Government releases breakdown of how Leaving Cert students will be assessed

The plan on how students will be assessed has been laid out.

The 2020 Leaving Certificate has today been postponed, following an announcement from Minister for Education and Skills Joe McHugh.

All students will now be offered the option of receiving Calculated Grades for the subjects they are studying and the alternative of sitting the 2020 Leaving Certificate examinations at a date in the future when it is considered safe to hold the examinations.

The decision was made following an assessment of public health advice amid the Covid-19 pandemic.

Making the announcement, Minister McHugh said: ''I have made every effort to run the 2020 Leaving Certificate as close as possible to the way the examinations were originally intended to be held.

''My desire had been to allow students to undertake the written and practical examinations in July and August but I have compelling evidence, based on medical advice and other assessments, that the Leaving Certificate examinations cannot be held in a reliable and valid manner, nor in a way that would be equitable for students''.

''The decision has to be taken now to remove the anxiety that many students have been experiencing over how the exams would look later in the summer''.

The following is a breakdown of the process to be applied for students to be given the option of Calculated Grades or to sit the examinations:

1. The 2020 Leaving Certificate examinations, previously scheduled to take place in late July and August, have been postponed.
2. There will be no Leaving Certificate fee this year. All exam fees which have been paid will be refunded.
3. Teachers will be asked to provide a professional judgment of each student’s attainment which will be subjected to a rigorous in-school alignment process to ensure fairness.
4. The school principal will approve the estimated scores being provided and the rankings of each student in each subject in the school.
5. A special unit is being established within the Department of Education and Skills to process the data provided by each school and operate national standardisation, again to ensure fairness amongst all students.
6. The Department will finalise the grades for each student which will be issued to each student as close as possible to the traditional date. Formal State certification will also be provided.
7. Students will retain the right to appeal. This will involve checks on school-entered data; correct transfer of that data to the Department; a review that it was correctly received and processed by the Department; and a verification of the Department’s processes by independent appeal scrutineers.
8. Students will also retain the right to the sit the 2020 Leaving Certificate examinations at a date in the future when it is deemed safe for state examinations to be held.