This year’s leaving certificate exams could be cancelled and replaced with predicted grades, meaning students will receive grades based on their coursework, the Irish Times reported tonight.
The newspaper cites “well-placed sources” as stating that a new set of proposals – “Plan B” – will be discussed by the government’s cabinet on Friday.
If approved, the plans will see students’ marks calculated through a combination of their class rankings and their performance in previous exams and assessments.
Teachers will award the grades and the process will be overseen by school principals and management. Final grades awarded will produce a “bell curve”, ensuring that the proportion of students who achieve certain grades is consistent with other years.
Friday’s discussion could bring to an end weeks of uncertainty for parents, teachers and students, who have repeatedly called for clarity on the matter from the government.
It’s unclear what impact the new arrangement will have on colleges trying to plot a route back to teaching next year.
Taoiseach Leo Varadkar said last month that incoming first-year students were likely to start college in October or November, under the previous plans for the leaving certificate.
In Trinity, Vice-Provost Jurgen Barkhoff said at College Board in April that first-year students are likely to begin at the start of November, three members of Board told The University Times.
The change may prove popular among current leaving certificate students, many of whom have come out strongly against holding exams at the end of July.
A survey of around 28,000 leaving certificate students, carried out in April by the Irish Second-Level Students’ Union, found that delaying the exams until the summer was the least popular option for sixth-year students.
Almost 50 per cent of students who responded to the survey said they wanted to cancel exams and use assignments they have already completed to determine their grades.
Earlier this week, Fianna Fáil education spokesperson Thomas Byrne called for the cancellation of this year’s leaving certificate exams, saying that the current situation is “causing untold psychological damage to these students”.
In a press statement, Byrne criticised the government’s roadmap, saying that it “contains details about the phased reopening of certain sectors and industry, and sets out dates for the proposed lifting of certain restrictions but not once is the Leaving Cert mentioned. I believe this is a huge oversight and it has added to the already heightened anxiety among Leaving Cert students”.
