Irish Examiner View: Avoid exam results chaos at all costs

Home-schooled Mayo Leaving Cert student Elijah Burke won a High Court challenge over the calculated grades process. Picture: Collins Photography.

The High Court victory by Elijah Burke, a home-schooled Leaving Cert student who was denied calculated grades by the Department of Education, has direct implications for an estimated 10 students in the same situation. 

It is a relatively small number but yesterday’s court decision will touch a nerve with the 61,000 Leaving Certs awaiting calculated grades on 7 September.

This case is specific in its application, but students and their parents will note that the court labelled the exclusion of an 18-year-old Mayo student from the grading system as unfair, irrational, unreasonable, and unlawful. 

What the class of 2020 needs right now is reassurance that the Department of Education is, above all, fair and reasonable.

That is particularly urgent given the chaos in the UK, where a standardising algorithm downgraded results, depriving thousands of students of places at universities.

Education Minister Norma Foley did go some way to assure students that the Irish system was different because it put teachers’ grades at the centre of the process, but did she go far enough to assure them they would not be slaves to a grade-calculating algorithm?

Will high-achieving pupils be marked down if their grades are out of step with their school’s recent results record? And what of particularly gifted pupils? Will they be punished if they dramatically outperform their peers?

It’s been a long, tortuous journey for this year’s Leaving Certs who have had to endure months of uncertainty and waiting. 

Unfortunately, it does not look as if that will end when their calculated grades are released in September. 

They will have to wait a further week to see if, or how, their teachers’ estimates were adjusted, and then they will not be able to appeal that grade as before.

As one guidance counsellor pointed out recently, there is no mechanism to appeal the calculated grade awarded, only the paper trail leading to the grade awarded. 

To put that in context, last year more than 9,000 students appealed against nearly 17,000 grades. 

Almost 3,000 grades, or one in six, were upgraded. Behind each of those figures is a young person who has pinned their future hopes on a fair and robust process.

There is still time to take action, though, to avoid “a whirlwind of upset”, as Labour Party spokesperson on education Aodhán Ó Ríordáin put it. 

Ratcheting up the language of disappointment might not be helpful, but the deputy is right to be stunned to hear that the Cabinet did not discuss the Leaving Cert results when it convened to discuss new Covid restrictions on Tuesday.

The Department of Education still has a short time to address these issues and make sure that Irish students do not have to endure the unnecessary stresses visited upon their counterparts in the UK.

It makes a lot of sense to abandon the process of statistical standardisation and base grades entirely on teacher assessments.

It will be much easier to deal with the resultant higher grades than the fallout, emotional and mental, of depriving students of a place at third level.