It’s easy in retrospect to see the decision of Minister for Education Norma Foley to proceed with a traditional Leaving Cert in 2022 as the correct and obvious one, which has brought us back to as close to the traditional exam as it was possible to organise.
When Foley made that decision, many of the Leaving Cert students as well as representatives of school management were calling for a repeat of the calculated or assessed grades, which had been devised in response to the school closures necessitated by the Covid-19 pandemic. It is generally accepted now that Foley made the right call and the more than 60,000 students who will receive their results this morning can now proceed into adult life with a Leaving Cert result reflecting their educational achievements.
Changes had to be made to the entire assessment process across all subjects to reflect the loss of tuition time due to school closures. Foley has now decided to continue this process by making the most fundamental changes to the assessment of the Leaving Cert since its inception, setting a 40 per cent target for continuous assessment by the students’ own teachers, and moving paper one in both English and Irish to the end of year one of the Leaving Cert programme. She has also decided to make permanent the move of the Oral examinations in Irish and Continental languages into the Easter holidays, thus avoiding the disruption to the teaching of languages throughout second level when teachers previous to Covid left their classrooms to conduct orals in other schools.
All of Foley’s proposed changes are likely to meet resistance from the teaching unions who, in many cases, wish to revert to pre Covid-19 assessment practices. Another looming headache is the difficulty in recruiting qualified personnel to correct scripts – a serious problem this year and one that must be addressed.
Given that more than 15,000 applicants to the CAO annually are from those who sat the Leaving Cert in the immediate previous year, it is right that the State has ensured fairness to the class of 2022, in the competition for these places, through the 5.6 per cent upward adjustment of grades, to match those of 2021. The question that arises now is how these adjustments are unravelled in respect of the examination papers themselves and the overall pattern of grades awarded over a timescale which does not adversely affect the course progression opportunities of students who will sit the Leaving Cert in the future.
From the perspective of both universities and employers, and the integrity of the examination process itself, it is vital that the award students achieve at the end of their second level education is an accurate reflection of their ability and talents