Minister for Education Norma Foley has dropped the use of a school's academic track record in 2020's Leaving Cert calculated grades.
The finalised calculation process will remove the use of a school's previous performance in State exams as a yardstick for ascertaining the grades of some 61,000 Leaving Cert students.
Norma Foley had been put under severe pressure to remove the need for a school's track record in the calculation process. Some feel as though utilising the results of previous years is akin to "school profiling" and were hopeful to avoid a situation that occurred in the UK.
High achieving students from disadvantaged areas and schools would have been adversely affected had the changes not been made.
Norma Foley has repeatedly maintained that there are key differences between the Irish approach to calculated grades and the British approach.
Reviews with regard to estimated grades were made firstly in schools, headed by the principal of the school itself. Then, those results were delivered to the Department of Education in order to standardise results using a variety of means to produce the final grades.
These processes originally included a look at a school's academic track record and a students Junior Cert results, just to see if there were any wild discrepancies.
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However, due to the outcry following the UK's A Levels debacle, the Department of Education have decided to walk back the use of a school's track record.
These measures were also brought in to allay student fears ahead of the release of results on September 7 and subsequent CAO offers on September 11.
Third-level institutions are also wary of a potential public backlash to the Leaving Cert calculated grades. Colleges are set to start a little over two weeks after CAO offers are issued. Any delay to that timeline could have serious ramifications for colleges and universities across Ireland.
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