Sir, – Minister for Education Norma Foley has insisted that we will not get a repeat of the fiasco we saw in Britain over A-levels.
One could be forgiven for suspecting that they intend to achieve this not by actually fixing the mistakes shown in the UK, but by limiting the ability of students and interest groups to be able to organise protests against it and force them into reversal.
This includes the refusal to actually show the formula they are utilising to determine the grades until after the official results are released, the fact that there is going to be such a short window between when the results come out and when the college term is due to start, and the fact that, unlike in the UK, students will have to wait a week after their calculated grades to even see the estimated marks given by their teachers.
This might seem like a harsh accusation, but what good reason is there to hide the formulas and the original estimates by teachers from students, unless everything is not quite as perfect as we are lead to believe? – Yours, etc,
TOMÁS M CREAMER,
Ballinamore,
Co Leitrim.