Leaving Cert
The Leaving Cert has officially been postponed.
Education Minister Joe McHugh has made the announcement this afternoon.
BREAKING: The #LeavingCert written exams won’t be going ahead this summer.
Students will have the option to sit them at a later date or accept a predicted grade pic.twitter.com/4K5Zkl0nO2
— Stephen Murphy (@Stephen_Murphy5) May 8, 2020
Students can opt for "calculated grades" or wait to sit the exams at a later date when it is safe.
Teachers will give a professional judgement of a student and the principal will approve the score.
Students can also then appeal their grades if they wish to do so.
Holding exams in July and August is "impossible" according to the Education Minister.
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."
“The reality of the impact of Covid-19 has led to a decision that has never happened in our country before."
"I fully appreciate the magnitude of this issue, for the students and their families, for the teachers and for school principals."
"I have a responsibility to find a fair way to address the disadvantage that some students are facing and the impact a lack of time in school has had in recent weeks."
“The system being put in place will allow a young person to progress to the next stage of their life in a timely fashion.
“The fairest and most equitable way to do that in the current circumstances is to offer students the option of Calculated Grades for the 2020 Leaving Certificate but also to guarantee them the right to sit the examinations at a later stage when it is safe to hold them in the normal way."
“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 Minister for Education and Skills @McHughJoeTD has announced that Leaving Certificate 2020 is postponed and students are being offered a system of Calculated Grades, with State certification.#LeavingCert2020
Full details ➡️ https://t.co/25hN05Ogaf pic.twitter.com/66DJUgzchL
— ⚖️Josepha ⚡️STAY HOME⚡️Madigan (@josephamadigan) May 8, 2020
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.
- The 2020 Leaving Certificate examinations, previously scheduled to take place in late July and August, have been postponed.
- There will be no Leaving Certificate fee this year. All exam fees which have been paid will be refunded.
- 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.
- The school principal will approve the estimated scores being provided and the rankings of each student in each subject in the school.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
