Donnchadh Ó Laoghaire (Cork South Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I move amendment No. 3:

In page 5, between lines 28 and 29, to insert the following: "(iv) be set out in writing and published by or on behalf of the Commission prior to the issuing of results to each candidate;".

I will be pressing this amendment. It is an important amendment. There was an awful lot of controversy last year and much of the discussion was about standardisation. We are trying to identify potential flaws in the legislation but we support it and want to see it progressed. We will support it on Final Stage. We must be especially careful this year given the controversies in other jurisdictions about the methods of standardisation, primarily in relation to school profiling, but also the very significant error we had here that led to the downgrading and upgrading of many students' grades. That had implications for third level places. The third level sector responded admirably in ensuring that those whose grades were downgraded secured places.

We do not want to have a repeat of last year's scenario when a significant error was not spotted until after the fact. A crucial way of preventing that is allowing the formula of the algorithm to be published and scrutinised publicly. That would be a benefit as there is a transparency issue involved and the trust of students in the process is called into question. It would be helpful if the algorithm was no great secret and was published. The Minister informed my office at an earlier briefing that it would be published before results would be issued. However, she rowed back from that in the Seanad when she indicated it would not be published. This amendment is intended to ensure the Minister publishes the algorithm, as that would be the right, necessary, transparent and fair thing to do. It is essential to ensure the errors of last year are not repeated.

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