Education minister Joe McHugh made the comments during a live interview on Instagram.
Education minister Joe McHugh has told students that The Leaving Certificate may take place on July 29.
Minister McHugh made the comments during a live interview on Instagram on Tuesday night with youth website spunout.ie.
He said he hoped to be in a position to formally announce a date for when the exam would start.
“We will be in a position in a couple of days time to confirm that date … the date that we’re going to be looking at is Wednesday the 29th of July.”
He said that the option of predicted grades, which is being used in other countries, would not be considered in Ireland due to “too much inherent bias”.
“There is the practicality of teachers’ grading nieces, nephews, sons or daughters, or teachers who are easy markers or hard markers … we don’t feel the policy of predicted grading is a fair system,” he said.
“We want to make this happen and this is not wanting to make it happen to put a burden on young people – we want to make it happen because we have looked at the predictive grading; we don’t feel it’s fair.
“We’re taking into consideration the difficulties people have, the financial pressures people are under”.
Mr McHugh said a more detailed timetable will not be finalised until early June as education officials want to ensure everything is decided with public health advice in mind.
He added that holding the exams in July is the preferred option, but he said they were looking at other options: “We’re looking at Plans B, C, D and E. There are so many movable positions. The best answer is that, at this point in time, we’re working on making it happen,” he said.
“We could face enormous challenges that we’re not in a position to make predictions about.”
