Pádraig O'Sullivan (Cork North Central, Fianna Fail)
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388. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills the systems her Department put in place to ensure that in circumstances in which a student has received a large downgrade, that this downgrade is fair; the options available to the students that will not progress to their chosen course; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [24791/20]

Norma Foley (Kerry, Fianna Fail)
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The decision to adopt a model of Calculated Grades by my Department was a direct result of COVID-19, which prevented the state from running the conventional Leaving Certificate Examinations.

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 the Department of Education and Skills, the Educational Research Centre and international external expertise.

The focus of the Calculated Grades process has at all times been on the student and not on the system and my decision, announced on 1 September, to remove the school-by-school historical data from the national standardisation process underpinned this commitment, ensuring that the performance of this cohort of students was not constrained by how their school has historically performed at Leaving Certificate.

Schools provided an estimated percentage mark and a rank order (the student's place in the class group) for each student’s subjects. We know from research that teachers are very good at making judgements about their students in the local context of the school. Schools approached this task in a very professional manner, in line with detailed guidelines about the process, but inevitably some schools were overly harsh in their estimations while others were overly generous. This is to be expected given that there is no national standard on which to base an estimated mark. To be fair to the class of 2020, the teacher judgements made at the level of the school had to be adjusted so that a common national standard was applied.

The process of national standardisation was applied to the school information in order to ensure comparability between the standards applied by individual schools and the national standard. This standardising process happens every year and would have happened in 2020 had the Leaving Certificate examinations been run as normal.The standardisation process applied across all subjects and levels. The adjustments that occurred through standardisation resulted in the school estimates staying the same or being revised upwards or downwards. The degree to which mark changes occurred related to the degree of over or underestimation in the school estimates for each subject and each level. This means that some students experienced mark changes from the school estimates but no changes to the grades based on the school estimates; while others will have experienced marks changes from the teacher estimates, leading to grade changes in one or more of their subjects.

Following standardisation, the estimated percentage mark was converted to a calculated mark and subsequently, a calculated grade which was provided to students on 7th September. It is only at this point that students were awarded a grade.

Therefore, it is not accurate to state that student(s) were downgraded, or upgraded, through the standardisation process. Rather the grade that was awarded following the standardisation process is the grade for the 2020 Leaving Certificate (Calculated Grades).

The overall data on school estimated marks showed that there was a very significant rise in estimated grades against what would normally be achieved nationally. The level of grade increase based on the school estimates would have been unrealistic. For example, based on the school data there would have been 13.8% H1 grades this year when in a normal year there is 5.8%.

In the absence of the Leaving Certificate examinations in 2020 every effort has been made to make the system as fair as possible for as many students a possible. The statistical model used was blind to demographic characteristics (e.g. school type, student gender, etc.) either at the level of the student or the school.The standardisation process means that the same standard has been applied uniformly across all schools. This means anyone using the certificate to make a judgement between two people who hold this certificate, either now or in the future, can place equal value on the same grade in the same subject, without regard to where they went to school, as they would in a normal year.

While some students will be disappointed at the results they have achieved, this is the case every year when the Leaving Certificate results are published. It may be more difficult for students to understand when they see the estimated mark from the school has been adjusted downwards.

The standardisation model has been subject to a high degree of human oversight by the National Standardisation Group and an Independent Steering Committee with a number of safeguards built in to ensure fair results for students.

Technical details of the Calculated Grades model and standardisation process were published on the date of issue of the results and are available here: .

The CAO system is a system that works on the assumption that grades obtained in the Leaving Certificate by candidates determine their points. It is on this basis that the CAO system allocates places to applicants including those from different years.

For the 2020 CAO system to proceed to pave the way for entry to higher education for the majority of applicants within the current timelines, and in a manner than can be properly upheld, 2020 results and the results of leaving certificate examinations from previous years must be treated equally in the CAO system.

In order to help mitigate the impact of the changes to the grading system, the Minister for Further and Higher Education announced the creation of an additional 2,225 places on high-demand courses in Higher Education Institutions. These places have resulted in the highest ever number of applicants receiving CAO offers, with 53,815 CAO applicants receiving round one offers on 11 September.

Nonetheless, there were fluctuations in CAO points this year, as there are every year. These are dependent on the volume of applications, the number of applicants who meet the entry requirements, the number of places available and the grades received by applicants. As we are in the midst of a global pandemic and economic flux, there is more uncertainty than usual this year due to factors such as reduced opportunities in the economy, students seeking to defer or re-apply in subsequent years and uncertainty around students travelling internationally both to and from Ireland.

CAO applicants who have not received an offer they wish to take up may wish to look the Available Places facility, which allows for application to courses that have unfilled places remaining. Information on Available places can be found on the CAO’s website here:

There are also a wide ranges of options available in the Further Education sector, and more about these opportunities can be found on the Further Education and Training website www.thisisfet.ie.

I know how difficult a time it has been for students and parents, but I would like to stress the range of options available both in further education and training and apprenticeships, but also in pathways in higher education. For those whose route into higher education may not be what they originally planned, once they have a place there may be a pathway back to their preferred option.