The Department of Education has upgraded the marks of more than 600 students in the Junior Cert CSPE (Civic, Social and Political Education ) exam and launched an "urgent review" of the marking scheme in the subject.
The disclosure is made in an internal Department circular - seen by The Irish Times - which says the marks of 606 students in CSPE have been revised.
In an unusual move, the revisions have been made although the candidates did not appeal their original mark. The move was made after what the circular admits was some difficulty experienced by examiners in assessing project work, which accounts for 60 per cent of the marks in CSPE.
Many students were awarded very low or even zero marks for their project work on issues such as drugs, drinking and smoking because they ranged across these issues without referring back to the seven core concepts on which CSPE is based. These mostly include civic rights and responsibilities.
Amid confusion about how the project should be marked, the Department has asked the group which advises the Minister on curriculum and assessment issues to review, "as a matter of urgency", the criteria on which the projects are assessed. A new marking scheme is likely to be in place for the next Junior Cert exam.
The upgrades are a further embarrassment for the Department of Education; before Christmas it awarded revised grades to more than 200 Leaving Cert business studies students. The Department revised grades after checks by the chief examiner on the work of 12 assistant examiners who corrected the papers. The problems with the CSPE first came to light during the regular appeal process after the results were issued last September. More than one-third of the 336 students who appealed were given an upgrade.
The Department said it also received "correspondence from a number of schools" expressing concern about low grades awarded for some action projects.
The Department says the work of the 12 assistant examiners was "revisited as an additional quality assurance measure". This largely involved the remarking of the project work. Over 58,000 students took Junior Cert CSPE last June, the second time the subject has formed part of the exam.
Last year, 28 per cent of candidates were awarded an A grade while 84 per cent received a Grade C (55 per cent ) or higher.
The review of the marking criteria for the project work will be conducted by the National Council for Curriculum and Assessment.
"Sabotage" was probably the cause of 800 students getting incorrect exam grades, a Stormont Assembly committee has been told. The organisation which grades GCSE papers may have to update and improve its computer system, its chief executive acknowledged yesterday.
Mr Gavin Boyd, chief executive of the Council for Curriculum, Examinations and Assessments, told the Assembly's Education Committee that while they had not been able to pinpoint why Home Economics students were given incorrect grades last August, they would have to review computer security. PA