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Some 6,100 students have earned improved Leaving Cert grades following a review of the calculated grade system after multiple errors were discovered.
All students who are expected to receive higher, corrected grades can access their revised results on the Calculated Grades portal that reopened tonight.
The revised data has also been sent to the CAO so that it can determine which students may be eligible for a different third level course offer.
Describing the review findings tonight, Education Minister Norma Foley said 5,408 students would see their Leaving Cert grade increase in one of their subjects.
He said 621 students would receive a higher grade, for a grade band, in two subjects, while another 71 students would receive a higher grade, for a grade band, in three or more subjects.
The maximum number of improved grades for a student was five.
Overall, 6,870 degrees will increase and affect 6,100 students in 614 of the 741 schools and other centers recognized as having the Bachelor’s Certificate. No student will receive a lower grade, although it is understood that a technically comparable number of students should have their grade lowered as a result of errors in the system.
Last week, an error was identified in a line of code programmed by the Canadian firm Polymetrika International Inc.
It affected the way the candidates’ Junior Cycle results were used in the standardization process.
A second error also related to Junior Cycle was also detected. It involved the use of results for one subject – Civic, Social and Political Education (CSPE) – that were supposed not to have been used in the first instance.
The errors mean that the grades of 6,100 students were lowered when the results were analyzed as part of the national standardization process for Calculated Grades.
Following the identification of the errors, the Minister of Education commissioned the Education Testing Services (ETS) to review the coding.
Subsequently, ETS raised two more questions. The first was an error that occurred in the use of data, where a student did not sit all three core subjects in Junior Cycle.
In such cases, the system was intended to use the average national junior cycle score, in the missing subject, of the group of students who obtained their certificate of completion in 2017, 2018, 2019 and 2020.
Instead, the code chose that student’s next best subject to include in the group’s calculation.
The second issue raised by ETS was how the algorithm handled student scores at the extremes of the scale.
ETS noted that the treatment did not exactly match what is described in the national standardization group’s report. However, this issue had no significant impact on the results. The ETS statement says that a student could not have received a lower grade as a result of this issue.
While the number of errors identified has increased, the number of students adversely affected is less than the estimate of 6,500 provided last week.
“Last week I expressed my regret to the students for what had happened. I want to reiterate that today, ”Ms. Foley said at a news conference Saturday night.
She said this year’s Leaving Cert students had had “an exceptionally difficult year” and said “I’m sorry about that. And I regret that this last week has given more uncertainty ”.
Responding to Irish Solidarity: People Before Earnings TD Mick Barry said he wanted the minister now to explain how many students were lost in a college course, because roughly 6,000 students had also overestimated their Leaving Cert grades.
“The minister confirmed tonight that the number of students whose grades were overestimated is approximately equal to 6,100 whose grades were underestimated.”
“It is not acceptable for students to be expelled from their chosen courses as a result of a mistake made by the Department of Education.
“The only way this situation can be rectified is for the Minister to tell us how many students lost as a result and increase the number of places in the courses by at least the corresponding amount,” he said.
Last week, the Department of Education defended its decision to hire Polymetrika. The Department of Education paid a total of € 163,000 without a tender.
The department said a full acquisition process was not carried out because there was “not enough time” to do so.
On Saturday, the minister said she had yet to consider the potential legal implications of the mistakes, emphasizing that she had primarily focused on solving the grading issue so that students could be clear about their results and the impact this would have on their grades. college applications.
- There is a Department of Education student helpline that will open between 11am and 4pm on Sunday.
- Email inquiries can be sent to: [email protected].
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