Michael Ring (Mayo, Fine Gael)
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Question 382: To ask the Minister for Education and Science the reason no response issued from her or from the State Examinations Commission regarding concerns raised in relation to a discrepancy in an examination result of a person (details supplied) in Dublin 20. [34840/07]

Michael Ring (Mayo, Fine Gael)
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Question 383: To ask the Minister for Education and Science if an investigation has taken place within her Department in relation to junior certificate or leaving certificate exam results and the inconsistencies found when these results are recorrected; if action has been taken by her Department in relation to incorrect results; if any investigation has taken place when incorrect results are issued; her plans to deal with this issue; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [34841/07]

Mary Hanafin (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 382 and 383 together.

The State Examinations Commission has statutory responsibility for operational matters relating to the certificate examinations, including organising the holding of examinations and issuing the results of examinations.

I have been informed that the issue in this case arose as a result of a failure to correctly transfer the marks awarded for each question to the candidate's summary marking sheet. The result was appealed, and the candidate's results were corrected and upgraded as part of the normal operational procedures for the examinations.

Such appeals and upgrades must be examined in context. In the certificate examinations in 2007 there were 108,265 candidates excluding the Leaving Certificate Applied programme. 882,334 subjects, and over 1.5 million components were examined within a very constrained timescale. 13111 appeals were received, representing 1.5% of the of the overall subjects graded, and 2803 results, or 0.3% of the overall grades marked, were upgraded.

We can be proud that our Certificate examinations operate to an extremely high level of fairness, quality and transparency. Results are published and subject to a high degree of public scrutiny, marking schemes are made available and Leaving Certificate candidates can view their scripts to ensure that the marking schemes have been fairly applied. These processes are designed to ensure that any errors are addressed promptly. The initial results issued are provisional pending the result of such appeals.