Kathleen Funchion (Carlow-Kilkenny, Sinn Fein)
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769. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills if students will be allowed to be awarded 100% in their oral exams as promised in March 2020 (details supplied). [33058/20]

Norma Foley (Kerry, Fianna Fail)
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The decision of 19 March 2020 to cancel the oral component of the Leaving Certificate language examinations and to award full marks for these was based on the premise that the remaining components would proceed as normal.

The Deputy will be aware that, due to the continuing impact of the Covid-19 pandemic, it was not possible to proceed with the remaining examination components as normal, with students instead being given the option of accepting Calculated Grades and/or the option of sitting written examinations at a later stage when considered safe to hold them. As part of the Calculated Grades process, schools were asked to provide estimated percentage marks for language subjects based on the assumption that the oral examination component would have proceeded and would have been marked in the normal manner.

Teachers are best placed to make a balanced judgement about what the candidate’s overall performance and grade across all aspects of the subject, including orals, would have been. This means the calculated grade was as close to the outcome of the traditional Leaving Certificate as possible and comparable to the Leaving Certificate grades any other year.