Mary Seery Kearney (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I want to begin by congratulating the Minister on the enormous success that school reopening has been for her and her Department.I thank the principals, parents, boards of management, teachers, SNAs, school staff, ancillary staff and students who have made this a great success.

I want to address the Minister on the topic of the algorithm and the prejudice relating to schools with a large number of high achievers. The process of calculated grades was designed to ensure that the teacher's judgment was central to the process. In fact, great care was taken to protect the position of teachers so that they felt able to give their professional estimation and were able to make decisions unencumbered by any outside influence, and that was right. The calculated grade system had three elements to it. The final element was removed following the scenes in the UK and the prejudice that was evident there, particularly regarding schools in disadvantaged areas. I am delighted with the way this has worked out and that schools in the constituency in which I live, Dublin South-Central, benefited and realised great achievements.

There are also schools with large numbers of high achievers and they have come out at the wrong end of this. The standardisation algorithm was applied to take into account a teacher's estimated marks and the ranking of the relevant student in his or her class. However, if a student was ranked at level ten in a class with a normal spectrum of achievement, and, indeed, non-achievement, compared with a class with a large number of high achievers, the person who was ranked at ten in that class was going to be prejudiced when the standardisation algorithm was applied.

Schools with disproportionate numbers of high achievers and have been disproportionately downgraded. The application of the algorithm has meant that a student in a high-performing school who got a mark of 95 was much more likely to be downgraded to a H2 than someone in a school with a normal spectrum of achievement who got the same mark. In some instances, students in high-performing schools were downgraded for no reason other than they happened to be in classes with extremely capable peers. This brought about devastation when it came CAO offers. When one combines that with the points inflation that naturally arose out of this situation, it is apparent that we have doubled the hardship they have had to endure.

These students have worked extremely hard. It is unfair that they are deemed entitled or privileged. They are people who had ambitions and who had a reasonable expectation of what was ahead of them when they got their leaving certificate results and their CAO offers. Now, however, they find that the blunt instrument of standardisation has completely prejudiced their hard work. While many students have been lucky and have scraped through and got their first choice, others have been left out in the cold and find themselves with their sixth or seventh choice. This year, for the students who have suffered the most the suffering continues because they are now in the appeals process. The Minister has, to be fair and with due respect to her, reached out to them the most.

I appeal to the Minister to in some way consider making the appeals process a little bit more than a clerical exercise and rectifying the wrong that has been done to high-achieving students. We still have time to do that and it needs to take account of the past history of the student and the teacher's opinion of his or her estimated grade. The process needs to allow for the setting aside of that ranking because that has been the key instrument in bringing about prejudice. We can alleviate that hardship on students who just happened to be in a class with a number of very high achievers. It is not a sufficient backstop for students to be permitted to sit the exams in November as an alternative when the college year will be lost to them. It is not a satisfactory appeal process as a consequence because it is disproportionate hardship. I am aware that would not be the Minister's intention.

I absolutely appreciate that the decisions this year were made in an unprecedented context and have had an unintended consequence. However, if it is within the Minister's gift to rectify what has happened and bring about some redress within the process - such as by looking at the history of those particular individual students - then I appeal to her to exercise her discretion.