Minister rules out second round Leaving Cert to avoid repeat years

Minister for Education Richard Bruton has ruled out the possibility of students sitting Leaving Certificate exams they have missed without having to wait to repeat the following year.

Mr Bruton said the State Examinations commission had given “detailed consideration to the possibility of providing repeat exams” for candidates who missed an exam or could not perform to their optimum “as a result of some life event such as illness, bereavement or other trauma”.

He said the commission did make arrangements such as early or deferred and special sittings in hospitals to cater for a wide range of personal emergencies. However “this is only possible on the day of the exam”.

Mr Bruton told Sinn Féin education spokeswoman Kathleen Funchion that the commission concluded however that "within our current externally examined examinations model it would not be possible to hold repeat exams and to have results available to the expected deadlines".

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Ms Funchion said she was not a fan of the Leaving Certificate system and did not believe in the “pressurised two-weeks with the whole country waiting to see how many students get seven A1s and all that nonsense”.

She said she would like to see a system of continuous assessment as there was at Junior Certificate level and as part of that reform “there should be a repeat option”.

The Carlow-Kilkenny TD raised the issue following a request from a person with cystic fibrosis who “cannot physically do two or three exams in one day”.

Many students fell into that category she said. “If there was an option of repeating in late July or early August, students who fall into that category could stagger their exams”.

Flexibility

Mr Bruton told her the State exams commission had looked at flexibility and giving rest breaks throughout the period of the exams “but it has confined it to the day the exams take place”.

He added that with the university Central Admissions Office (CAO) and its timetable, the commission “does not feel it would be feasible to facilitate repeats while meeting the same high standards”.

It would have to “gear the system up for a second exam just at the time it is trying to deliver the first CAO results”.

Mr Bruton acknowledged that there were “genuine problems and reform of the senior cycle might trigger changes”.

Ms Funchion said it would apply to a very small cohort of students but suggested that it would also help students’ stress levels and anxiety “if they thought that in the worst-case scenario they could repeat some of their exams and not have to repeat the entire year”.

The Minister said Ms Funchion had illustrated the difficulty. He said it would very rapidly move from a very small number to “a significant repeat examination”.

This would require setting up not only the papers but also the scoring framework, the oversight and the quality assurance of the testers and then delivering the results in time for the CAO deadline.

“It is hard to deny the challenge the commission would face or see a way around it.”