Sir, – The OECD report “Implementation of Ireland’s Leaving Certificate 2020-2021: Lessons from the Covid-19 Pandemic” found that “the capacity and willingness of the education community in Ireland, led by the Department of Education, to design and implement suitable emergency solutions in a very short period of time was remarkable” (“OECD warns about Leaving Cert grade inflation and CAO process”, News, September 2nd). I think that most people would agree with this observation.
However, despite the report’s fair and positive summary, it unfortunately contains some very dubious conclusions and conveniently ignores some obvious issues.
Chief among these is the report’s belief that the assessment measures put in place by the Department of Education during the pandemic means that continuous assessment in the Leaving Cert now needs to be considered.
Surely, given all the past and current discussions about student grade inflation, most people would conclude that Covid-19 finally sounded the death knell for the use of continuous assessment in Leaving Cert exams?
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The report also states that: “The collaborative approach to school-based judgement helped to mitigate teachers’ historic concerns about the need to be protected from canvassing, corruption and litigation.” Collaboration did nothing of the sort. It was the specific legal protections that were enacted by the Government that made teacher assessment possible. Thankfully the strength of the legal protection was never seriously questioned because there was grade inflation. One can only imagine the blizzard of litigation that would have ensued if grades had fallen.
The report further concludes that “The experiences with the Leaving Certificate in 2020 and 2021 gave teachers a key role in the system by empowering them with assessment responsibilities.” Ask any teacher if they felt any such “empowerment” and you are most likely to be laughed at.
Remarkably, the report fails to address how the continuous assessment process impacted school grade inflation.
Given that the report was commissioned by the Department of Education it can only be concluded that some of the OECD’s observations simply reflect the department’s attempt to shape the future of the Leaving Cert by reimagining the past. – Yours, etc,
SEAN KEAVNEY,
Castleknock,
Dublin 15.