Minister of Education apologised again; Results of those awarded lower grades will be announced after a clear review

The Minister of Education, Norma Foley, once again apologised for the error in the announcement of the results of the Leaving Certificate students. The minister said this should never have happened.

Minister Norma Foley told the Dáil that a full review of the calculated grades process will be conducted.

As an outcome of the error, 6,500 students received lower grades. But Ms. Foley said that similar number of students may have received higher grades than they expected.

However, minister stated that those who got high grade would retain it and those who got low grade would be restored to the proper grade. The Minister assured that the students who have got lower grades will be given the correct results after all the tests.

Each student will be notified by text whether they are affected or not. If they are affected, they will get a new statement of provisional results in the calculated grades student portal.

The Minister responded to a question from Solidarity TD Mick Barry that some students could be excluded from selected CEO courses for their inflated grades.

Students who receive an alternative college offer can continue with their current course. They are eligible for free fees and Susi funding, the minister said. She added that “any student entitled to a different offer will receive this offer or a deferred offer as soon as practicable.” She said students would have to contact the college if they wanted to postpone an offer.

Registration for the Leaving Certificate will be extended from 5pm on Friday to next Wednesday, the minister said.

Ms. Foley said the department will do their best to ensure that students will be in a position to receive offers in this academic year.

The person involved in the coding modeling had previously told Dáil that he had detected a coding error in the grade system that calculated the Leaving Certificate while working on the Applied Leaving Certificate results.

Green Party leader Eamon Ryan said the exact number of students affected by errors in the predicted Leaving Certificate grading system will be known. Also he said the Leaving Certificate exam will go ahead next year.

“The message to the upcoming Leaving Cert students is that there will be Leaving Cert exams next May and June,” he said.