‘We’re being denied the opportunity to study what we love’
Fee-paying Leaving Cert student to appeal grades
A LEAVING Certificate student who attended a fee-paying school has told the Mail she will be appealing her calculated grades as she believes her marks were downgraded.
Fabiola Dumitru, 19, attended the Institute of Education on Leeson Street, Dublin, for the past three years.
She told the Mail that despite being a fluent Spanish speaker and being given a H1 (90-100%) by her teacher, her Spanish result was reduced to a H2 (80-89%).
Her biology result was downgraded from a H1 to H2, while her grade in chemistry was dropped from a H3 (70-79%) to H4 (60-69%). Due to the reduction, she was forced to accept her tenth choice on the CAO form, which was Economics and Sociology in UCD.
Students who received their calculated grades last week in lieu of the traditional Leaving Cert exam results were yesterday told what grades their teachers gave them.
However, many students discovered that the grades set by their teachers were later reduced by the Department of Education as part of the process to standardise results across all schools and prevent schools inflating the grades of their own students.
These disappointed students now have until tomorrow afternoon to appeal their results.
Ms Dumitru told the Mail: ‘I’ve worked hard in the past three years for this exam and it’s really disappointing that the exams weren’t even held.
‘We got into the system of standardisation and we lost school profiling. I’m in a very high-achieving school and it’s evident that our school has been in the top category every year in the past for Leaving Cert and now all of a sudden, we’re being standardised with every normal school.
‘Students that are studying really hard are getting their grades dropped for no reason, just to be standardised.’
She continued: ‘I should have got higher. If I got higher, I could have got a chance at getting a course that I really was passionate about. There’s countless of people like me who are not going to study what they love.’
The window to appeal results opened yesterday morning, and will close at 5pm tomorrow.
Students are being warned that no late appeals will be accepted.
If a student does decide to go through the appeals process, checks will first be undertaken on the documents which were completed by the school. A review will then be carried out to ensure that the data was correctly received and processed through the systems used in the Department’s national standardisation process.
Students who are unhappy with the outcome of the appeal can apply for a separate process to have their appeal reviewed by independent Appeals Scrutineers, who are independent of the Department.
The CAO office will be automatically notified of the results of the appeal.
The Department has said that while every effort will be made to get through the appeals process as quickly as possible, it cannot commit to issue appeal results.
Whether a student decides to make an appeal or not, they still have the option to sit the postponed written Leaving Cert in any number of subjects later this year.
The written exams are set to
‘Process is open until tomorrow’ ‘Uncertain written tests will go ahead’
begin on November 16, depending on public health advice.
Any student who sits the exams will be credited with the higher subject grade achieved between their Calculated Grade and the written exam. These results can then be combined for the purpose of calculating CAO points.
Ms Dumitru said that while she did consider this option, she feels too much uncertainty remains around whether these exams will go ahead as planned.
‘We just took a massive break from school and that’s a lot of information… to cram down in such short notice.
‘Maybe if they pushed the exam later to give us more time, and even with that, with coronavirus cases rising…what if the exams don’t go as planned?’