Denis O'Donovan (Fianna Fail)
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I welcome, the Minister for Education and Skills, Deputy Bruton.

Kieran O'Donnell (Fine Gael)
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I thank the Cathaoirleach for the opportunity to raise this important matter and I thank the Minister for taking the time to come here to deal with it.

This issue, which is already in the public domain, arises out of the judgment in the case of Rebecca Carter. Ms Carter took proceedings in the High Court to ensure that she did not lose out on a place in veterinary college owing to a totting-up error on a leaving certification examination paper. While she was successful, she missed a number of weeks of the course. As a parent of children who have sat the leaving certificate examination and of others who have yet to sit it, I understand the pressures involved. For students who sat the leaving certification examination this year, the results were issued on 15 August 2018 - five days prior to the first round of offers of third-level places on 20 August. The second round of offers took place on 29 August. Mr. Justice Richard Humphreys, who, I understand, will soon hand down a written judgment in the case of Ms Carter, has asked that this process be reviewed and amended before the examinations next year.

The Minister has previously stated that the State Examinations Commission and the third-level institutions will meet to discuss the matter this week. Will he confirm if that meeting is going ahead? Would it be of benefit for the chief executive officers of the institutions to also engage in discussions in the issue with the Minister and his Department? In terms of this year's leaving certificate examination, there were approximately 284,000 scripts for correction and 1,652 examiners. The process took 54 days to complete. In terms of the appeals mechanism, in respect of which there were 400 examiners, the process of rechecking 9,000 scripts and 5,900 oral examinations - approximately 15,000 rechecks in total - took 40 days. Between 15 August when the results were issued and 5 September, which was the deadline for receipt of applications for rechecks, there were 15 working days or almost three weeks, which is a long time. There are then 25 working days, or almost five weeks, between the date for recheck of the scripts and the issuance of the results. When will the results of these rechecks be announced? Overall, this process will take approximately 40 working days.

What is the position regard, totting-up errors similar to those which occurred in Rebecca Carter's case? This is about real lives. Of the 55,400 students who sat the leaving certificate examination this year, 5,200 appealed their results and 1,400, or 15%, received upgrades, 400 of whom were offered places on other courses.There is a time gap there. It appears to take a very lengthy period of time under the appeal mechanism to get scripts back, which takes 15 working days, nearly three weeks, and then a further 25 days for them to be checked, which amounts to 40 days in total. That compares to 54 days for nearly 384,000 scripts as against 9,000 scripts on the appeal.

Richard Bruton (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael)
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I thank the Senator for raising this issue. I am pleased that Rebecca Carter has started her course. She is in University College Dublin, UCD, and I am happy for her. I certainly do not want to see students having to go to the courts to exercise their rights on this. The judgment was just issued yesterday and it is 44 pages long, so the Senator will understand that my Department and the State Examinations Commission, SEC, need time to absorb that judgment before any comment will be made on the detail of it. However, what has happened immediately, as the Senator said, is that the SEC board instructed its executive to review those very timelines which the Senator outlined. As he rightly said, there is a 16 day period before students view their scripts and then there are another five days before they appeal.

There is the possibility for rectification, which happens immediately. However, rectification, as I understand it, is only allowed by the SEC where it is a figure added up on the front of the script. If there are issues inside in respect of one question being weighed against another question the SEC does not regard these as a simple addition in this sense because there can be revisions in the course of quality control of correction that can result in changes, so if it is at that detailed level within the script, a full examination of the script can be required. The SEC is an independent body so it is obviously for it to decide that and not for a Minister to issue a diktat. The SEC has a simplified procedure for rectification where it is a totting error. In the other cases, it has the procedure the Senator mentioned.

The higher education institutions and the SEC are meeting today. The objective will be to shorten that period from 15 August to 10 October. While I appreciate the independence of the SEC and that it has to make sure that whatever it does is robust, I am confident those timelines can be shortened in some dimensions. To be fair to the SEC, it is particularly robust when looking at re-examinations. It applies more intense quality control with the re-examination of one in five scripts being appealed as opposed to one in 20 in the general scheme. The SEC is rigorous and it is defending the robustness of the system. The norm for all colleges was to accept someone who got an upgrade in their examination but what changed this year was that UCD decided that it would only allow such people to continue their course if they had a change by 30 September. That was prior to the date when appeal results would come out and that clearly had implications for students. UCD has since indicated that it is lifting that requirement so that students in a similar position who get an upgrade will be able to continue-----

Kieran O'Donnell (Fine Gael)
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Is that for the current year?

Richard Bruton (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael)
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Yes.

Kieran O'Donnell (Fine Gael)
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That is welcome.

Richard Bruton (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael)
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To be fair to UCD, it was making the point that people starting a course on 10 October, which had started in September, were at a significant disadvantage. Although the exam results always came out on 15 August and appeals were always on 10 October, the trend in recent years has been for colleges to bring the start date further and further forward to try to fit into a new semester system. The colleges depend exclusively on the leaving certificate results. They do not operate any alternative admissions system so there is an onus on colleges to respect the integrity of the examinations system, including its appeal process. That is why I am bringing both together to ensure we get a solution that meets the needs of any student who sits his or her exam and is the victim of an error and that he or she does not find himself or herself at a disadvantage. We need to shorten the timelines and get clear protocols in place. I hope that will be the outcome of this but they are obviously two independent groups. We will work with them to ensure students do not have this same experience next year.

Kieran O'Donnell (Fine Gael)
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I thank the Minister and I welcome the change by UCD. There would appear to be-----

Denis O'Donovan (Fianna Fail)
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We are well over time so please be brief.

Kieran O'Donnell (Fine Gael)
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-----enough scope in the rectification rules, which the SEC applies, that it should be able to deal with the entire script on totting numerical errors. When does the Minister anticipate that the SEC and the third level institutions will conclude their deliberations and advise him of the changes that will be implemented? When does he anticipate that we will have a definitive outcome so that parents and students will be aware of the process that is in place so that if we have a situation in numerical totting in particular, we can have an immediate resolution? Most students start in a third level institution at the beginning of September. Students are six weeks into a course before they get the examination rechecks. That is too long and many of those cannot change because they will not be able to adapt to the new course. That needs to be looked at. It is about timetables and fairness. The Minister might give us an indication of what he expects the timetable to be in terms of the outcome from the discussions between the SEC and the third level institutions so that parents and students doing their leaving certificate will have full clarity.

Richard Bruton (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael)
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The Senator will appreciate that it would be foolish for me to set rigid timelines when the groups are only meeting today and we will only fully unearth the complexities that might be involved in resolving this today.

Kieran O'Donnell (Fine Gael)
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What does the Minister anticipate the timeframe to be?

Richard Bruton (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael)
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It will be well ahead of next year's examinations so that people know for certain. On the issue of when the SEC allows a simple rectification and when it seeks a re-examination, we have to rely on the independence of the SEC in making that decision. I understand the reason it does not allow additions inside to be simply added is that often the reason for additions of figures inside the paper can be a revision in the marking based on quality control in the course of the examination. There may be changes in marking that a student would perceive as having been unfair to them that were not and so on. The simple rectification within a day or two is done within very specified circumstances only. By all means they should be allowed to re-examine those circumstances to see if they can be eased but I respect the need for caution in that area.