Seán Sherlock (Cork East, Labour)
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328. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills if she will ensure an early date for the results for the Leaving Certificate for a family (details supplied). [6659/23]

Norma Foley (Kerry, Fianna Fail)
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The State Examinations Commission (SEC) has responsibility for the operation, delivery and development of the State examinations. No date has been confirmed as of yet for the issue of Leaving Certificate 2023 results.

The Deputy may wish to note there were a number of factors that affected the timing of the issue of results for State examinations in 2022. These included a challenge in recruiting sufficient examiners, the provision of a set of deferred examinations at Leaving Certificate for candidates who experienced serious injury, accident, illness or due to close family bereavement, and the implementation of a post-marking adjustment, also at Leaving Certificate, which gave effect to my commitment that results in 2022 would be no lower in the aggregate than in the previous year.

Availability of teachers to mark the examinations had been challenging for a number of years prior to the COVID pandemic but became acute in 2022. My Department approved increased rates of payment for examiners in 2022 and additional payments were made which recognised the cooperation, flexibility and support needed in the delivery of the examinations.

I am pleased to advise the Deputy that €11m was provided on Budget Day this year to maintain these increased examiner pay rates for 2023. Recruitment and retention of teachers as examiners is of critical concern and the SEC is undertaking a review of this issue with all of the second level stakeholders with the objective of substantially increasing the number of teachers involved.

Over the last three years, by working collectively with education stakeholders, it was possible for the Irish education system to respond to the needs of students wishing to continue their education and training abroad. I am confident that this will be the case again should the need arise in 2023.