Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I accept it has been a very stressful time for the students who are due to sit the leaving certificate this year, during the Covid-19 pandemic. This Government has been in office for one year and a half, not three years. We had to deal with the leaving certificate last year. Already there are differences between what we did last year and what we are doing now, or could do now. For example, I remember that last year Deputy Murphy was robustly against historic profiling as a basis for standardisation of students' results. A total of 25% of this year's leaving certificate cohort did not do the junior certificate. As for the statisticians and those involved in this, we met the chief inspector yesterday evening. I also met with the Secretary General along with the Minister for Education. If Deputy Murphy wants to go for the accredited grades model, such a model this year would involve the use of historic profiling, and that is problematic.

The Minister is meeting with the advisory group. She has met with all the stakeholders collectively and is meeting with them bilaterally. Let us not pretend to everybody that this is simple. It has to be worked out for the benefit of students, ultimately, not just in the context of the leaving certificate but also in the context of progression to a variety of courses, be they apprenticeship, further education or third level. We have a qualifications framework, and one of the benefits of that is that it puts the learner, not the institution, first. There are opportunities this year and there will always be opportunities within the context of that qualifications framework for students to progress to FETAC, HETAC and right on to postgraduate education. That is the key thing to remember. The decisions the Minister has to arrive at, following consultation with the stakeholders, have to be about the overall best interests of the students, not just today but right through this year and next year. There are challenges this year because 25% of this year's leaving certificate cohort do not have junior certificate results against which benchmarking can be done, and that needs to be put out there. That is just a fact.

In addition, we have one of the highest participation rates in third level education across Europe. It is one of the benefits that has happened in this country over the past 50 years. We have progressively increased second level completion rates, to our credit as a country, and we have very significantly increased third level participation rates. It never gets said in this House but it remains a fact. The idea that you just throw open the doors and say everybody can come in and we will provide high-quality, targeted higher education is illusory - deliberately so - not possible and not doable. It is certainly not doable next June, and we need a dose of reality in respect of those kinds of proposals. It is not fair to students to suggest that type of approach, which is just not possible. I accept, however, the need for clarity, and that needs to happen quickly. The Minister is very much possessed of that reality also and will bring this to a conclusion within the next week.

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