Bríd Smith (Dublin South Central, People Before Profit Alliance)
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148. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills if her attention has been drawn to the concerns (details supplied) of students sitting the Leaving Certificate 2022 and their parents regarding the results being released on 31 August 2022; if she plans to address the matter by bringing the release of the results forward; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [31293/22]

Norma Foley (Kerry, Fianna Fail)
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The State Examinations Commission and my Department are acutely aware of the needs of candidates and end users in regard to the provision of Leaving Certificate results and are doing everything they can to ensure results are delivered as soon as possible.

In identifying the 2022 results date, there are a number of significant factors which when taken together together mean it is not possible to give a date for issue of the results at this time .

Firstly, there is the commitment to having a deferred series of exams for certain defined categories of eligible students. It is not yet possible to fully assess at this point how many students will become eligible for the deferred sitting and how many exams each will need to take.

The timeline for marking the examinations critically depends on the availability of sufficient numbers of experienced examiners to mark candidates’ work. There are still opportunities for teachers who wish to apply to be examiners with the SEC to do so and I would encourage teachers to apply for these roles.

Finally, in February I also announced that the outcomes of the 2022 Leaving Certificate will, in the aggregate, be no lower than the outcomes in 2021. This was to ensure that the students of 2022 are not disadvantaged relative to those in 2021. This will require time for analysis, implementation and quality assurance. This work can only be completed when the marking of the deferred examinations has itself been completed.

It has to be recognised that sufficient time must also be allowed for the range of checks and quality assurance procedures which are required in the resulting process to ensure that the highest standards possible are maintained.

With the above range of factors in play, it is not possible to give a date for issue of the results at this time. However, the SEC is committed to providing a date as soon as it can.