10% of all Leaving Results downgraded incorrectly
The Department of Education has revealed that 10% of Leaving Cert results were downgraded incorrectly following an independent investigation. Two errors were found in the Calculated Grades process. The first error was a single line of code incorrectly entered by the contractor. The second error was the use of subjects from the Junior Certificate in the calculated grades process, in this case the grade for CSPE was included by mistake. Due to these errors students will now received the correct grade in one or more subjects. It is expected that 6,500 students will be regraded to higher grades, no student will receive a reduced grade. The majority of students will only see an increase in one subject.
The Central Applications Office (CAO) will now process the new grades. Depending on the number of places available the student will be either be offered a place on the course in the current academic year or the option to defer the course for the following academic year (2021/2022). The decision on allowing the student to attend college this year, or to provide the student with a deferral, comes from the individual Higher Level Institutions.
Minister for Education and Skills, Norma Foley, said: “I want to say how sorry I am that this has happened. My immediate priority is to fix the errors and their consequences so that students get their correct grades. That is happening right now and the next steps will follow quickly. On my instruction, the Department of Education and Skills has commissioned independent international experts to examine aspects of the Calculated Grades System to provide further reassurances to me and to students. I will provide full detail on the errors, how they are being addressed and the grade upgrades as soon as I can.”
Sinn Fein's Spokesperson on Education, Donnchadh O Laoghaire, said tonight "We in Sinn Féin made it clear in May that the calculated grades model was not the correct one to use because it would prove to be a blunt instrument that would cause students to miss out who shouldn’t have. In our view, the allocation of third-level places should have been resolved through maximising college and university places, and through assessments at third-level to allocate placed for high demand courses. The Minister for Education persisted with a calculated grades model and difficulty after difficulty has persisted until then. The flaws have become very apparent and this is the latest chapter in this sorry saga. What students deserve now is answers, fairness and the ability to progress. It is not credible that the Minister for Education knew about these errors last Tuesday, yet only made this information public today. That is unacceptable."
The two errors were discovered by the Department’s external contractor Polymetrika. It found that the code used the core subject of Irish, English and Maths along with the two worst subjects from the Junior Certificate, when the two best subjects should have been taken. The second error resulted in the use of the Civic, Social and Political Education (CSPE) when it should not have been used in the process.
The coding errors are now correct and an independent group, Education Testing Service (ETS), will now examine the new results. Once their investigation is completed students will be provided with their new grades.
The Department will send a corrected file of student results to the CAO so that the CAO can work with higher education institutions to determine if a student is due a new offer and to do everything possible to facilitate their admission.
Any student who would have been entitled to a different offer in previous CAO rounds if they received the correct grade on 7 September will receive this offer or a deferred offer as soon as practicable after the updating of results.
This is in line with the practice that occurs in the appeals process every year.