Mary Seery Kearney (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister for attending.

The champions in the face of adversity are the leaving certificate students of 2020 and 2021. They will go down in our State's history as being the group that faced adversity and the most unprecedented circumstances.

I welcome the dual assessment and that the Bill will place it on a statutory footing. We must prepare for every eventuality and the Bill certainly does that. Although 80% of students are opting for the traditional exam, having the second option as a back door, support or safety net is important and wise and they deserve it. What Covid disruption planning have we in place? In November, a number of students were ready to go in on a Saturday morning for their exams but, on Friday night, a family member was classified as a close contact of an infected person, meaning the students could not go. We need some sort of contingency. While we are a long way down the road, there is the vaccination roll-out and so on, we must ensure that such devastation does not occur for a student at the height of the exams.

I wonder about the legacy of 2020. I see in the Bill that it has been learned from. Without question, many decisions were made while we were in the grip of the pandemic. The Minister's predecessor, Deputy McHugh, did a valiant job when everything was being experienced for the first time. We not only have a bit more space and time now, but also our learning from last year to build upon.

The algorithm error certainly benefited a particular cohort of students who got opportunities and into courses on the back of the erroneous grades. I would be interested in an analysis of how they performed in their first year, bearing in mind the context, which has been horrendous for first year students in third level. If there has not been attrition, it reinforces the use of ongoing assessment and supports being in place for the people who benefited from calculated grades. Quality assurance is built into the Bill, which I appreciate. That was a good decision on the Minister's part. It is important that we see its benefit.

In my home constituency of Dublin South-Central, we had a tale of two leaving certificates last year. We had schools that historically did not have large numbers going to third level but got many more into third level or, indeed, got students into third level for the first time. That was fantastic and supported the idea of having ongoing assessment as a means of assessment and providing equal opportunities. We also had people who made sacrifices and put their children through grind schools or into private schools. Maybe only one of their children had an aspiration to do medicine and went to a fee-paying school to work the system as it had been presented to them for their entire lives. They found themselves disadvantaged just as the German school was. That was disappointing. I would like to see a red circling of them because they have been thrown back into the lottery that will be the CAO results system next August. It is important that we do or consider doing something for them. I appreciate that this may be more a matter for the Minister, Deputy Harris.I wish to return to some of the points made by Senator Ruane. I have a problem with aspiration. When a student who comes from a particular community attends a particular school, the narrative for the rest of that student's life is that if he or she gets to Trinity College University he or she will, probably, do so through the access programme, which is a fantastic programme. I have worked with numerous young people in that regard. My problem is that for a student from a different community who attends a different school, the assumption is that he or she will go on third level. I want that narrative to change in communities. It should not be the case that based on a lottery in terms of where a person is born and educated, his or her ambition and the assessment of his or her future and what his or her capacity and competence could be, is limited. We have DEIS schools which this year did not have IT supports or home systems, which mean that students had to share phones and so on. We need to assess that situation and make sure that those schools have those supports and every opportunity, and that the language spoken at those schools is that students can be whatever they want to be and the supports will be put in behind them to make sure they get here.