Gary Gannon (Dublin Central, Social Democrats)
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516. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills the legal advice her Department received which has resulted in the class ranking of leaving certificate students being released; and when she received this advice. [27304/20]

Gary Gannon (Dublin Central, Social Democrats)
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517. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills when and the way in which post-primary schools received communication regarding the class ranking being released. [27305/20]

Norma Foley (Kerry, Fianna Fail)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 516 and 517 together.

From Monday 28 September, students who received Leaving Certificate Calculated Grades have been able to obtain access to their subject rank order in their class. This is facilitated via the Calculated Grades Student Portal, by students clicking the button on screen labelled “Submit a request to access your personal data”. Students are being asked to be mindful of other students in the class in sharing this data.

The decision to make the class rank order data available through the student portal was on foot of legal advice recently received by my Department. Students, under data protection and freedom of information legislation, have a right of access to the class rank order data as personal data belonging to them. While a decision to make access to these data available through, for example, subject access requests, would be in conformity with the letter of the law, this would be contrary to good data protection practice when the ranking could be made available more readily.

It is important that there is transparency and fairness in the process, in particular providing personal information to candidates in an efficient manner so that they are well informed of the outcomes. The Department has engaged with the Data Protection Commissioner regarding the decision to release the class rank order online via the student portal.

The issue of the manner in which class rank order was to be made available was discussed with stakeholders as part of the work on the calculated grades model.

Gary Gannon (Dublin Central, Social Democrats)
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518. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills when students can expect results from the appeals process; and if there are different deadlines for the different stages associated with the process. [27307/20]

Norma Foley (Kerry, Fianna Fail)
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The Calculated Grades Student Portal reopened on 14 September to allow students to view their estimated percentage mark and calculated mark to allow students to consider this data if they were considering an appeal of their Calculated Grade.

The appeals process is a process review focussed on looking for errors in the transmission and processing of student data through the process.  It is not possible to appeal the information (estimated percentage mark or rank order) provided by the school.  Due to the nature of the Calculated Grades system the professional judgement of the school is outside of the appeals process.  It should further be noted that the design of the statistical model and the application of the national standardisation process is also outside of the scope of the appeals process. 

At the time of closing the appeal application process on Wednesday 16 September, some 12,300 students had appealed almost 33,700 grades.  Every effort will be made to process appeals as quickly as possible but it is not possible at this time to commit to a date for the issue of the appeal results.  Students will be notified of this date as soon as possible.  It is not possible to provide an expedited appeal for any student or group of students.  All appeals will be processed, and results released, simultaneously to ensure fairness and equity to all.