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ARRANGEMENTS HAVE BEEN put in place by the Minister for Education to allow a home-schooled Leaving Cert student to get any calculated grades he is awarded at the same time as all other candidates.
Elijah Burke who successfully challenged the Minister’s decision to exclude him from the calculated grades process will receive any grades awarded to him by 7 September, when more than 60,000 other students will get their results.
The Minister had refused to give the student a calculated grade because he had been taught by his mother Martina Burke, a qualified teacher.
Mr Justice Charles Meenan in his ruling had directed the minister to put steps in place to allow Burke and other home-schooled students excluded from the system because they had been home-schooled by a parent or close relative, be assessed for a calculated grade.
Earlier this week it emerged that while the Minister was putting steps in place to allow Burke be assessed for a calculated grade, there was no guarantee that he would receive any results at the same time as other candidates.
Mr Justice Charles Meenan expressed his concerns over that lack of a guarantee, and the potential effect this might have on the student regarding the CAO’s First Round offers for places in third level education.
At the High Court today, Brendan Hennessy Bl for Elijah Burke said significant progress had been made between the parties over how and when Burke’s course work is to be assessed, and graded.
Hennessy, instructed by solicitor Eileen McCabe said that Burke’s work is to be assessed by independent teachers from the Mayo Education and Training Board.
The teen’s work will be assessed in the same manner by an independent teacher as an in-school student who had been educated by a parent or close relative.
Any grades he receives in the nine Leaving Cert subjects he studied are to be awarded by 7 September counsel said.
Mr Justice Meenan welcomed the timetabled arrangements that had been put in place. The judge praised both sides for their efforts to deal such a complex matter within a short space of time.
In a judgement earlier this month Mr Justice Meenan quashed the Minister’s decision and held that the calculated grade system which excludes home schooled students on the grounds that a teacher has a conflict of interest was “irrational, unreasonable and unlawful.”
The minister had argued that it was not possible to give Elijah a calculated grade for any of the nine subjects he has studied due to an absence of credible evidence from an appropriate source on which to base a grade.
Burke hopes to study either Biomedical Sciences or History with Music at NUIG is from Cloonsunna, Castlebar, Co Mayo.
He is one of ten siblings who have all been educated at home by their mother.
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Sensible result. Crazy that it had to be taken to court, however.
@Joe Vlogs: How will his work be assessed?
@sean o’dhubhghaill: a teacher from a school will assess his work and give a recommended grade.
@sean o’dhubhghaill: read the article
@Joe Vlogs: crazy that his mother thinks home schooling is a good idea, the second a future employer see “home schooled” on a CV that CV is going in the bin, same applies to “students union”
@Wheresmyjumper: employers don’t care about your leaving cert, you take it off your CV as soon as you get 3rd level education or experience in this day and age. Regardless of your opinion on this family, the children from the family have excelled academically, well above national averages. What they’re missing out on is everything else that goes along with school and the learnings it brings socially.
@Ned Gerblansky: anyone can learn anything the important parts of school are social interactions and learning how to deal with different personalities? Quick google search on him (like everyone does) and he’s not getting the job
@Wheresmyjumper: Well certainly a quick Google search on his family in general.
@sean o’dhubhghaill: The article just says WHO will assess his work, not HOW.
@Daragh Kennedy: I did. It just says WHO will assess it, not HOW.
@Wheresmyjumper: He will have a jr cert just like everyone else. Most home schooled go onto university. There’s a whole bunch of positive stats out there to support those who do it correctly.
@Wheresmyjumper: not giving a job to someone who is homeschooled, even though they perform well in standardised tests like the leaving cert and graduate with 1st class, would be stupid. You can’t decide not to employ someone based on their background, as that would be discrimination. You can decide not to employ someone because they don’t have as strong a CV as a competitor. This young man will have an excellent CV – more subjects taken than the average student, and if his siblings are anything to go by, will graduate with first class. Most likely he wouldn’t have had the chance to study some of those subjects had he gone to his local school. I remember I had to give up on studying certain subjects because my local school just didn’t provide them.
@Ned Gerblansky: Not necessarily. That’s what people receiving paycheques from standardised teaching in Ireland want you to believe. My nephew as neice has just been accepted to Cornell University
after 8 years if it. She has a wide circle of friends from those years.
https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.stetson.edu/artsci/psychology/media/medlin-social-skills.pdf&sa=U&ved=2ahUKEwjBkuqe_b3rAhWoThUIHQL8DmQQFjAMegQIBhAB&usg=AOvVaw2z6IMpTfDgmhyfOOsuGPVG
@Joe Vlogs: but will he have the social skills to get on with coworkers? I’m not taking that chance
@Wheresmyjumper: why shouldn’t he? What I learnt from school was to sit down and keep my gob shut while I rota learned. I learnt my social skills from playing with kids in the neighborhood, sport, etc. Being homeschooled wouldn’t exclude him from those, and he isn’t going to be going to university on his own – he will obviously have classmates, group work, etc.
@Joe Vlogs: its a odd thing to do,
Great news. Did it really have to go to court to make the obvious happen though.
@Marie Broomfield: Yes. Our illustrious Dept of Ed is about to he sued by my nephew’s parents to provide him a placement. This will be his second year without one. You have to sue to get anything from them.
How much did this cost. It was clearly wrong, these are epic times, the government needs to be flexible and sensible. The solicitors and barristers are making a mint and wasting time on decisions that should need a judge to decide. They don’t know how not to waste money.
Should never ever had reached court. Stuck in the wood Department bureaucrats just had to sit down and discuss with the parents what curriculum he followed. All sorted in an hour, instead massive fees will now have to be paid to legal fat cats.
@Dave Phelan: yes by not leaving the system to be home schooled he would have saved himself a lot of hassle
@Wheresmyjumper: or you know, they could have just treated him the way they treated any child in secondary school whose parent was also their teacher, and have an independent teacher assess the grade. Oh wait, that’s what they are doing now – one high court verdict later.
@Wheresmyjumper: Do you know anything about this student? I daresay, he got a better education, free from bullying by others, than he would have in our system.
@Mary Morrisey: so his mother is the only person in Mayo capable of teaching him? Why do you think he would have beeb bullied?
@Wheresmyjumper: well, she did a pretty good job with his siblings – unlikely he would have gotten as good an instruction from a regular school. And he definitely wouldn’t have gotten to study as many subjects in a normal Mayo school. And if he was that serious a student, there is a high chance he would have been bullied.
@Joe Vlogs: so anyone that gets over 550 in the leaving cert has a high chance of getting bullied? Thats not true, also do his siblings have a good job now or more importantly friends? Their mother had taken a lot from them, coming out of school a social butterfly is more important than points
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