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LAST UPDATE | 3 Oct 2020
OVER 6,000 STUDENTS will receive improved grades, the Department of Education has announced, following a review of the Leaving Certificate calculated grades system.
The review was carried out after errors were discovered in the calculated grades system, introduced this year after the Covid-19 pandemic forced the cancellation of exams.
Students are set to receive a test message to let them know if they’ve been impacted by the mistakes. The CAO will now work out how many students are eligible to receive a new course offer.
Minister for Education Norma Foley said that 6,100 students will receive improved grades.
In total, 6,870 grades will increase following the review, with 614 schools and education centres – out of a total of 741 – set to have at least one upgraded result.
Earlier this week, Foley predicted that around 7,200 grades had been affected, with approximately 6,500 students expected to receive higher grades following the review process, which was conducted by US company Education Training Services.
“Last week I expressed my regret to students for what had happened. I want to reiterate that today,” Foley said in a statement this evening.
“You have had an exceptionally difficult year. I’m sorry for that. And I’m sorry this last week delivered more uncertainty to you,” she said.
Foley stressed that no students would receive a lower grade from the review.
It had been estimated that an 1,000 additional college places could be required to deal with the problems caused by the error.
Foley said that the CAO may know as soon as Monday how many students will receive a new offer, but that the process could take as long as a week.
She also said that her department and the Department of Higher Education were working to ensure that anyone entitled to a higher points course would be able to start it in this academic year.
Asked by reporters about any potential legal challenges that may result from the errors, Foley said that the focus was on making available high-points offers to students.
Officials from the Department of Education said that they were not aware of any correspondence about legal action in response to errors.
Errors
The first error was in one line of code programmed by private company Polymetrika. It affected the way in which students’ Junior Cycle grades were included in the calculation.
It showed that instead of including Junior Cycle English, Irish, maths and the student’s two best subjects in the calculation, the three core subjects and the student’s two weakest subjects were instead counted.
When the department examined this error, it spotted a second issue contained in the same section of code programmed by Polymetrika.
This error showed that the Junior Cycle results for Civic, Social and Political Education (CSPE), supposed to be discounted in the grading system, were instead included in the calculation.
As a result, some students received a higher grade than they should have, while others received a lower grade.
Foley acknowledged earlier this week that some students may have got places in colleges that they otherwise wouldn’t have if the system had not had these errors.
In a statement, Education Training Services said that it had audited key parts of the coding, after being provided with “access to the full coding and the databases used to run the standardization process”.
It identified an issue about how the algorithm treated students’ marks at the extreme ends of the scale – students whose marks are 99% and above and students whose marks are 1% and below.
The company found that the approach did not exactly match the description found in the report of the National Standardisation Group, which designed and implemented the calculated grades process.
However, the company said that such an error “would not have a meaningful impact on results”.
Since the errors were discovered, the full set of student data has been re-run using the corrected model.
“When we found errors in the code, I decided to seek independent expert oversight in the interest of certainty, particularly for students,” Foley said.
“I am glad that we can now provide students whose grades were lower than they should have been with their corrected results today and that this period of uncertainty is now over for all students,” she said.
“I wish you all every success in your choices and your journeys.”
Reaction
Labour Education Spokesperson Aodhán Ó Ríordáin said that an independent, non-statutory inquiry was needed into the “calculated grading fiasco”.
“The review into the Leaving Cert calculated grading process carried out by US company Education Training Services commissioned by Minister Foley is a whitewashing exercise that will not give an adequate examination of the processes, or provide the necessary information on who knew what, when decisions were made and why mistakes were not found”, he said.
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What a mess.
This is one Test the Government have Failed..!!
Some courses would have been subject to grade inflation due to some students getting higher marks due the addition of the CPSE mark. Some students were initially marked down and now have been awarded higher marks will still not get their courses due to this.
They need to publish what the CAO points should have been for each course had this error not occurred.
Students missing out because of others incorrectly receiving inflated grades will then have clarity around whether they should have received a first round offer on their preferred course at a minimum.
It’s the very least they deserve at this stage.
This should be easy to do, and we should not be hiding this from the students. It would be purely in the interest of fairness.
Happy news but how many have lost their place in Universities or places of learning outside the Republic of Ireland
Government to blame, orange man bad to blame, schools to blame, testers to blame.. Any chance anyone will ever blame China??? Unbelievable how they have been given a free pass by the MSM and the lefties.
@Crispy Brown: people will never blame China because there are afraid of the what the Chinese could do. That’s if they haven’t done it already.
@Crispy Brown: What has China got to do with a failed Leaving Cert calculation of grades system? Lol?
@Crispy Brown: get a life Crispy
Can we please offer most courses online and allow more students enrol. “Live” lectures are over rated.
Since the same (faulty) criteria was passed on everybody, why is it a problem? The entire solution was a compromise.
@Niall:
Agree!
Credit where credit is due, Norma has now fully redeemed herself by overseeing speedy resolution to problems caused by coding errors in grading system.
And Govt has promised that no student will lose out on their first choice college course, so a plan must be getting hatched to address any capacity issues in colleges. Like for example, offering courses online. Doh! How big a deal is that during a pandemic using modern tech, when, already, many sectors of the economy are actively embracing remote working.
It’s hard to listen to ongoing squeals from College suits that there is no space, that lecture halls on some courses are choc a bloc.
Someone explain to them that there’s no extra work required, just income generation & capex saving opps by offering lectures online.
A’s for everyone.
@Full Circle: “A” for the Asses who messed it up. Too many Teachers in the Dáil who essentially haven’t learnt their lessons or done their homework. Dianna Fáil should stop parachuting Novices into positions way above their capacity.
Did anyone get downgraded?
@John Smith: No. Higher grade however awarded will be the grade you keep.
@John Smith: Think I read that no one will be downgraded. Could be wrong but almost certain.
@John Smith: “Did anyone get downgraded?”
– I wonder what this means:
“Foley stressed that no students would receive a lower grade from the review”
– maybe it was added after you read the article.
Why didn’t they finish testing the code and the results before CAO? What a mess.
Insufficient school buses at start of school, issues with the grading system, schools pretty much left alone with organising social distancing…
Very cunning to swap the ministers just before reopening of the country
@Vanessa: Don’t get the school bus issue. Since when is it the taxpayer or Gov’s job to deliver your little Billy to school?
I hope someone topped up the credit on her phone.
onwards and upwards to the next crisis
What happened to people, like my son, who had exemption for Irish?
When they receive the “test message”, will they have to post a correct answer, and more importantly, will there answer be marked correctly. Unlike the spelling in the article. Proof read guys before you post. It just looks lazy not to.
Anna Anna, we want Anna
The department of education have got an F here.
Why can’t we comment on the covid numbers thread?
Does the demographic of LC participants use SMS anymore?
Take a year off now
it would be easy to blame the software company. Most people are. The govt are and all the media outlets seem to be too. But remember the govt went to them with a requirement and then changed that requirement at the last minute. In software the when your client asks you for something and then changes their mind you will run into problems. It is inevitable.
Just look at the govt HSE PPARS mess. Budget was 9 million and topped out at 220 million and still didn’t work properly. Too many cooks spoil the broth. The govt kept moving the goalposts all the way through the project. Just look it up and read the report.
I assume that due to their inability to carry out the task which they were paid for the company that made this serious error will refund any payment received
looks like polymetrika are a one man show who may be clever with math but can’t code to save himself……..
no procurement process…so.thats what you get Norma
Enough!
have your say