Irish Examiner view: Exam delay

Junior Cert results

Education Minister Norma Foley has promised a review of the examination system to ensure similar hold-ups will not occur in the future.

There is finally light at the end of the tunnel for almost 69,000 Junior Certificate students and their families, with the results finally available on November 23.

Those examinations finished on June 20, and the results are usually issued in September. There has been considerable unhappiness among students with the lengthy delay.

Education Minister Norma Foley yesterday promised a review of the examination system — ‘root and branch’, the term beloved by generations of politicians, was used — to ensure similar hold-ups will not occur in the future.

The State Examinations Commission (SEC), the body charged with responsibility in this area, pointed to a shortage of examiners as one reason for the delay, and the prioritisation of the Leaving Certificate as the other. Both are reasonable points, as is the fact that after two years of Covid-
interrupted schooling, this was a return to in-person tests.

However, when the SEC states it is looking into recruiting additional examiners for next year’s exams, an obvious question comes to mind — why weren’t those examiners recruited for this year’s tests?

Prioritising the Leaving Certificate may help to account for the delay, as noted, but the fact that the SEC is also to look at increasing rates of pay to attract more examiners suggests that there may have been more negotiated behind the scenes here than passing and failing grades.