Written answers

Tuesday, 8 September 2020

Department of Education and Skills

State Examinations

Photo of Marc MacSharryMarc MacSharry (Sligo-Leitrim, Fianna Fail)
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620. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills if school profiling based on the performance of previous years will now not proceed for fear it could discriminate against high performance students from disadvantaged areas; her views on whether a high performance student in a disadvantaged area will naturally be in the upper end of the bell curve of the school in circumstances (details supplied) in the context of forthcoming examination results; the reason for abandoning the initial intention to adopt profiling of schools based on consistent output scoring; the reason for the introduction of a system by which the scoring output of schools will now increase their overall scoring average without reference to previous years and the mean performance of same; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [22428/20]

Photo of Norma FoleyNorma Foley (Kerry, Fianna Fail)
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The design of the Calculated Grades model was informed by advice from a Technical Working Group comprising experts drawn from the State Examinations Commission, the Inspectorate of my Department, the Educational Research Centre, and international external expertise.

The standardisation process undertaken was an iterative statistical modelling, which by its very nature, was an evolving model.

Research makes clear that because teacher judgments are made in the context of each school, they need to be examined and adjusted at a national level to ensure comparability across different schools and that a common national standard is applied.

Schools will have taken different approaches to providing estimated percentage marks for their students. While clear guidance was provided to schools in avoiding bias during the process of estimating marks for their students, it is inevitable that some schools will have been overly harsh in their estimations while others will have been overly generous. This is to be expected given that there is no national standard on which to base an estimated percentage mark.

The standardisation process seeks to bring schools into line with each other across a national standard. This results in some estimated marks being reduced while others will have increased. This process also ensures that the results issued in 2020 will have the same status as those issued in previous or future years.

The Leaving Certificate results from any one year are considered equivalent to the results from any other year. This is because the results each year are subject to a process of national standardisation through the marking processes undertaken by the State Examinations Commission. This year, the national standardisation process combines the school-sourced data and certain historical data to ensure the Calculated Grades reflect standards that are properly aligned across schools and with a national standard.

On 1 September, I announced details in relation to the Calculated Grades model following approval of proposals made to Government. The change proposed removed the use of school-by-school historical data in the standardisation model. I was conscious that the use of such data had been criticised in public commentary about calculated grades and that it had led in other jurisdictions to accusations that students attending disadvantaged schools in those jurisdictions were at risk of being treated unfairly.

The change made placed a greater emphasis on the estimated marks provided by schools to individual students. The process, through the examination and adjustment of estimated percentage marks from schools, still fulfilled its key role of ensuring that the calculated grades iron out the unfairness that could arise when different schools applied various standards when judging the performance of students.

Technical details of the Calculated Grades model and standardisation process have been published on the date of issue of the results. To issue the technical detail of the modelling process in advance of the release of grades would risk detracting from the core principle of providing the most fair and equitable set of results for each candidate. It may have also increased anxiety levels among students as they may have begun to speculate on the final grade they were to receive.

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