Jess Casey: Incredibly stressful year for students exacerbated by results fiasco

Labour Party leader Alan Kelly posed questions to Taoiseach about exams' appeal process.

Like a bolt from the blue at lunchtime yesterday, the errors with the calculated grades system first began to publicly emerge more than three weeks after students received their Leaving Cert results.

Facing questions in the Dáil from Labour leader Alan Kelly about the ongoing appeals' process for students, without fanfare, Taoiseach Micheál Martin announced two flaws had been found in the much-maligned system. 

Further information was scant. A comprehensive statement would be made later that day by the Minister for Education according to Mr Martin, and the priority had to be the students themselves “in terms of how they receive this information.”

However, it will take another few days, at least, until students find out whether they are affected or not by the latest fiasco to engulf an incredibly stressful year for them. 

The teaching unions, parent and student representatives and school leaders who helped to develop the process in good faith also first found out about these significant errors through the news. 

Approximately one in 10 students received a grade lower than they deserved due to two known flaws. No concrete timeline has been given to students as to when this will be rectified. Many will be wondering how this happened, and how the errors came to light. 

The admission of errors in the system has seriously undermined the veracity of the process, which went through several layers of validation checks and oversight groups. 

It's important to remember that Leaving Cert results were also delayed this year, and issued three weeks' later than in previous years so that they would hold up to scrutiny. Last-minute changes to the system prompted by the A-Levels fiasco saw some controversial aspects of school historical data taken out of the equation. So what are the errors? 

Facing questions in the Dáil from Labour leader Alan Kelly about the ongoing appeals' process for students, without fanfare, Taoiseach Micheál Martin announced two flaws had been found in the much-maligned system. 

The first discovered flaw revolves around the Junior Cert data used. The national standardisation process, carried out by the Department of Education, was meant to draw on students’ Irish, English and Maths results at Junior Cycle, as well as their two strongest subjects outside of these core-subjects. Instead, it combined their weakest non-core subjects. 

This was the first flaw with the system discovered by Canadian company Polymetrica International on September 22. While testing results for fifth year Leaving Cert Applied students, a software engineer discovered that the code wasn't working as expected. 

When he checked this, he encountered the error and brought it to the attention of the Department of Education. 

During a follow-up review, the Department of Education discovered another error that saw CSPE included in this Junior Cycle element of the process when the subject was meant to be discarded. This resulted in students receiving both lower and higher grades than they should have.

Many students will be furious that after repeatedly being told that their results would be “accurate, reliable and fair”, the Minister for Education and her department let them accept second-round offers of college places last week, knowing that the system was faulty.

While the full extent of the issues may have only begun to emerge on Friday, many students will question why they were kept in the dark about their results yet again. 

Separate to all of this, the Department of Education is still processing a record number of appeals. A date has not been provided, and this process will no doubt leave many students unhappy. There is also still no guarantee that students who succeed in their appeals will be able to start on their preferred college courses this year. The department also remains locked in legal disputes with a number of students unhappy with their calculated grades. 

The promise of further additional college places for students affected by the system errors is also likely to stick in the craw of students from 2019 who missed out on their preferred courses due to grade inflation. Many will be left wondering how a remedy was available for this oversight, and not for theirs.