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The “Plan C” system that the Department of Education is implementing after the cancellation of the Certificate Abandonment exams will allow students to move to the next stage of their lives “in a timely manner,” said Minister of Education Joe McHugh. .
A special unit is being established in the department to give all students the option of a calculated grade for the 2020 Certificate of Exit, McHugh told the Dáil during a debate on the Certificate of Exit and the impact of the coronavirus pandemic.
Fianna Fáil education spokesman Thomas Byrne said, however, that the government should make the “clearest statement possible” on the reopening of schools after receiving expert advice on the matter.
Byrne said the World Health Organization (WHO) has released guidelines on reopening schools “that may not be as restrictive as we might have been concerned.”
He said: “I think you must have an absolutely clear message that you are doing everything possible to open our schools in September at the right time.”
McHugh told the House that the advisory group on reopening schools would meet on Friday. He said the group would analyze the practices of other countries that had reopened schools and colleges and that a remote meeting of EU ministers would be held on May 18.
The Minister said that the evaluation of the qualification “is the fairest, most equitable and fair way to face the challenges and a better way” to proceed in light of the coronavirus pandemic.
Canceling the Leaving Certificate exams and moving to the planned evaluation was “one of the most difficult cabinet recommendations a minister has ever had to make,” he said.
He said: “It was my absolute preference to take the written and practical exams.”
When the exams proved impossible “we developed a Plan B that moved the exams to July and August”.
But he said he received convincing evidence that the exams could not be conducted reliably, validly, or fairly.
“I was very aware of the disadvantage that some schools faced and the impact that lack of time at school has had,” McHugh said.
He said the requirement to protect public health meant that exams in July and August would not have been the experience for which the students had prepared.
The exam would not be comparable to the Leaving Certificate in any other year, “which could imply the need for students to wear masks and gloves, superintendents who require PPE, and the possibility that exams may have to be redesigned to the extent that they would have been unrecognizable. “
Byrne said “we need that continuity of education.”
“We don’t have an e-learning setup,” he said.
“It just won’t work in the long term. It’s a giant social experiment right now.”
He said: “Our children need to go back to class in September” and there should be “the clearest possible statement from the government that they are doing this.”
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