AN independent chairman is to be appointed to deal with complaints by Dundalk parents about poor marks awarded in last year's Leaving Cert English exam, the Minister for Education has announced.
The parents of 80 former students of St Mary's Marist school were due to bring their complaint to the Ombudsman today, but the meeting has been postponed following the Minister's announcement.
The parents, who say that based on previous performance and their marks in other subjects the students should have achieved higher marks, "have complained to Ms Breathnach about the manner in which the Department dealt with their concerns.
A spokesman for the parents, Mr Tony Hanna, accused the Minister of "procrastination" and a "mischievous" representation of a meeting last month involving the parents, teachers in St Mary's and Department officials.
The Minister has described as "unfortunate" a delay of three months in communicating the results of re checks to the school. However, Ms Breathnach pointed out in the Dail this week that the scripts have now been marked on four separate occasions.
Mr Hanna said it was agreed at the meeting in Dundalk on February 22nd that Department officials would bring exam scripts from the St Mary's students to a subsequent meeting, for scrutiny by all three teachers involved.
This version of the agreement is disputed by the officials, who re marked the scripts in the Department and concluded there was no case for an upgrade.
The Fianna Fail spokesman on education, Mr Micheal Martin, said the Minister had treated the students in a "shabby and disgraceful manner". There had been a breakdown in procedures, and Ms Breathnach was not in control of her Department.
Meanwhile, Ms Breathnach has revealed she decided to have an independent inquiry into last year's Leaving Cert art exam on December 14th last, a day before the Department began its own internal investigation and six weeks before it admitted publicly to errors in marking.
Ms Breathnach said in a written Dail answer that her officials subsequently initiated contacts with the consultants, Price Waterhouse. The inquiry started after a meeting between officials and Price Waterhouse on January 15th, about two months after the Department first became aware of the problems.
Mr Martin asked why it had taken a month for the independent inquiry to begin.
