Frank Feighan (Roscommon-South Leitrim, Fine Gael)
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Question 397: To ask the Minister for Education and Science his views on an assessment of the leaving certificate involving a large cohort of examinees. [14705/09]

Frank Feighan (Roscommon-South Leitrim, Fine Gael)
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Question 398: To ask the Minister for Education and Science his views in view of the practice whereby students who attend certain private fee paying schools are not facilitated in sitting their leaving certificate examinations in the same schools and are actively encouraged to sit as external students in local schools with a view to improving their grades by virtue of disguising pre-prepared and model answers handed on a plate to them; and his views on whether this practice perpetuates the existence of a two-tiered education system. [14706/09]

Batt O'Keeffe (Cork North West, Fianna Fail)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 397 and 398 together.

The State Examinations Commission is charged with operating the certificate examinations to the highest standards of openness, fairness and accountability. In doing so, the Commission provides for the establishment of examination centres in both publicly funded schools and in the private sector. In addition, individual candidates are accommodated as external candidates and generally sit the examination in a recognised examination centre near them.

The Commission maintains consistency, quality and reliability through the processes it has in place for the preparation of examination papers and other test items, and through the quality assurance procedures it implements at the examining and appeal stages of the state examinations. The Chief Examiner for each examination takes all necessary steps to ensure that the agreed marking scheme is applied by each examiner and that the established standard is applied to the work of all candidates who sit the examination. The Chief Examiner oversees the examining process established by the Commission aimed at ensuring this.

The same marking scheme is applied strictly and in exactly the same way to the work of all candidates in the cohort taking the particular examination. Each candidate is anonymous and examining proceeds without reference to school location or centre.

Ongoing and systematic monitoring is a critical element of the marking process. The monitoring is designed to enable each examiner to apply the agreed marking scheme consistently and accurately to all scripts.

Appealed scripts are re-marked in accordance with the same standard as applied in the initial marking, and the same marking scheme as utilised in the initial marking.

The Deputy may be inferring that candidates in certain fee paying schools are being advised by those schools to register as examination candidates in another centre, to reduce the prospect of an unusually high proportion of high grades being awarded in a single centre, and perhaps being subject to review. There would be no point in schools doing this. Firstly, examiners are assigned scripts without knowing the identity of schools or candidates. Secondly, the quality assurance measures mentioned above do not apply at the level of a school or an examiner. The work of all candidates is marked in accordance with the published marking scheme, regardless of the level of performance of any other candidate in that examination centre or school. Finally the State Examinations Commission operates a very transparent appeals process, where candidates may view their scripts, match them against the published marking scheme and make a decision whether to appeal their result.

I am satisfied that we have an appropriately structured examination system where results are based on the demonstrated knowledge skills and competences of candidates, and the type of school attended has no bearing on the matter.