Mary Lou McDonald (Dublin Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

The Government's decision that students will not have choice this year for their leaving certificate is appalling. It is a massive mistake not to allow a hybrid or blended model and not to give a choice to students between traditional exams and calculated grades. Furthermore, the way in which this decision was communicated was equally awful. It was cynically leaked to the media late last night. Stressed-out students who had waited for months for the Government to make a decision found out through social media or from a WhatsApp message that the die had been cast. An incredible level of disrespect has been shown to these young people. Their voices have been ignored and set aside. The Government has failed fundamentally to understand the level of disruption they have been subjected to. Fairness is the victim in all of this.

Students have been coherently calling for choice and for a blended approach because it makes sense and because it is fair. This year's leaving certificate students have had their entire senior cycle, both fifth year and sixth year, disrupted by Covid-19. They have had to overcome massive academic challenges and that is before we even consider the incredible pressure on their mental health. Students faced two months of full closures last year and had out-of-class education, which is not comparable to in-classroom learning. Many struggled with a lack of devices and WiFi connection issues. On top of all that, they had the stress of living through a global pandemic.

They were high levels of absences for students and teachers because of self-isolation and infection, which has had a massive impact. To this day, it is having an impact in the classroom. The Irish Second–Level Students Union, ISSU, surveyed more than 40,000 students and almost half of them reported that they had missed between one and three classes per day on average. That disruption continues. There have been huge problems with substitute teacher cover. In some schools, mock exams have been pushed back because the students are far behind.

None of this should be swept under the carpet. Students want choice. That is what happened last year. A huge number of students, when given the choice, chose to sit the traditional exam but they also had the calculated grades. Covid has affected different schools, different students and different teachers in different subjects in very different ways. Additional options within a paper do not fairly compensate for all of that. It is obvious that what we need here is a choice that affords students the option of a written exam or calculated grades. None of this is plain sailing. There are challenges but I do not accept that any of them are insurmountable. Is cinneadh uafásach é leanúint ar aghaidh le hardteistiméireacht traidisiúnta. Cuireadh isteach go mór ar mhic léinn le dhá bhliain anuas. Teastaíonn rogha uathu. Teastaíonn ardteistiméireacht hibrid uathu. The Government has made the wrong call and I am asking the Taoiseach - in fact, I am appealing to him - on behalf of every leaving certificate student to do the fair thing, which is to give students choice.

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