Seán Sherlock (Cork East, Labour)
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220. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills the engagement he has had with third level institutions on foot of the coding error in the leaving certificate; and the institutions he has spoken to personally. [29324/20]

Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael)
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Since the discovery of the errors in the Calculated Grades algorithm, my officials have been engaging regularly with representatives from the higher education sector, with meetings held with representatives from the Irish Universities Association (IUA), Technological Higher Education Association (THEA) and TU Dublin on Wednesday 30th September and Friday 2nd October.

I myself met with Presidents of the Higher Education Institutions last week to discuss a range of higher education issues, including the impact of the Calculated Grades error on higher education entry.

In each of these meetings all parties involved were committed to doing everything possible to facilitate these students in commencing the course they would, in other circumstances, have been offered in an earlier round.

The revised Calculated Grades results were transmitted to the CAO on Saturday 3rd October, and the CAO subsequently identified 485 students who were entitled to an higher preference CAO offer as a results of their improved grades. As of CAO Round 4, which was issued on 8th October, all of these students have received an offer to take up a place in their new course in the current academic year.