Grades f iasco review will be seen next week
A REVIEW into the controversy surrounding calculated grades i n the Leaving Cert is to be published early next week.
It comes as Opposition parties called for an independent inquiry into the handling of the issue by Education Minister Norma Foley and her department.
Some 6,500 students have received a lower mark due to two errors found in the calculated grade system for the Leavi ng Cert, i ntroduced after exams were cancelled due to the coronavirus.
A review, which was completed yesterday and will determine if students’ results will be improved on foot of corrections to the problem, is likely to be released ‘ early next week’, a department spokesperson said. Ms Foley told the Dáil earlier this week that other students may have also been wrongly awarded higher marks, and this may have had an effect on the race for college places.
A spokesman for the Department of Education told the Irish Daily Mail that they contracted the US company ETS Educational Testing Services to review ‘essential aspects of the coding’.
‘ Once this review i s completed, the Department will have full information on which students will benefit from the improved grades and the specific subjects involved for each student’, a spokesman said.
Labour Party education spokesman Aodhán Ó Ríordáin called for an ‘ i ndependent, non- statutory inquiry’ to be led by either ‘a retired judge or senior counsel, or an expert in the field of education or public administration’.
ON WEDNESDAY, Labour Party leader Alan Kelly set off a chain of events that shocked the Dáil, and added further confusion for the thousands of Leaving Cert students who received a calculated grade in this year’s makeshift Leaving Cert.
Mr Kelly f orced Taoiseach Micheál Martin into revealing that two ‘coding errors’ had been identified in the calculated grades algorithm, and that Education Minister Norma Foley would hold a press conference later that day.
The company tasked with creating the calculated grades algorithm, Canadian-based Polymetrika International, was to blame for the crisis, which was known by five Cabinet ministers for a week.
The official Government line is that the plan was to hold a press conference later that day. Yet, no media invitation had been circulated by lunchtime, when Mr Kelly f orced the Taoiseach’s hand. Funny that.
At the Department of Education on Wednesday evening, Ms Foley made sincere apologies to the class of 2020 but pledged that ‘no student would be disadvantaged’ from the mistakes that affected 7,200 students and likely resulted in 6,500 receiving lower grades than they should have.
The following morning on RTÉ radio, she backtracked and conceded that some students would likely have to defer their improved offers. An utter catastrophe.
MS FOLEY had gained support by dropping t he controversial school profiling element from the process, whereby historical school data would have been used, something that was seen as being largely unfair. The move was welcomed by the Opposition parties.
However, she has now presided over a system that will result in the most unjust scenario coming to pass, whereby some students who received enough points for their desired course will be told they can only start next year.
Students who have already accepted a place in a course, but who would not have been offered it if the correct results were given the first time around, will remain on that course, even if they have a new l ower points total that means they scored less than a student who has been told they have to defer. Other students have paid deposits on accommodation and paid registration fees, only to be told they have been awarded their first choice in a different city.
The first domino of this crisis fell on Tuesday l ast week when Polymetrika noticed an error in the algorithm when completing the results of the Leaving Cert Applied. Part of the algorithm used in the calculated grades process factored students’ Junior Cert results into the equation.
They were supposed to take into account students’ three core subjects of English, Irish and Maths as well as their two best non-core subjects. However, instead, the algorithm used their two worst non- core subjects. This was the error noticed by Polymetrika late on Tuesday night of last week. They contacted the Department the following day to inform them about the error. The minister was also informed on this day and, despite initially being unsure, contends that she told Mr Martin about it that evening.
Since the controversy broke, the Taoiseach has been running for cover, off to fortunately-timed EU meetings i n Brussels, while his spin doctors were attempting to put distance between him and the infamous ‘coding error’ controversy. Despite repeated questioning, both his press office and spokeswoman are refusing to say when he first learned about t he errors. I nstead, s aying the leaders of the three coalition parties were ‘informed before the weekend’.
One minister noted that: ‘Norma [Foley] has been left all alone in this, but the Taoiseach knew about it from the start.’
At Wednesday’s press conference, Ms Foley was unable to specify when she first contacted the Taoiseach about the problem. ‘ I can’t quite recall if i t was
Wednesday night or Thursday morning, I’m not 100% clear,’ she said. Her spokeswoman would, a day later, insist she told the Taoiseach on Wednesday evening.
In a controversy like this, the devil is always in the detail and in the fallout it is always crucial to know who knew what and when.
The Taoiseach’s handlers’ smokescreen around a simple detail illustrates the perception around the potential damage this crisis could cause.
The discovery of the first error sent panic throughout the Department, which began conducting its own review.
Two days l ater, on Friday, another error was noticed; the Civic Social and Personal Education (CSPE) results were being included when they should have been excluded.
The second error is crucial, not because of the significance of the impact on the algorithm, but because it was discovered by the Department. While they do not have had the expertise to build the algorithm themselves, it demonstrates that they had the capacity to review it and find errors.
It also shows, crucially, that they didn’t do this before using the algorithm.
WHILE t he buck always stops with the minister, there was a degree of sympathy around Leinster House given that a third party company didn’t fulfil the high-tech role they were required to do. ‘What could she have done differently?’ asked one Fianna Fáil TD.
That would have been a plausible excuse, to some, had the Department not shown its capability to perform its own review, and thus reveal its error by not conducting such a review before using the algorithm to give the class of 2020 their results.
The failings of an external company are damaging, but the failings of staff within a minister’s own department can be ruinous. That aspect has yet to be digested by many who are engulfed in other aspects of the controversy, such as how many students will ultimately be impacted and how many will miss out on a course they are entitled to.
As of this weekend, Ms Foley continues to enjoy the support of her Cabinet colleagues. Three Cabinet members told this newspaper that they feel she has taken the right steps since learning of the error.
Her success in bringing children back into the classrooms has not been forgotten or understated.
That support could soon wane depending on the scale of the problem, due to be calculated in the coming days, and the subsequent level of public anger.