remained heavily similar, year after year, to the original model and method.

I am not arguing that we should necessarily retain the models used for the leaving certificate examinations in 2020 or 2021. We certainly should not do so without a fierce interrogation of them. Nor am I arguing that they are perfect systems. Far from it. I am saying that the pandemic forced our hand and we should continue to progress towards a better leaving certificate assessment model. It should be one that provides for greater flexibility, reduces the enormous degree of pressure placed on all students and levels the playing field for students from different socioeconomic backgrounds. There should be a form of assessment that rewards learning, curiosity and application of knowledge, rather than the exercise in memorisation that has been shown to be a large proportion of what the leaving certificate examination in its current form offers. That was confirmed in research by Dr. Denise Burns and her colleagues in 2018.

It is no secret that I have no great love for the traditional leaving certificate examination. I have raised the issue at every opportunity I had, including in this Chamber in the course of this year and last. I am not alone in this view. The UN Committee on the Rights of the Child expressed concerns before the pandemic regarding the levels of stress caused to our young people by the examinations every year and charged the State with initiating reform to reduce that stress burden. No one could have predicted the pandemic and its disruption of teaching and learning. However, we already knew, prior to the school building closures in March 2020, that the leaving certificate examination causes extreme stress and anxiety to all students, rewards lower order skills and is an effective sorting machine for separating students who have from those who have not. An analysis by the Higher Education Authority, HEA, of all 2017 and 2018 higher education enrolments illustrates the stark differences between the points obtained by students in the leaving certificate examination based on their socioeconomic backgrounds. Data from 97,000 students show that those from affluent areas achieved 446 points on average, compared with 368 points for students from what were described as disadvantaged areas. It is important not to designate the students themselves as disadvantaged. Rather, the circumstances in which they are asked to do their schooling is what disadvantages them.

A total of 37% of students from disadvantaged areas achieved 400 points or more, compared with 72%, or almost double the number, of students from affluent areas. In 2015, the HEA found that, in County Dublin, Dublin 6 had the highest progression rate to college, with 99% of leaving certificate students there going on to third level. The Dublin postcode with the lowest progression rate saw only 15% of students going to third level. That is a stark difference. In pointing out these statistics, I am not trying to alienate any students who may be listening. I want to show that the argument I am making is not merely based on a personal belief or vendetta. It is not that students from areas like my constituency are less capable or intelligent than their peers. My point is that the leaving certificate system locks in and rewards privilege year after year. We do not have annual data from the Department encapsulating these facts, but the feeder school list produced every year by The Irish Timesdemonstrates very clearly who gets to go to university and who does not.

It is a myth that the leaving certificate examination is some great meritocratic system. The many teachers, principals, students and parents with whom I engage, both as a public representative and in my previous role working in access, know it is a myth. I am sure many of the Deputies in the Chamber today know it is a myth. If not, it may be that they cannot see it because they have benefited so immensely from the existing process. Our failure to address the inequality in the system before the Covid crisis only exacerbated the stress caused to sixth-year students in 2020 and 2021 when, at the eleventh hour and in the midst of a global pandemic, it became obvious that our terminal-style examinations could not take place.

I want to speak briefly about compassion. Proponents of the leaving certificate examination champion the fact it does not take account of circumstances. They point out that every student sits down at the same time, on the same day and answers the same questions, regardless of what is going on in their personal lives or what has happened to them up to that point in their lives. It was only after Rhona Butler shared her personal experience of losing her mother during her leaving certificate examinations in 2018, and having no alternative but to sit the remainder, that the lack of compassion in the system was addressed. I argue strongly that a system designed to be bluntly fair cannot be devoid of compassion. Following on from Rhona's story, a pilot bereavement scheme was introduced in 2019, but it does not go far enough. I am also conscious that it does not apply this year. The scheme allows students who suffer the bereavement of the loss of a close relative during the examination period to be absent from further examinations for a three-day period. The Department's information on the scheme states: "[It] is intended to allow... time free from the Leaving Certificate examinations to prepare for and attend the funeral..." Students who have to take the three days are required to sit the missed examinations mere weeks later. This is the leaving certificate model that is championed and obsessed over every year. The scheme of three days of bereavement leave piloted in 2019 represents the most compassion that has ever been shown within the examinations system.

I have tabled an amendment to the Bill that would require the Department to look into the use of accredited grades for students who experience exceptional circumstances at any point during their sixth year. It would also oblige the Department to use the learning from the pandemic to inform and create change to the leaving certificate examination and level the playing field for all students. My amendment makes the case that if students who are unable to take a traditional examination this year because of the pandemic can be catered for, we might apply the same rationale in the years to come when a student has to step aside either because of illness, the illness of a family member or a bereavement. It would be logical to enshrine that provision in law in order to keep fairness in the system.

I want to query the Minister on the data that will be used by the State Examinations Commission in the standardisation process for accredited grades in 2021. The legislation provides that the commission will "take account of such data, including but not limited to data relating to Junior Certificate Examinations and Leaving Certificate Examinations in preceding years..." I am not sure why we cannot, for the avoidance of doubt, have more specific details on which data will and will not be taken into account. Based on the previous issues with the data used for the ranking order and the back and forth on using historical school data, it would be beneficial to have an exhaustive list of the data the SEC will be using for the standardisation process.

We cannot go back to the fairy tale that the leaving certificate examinations are just. I urge the Minister to use the lessons of the pandemic to create true reform. There are a couple of groups I would like to highlight that will not be catered for in this legislation. I fully appreciate that it cannot be entirely exhaustive but there are groups that have been left behind. I spoke yesterday to leaving certificate applied students from a number of schools across Dublin who were celebrating an awards day online as part of the Trinity College access programme. The leaving certificate applied examination is a model that rewards curiosity and engagement. However, in the decades since its introduction, it has too often been the case that these students who simply learn differently from what is catered for in the traditional leaving certificate examination have been held in a holding shop, with traditional pathways to university and other forms of higher education cut off for them. The leaving certificate applied model is, in fact, a little more applicable than the traditional model to the real world and the real-life way that people learn, not only in school but in terms of acquiring the types of skills that are needed as students progress to university.

There is also an issue with students who, this year and last, have been unable to return to school because a family member has a serious underlying health condition. Students in that situation are terrified of catching Covid-19 and bringing it home to their loved one. Between January and March this year and for a time last year, they had a similar experience to their peers because everyone was learning from home. Now, however, their peers are back in the classroom and their own continued absence is detrimental to them. We should have catered for those students long ago. Despite protestations from their family members, such as Jan and Michael Rynne, whose case has been highlighted in this Chamber and in the media, no action was taken. Instead, the Department saw fit to suggest that such students would be better off in school. There was no acknowledgement that they are terrified of bringing the virus home. That is lamentable. Even at this late hour, I ask that those students be catered for in any way it can be done.

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