Billy Ryle: Students Have The Right To Appeal Calculated Grades

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Billy Ryle says Leaving Cert candidates have a civil right to appeal calculated grades…

Scottish Qualifications Authority (SQA), Scotland’s exams’ authority, released the results of the Scottish Highers on August 4.

The A Level results for England, Wales and Northern Ireland will follow on August 13, while the Irish Leaving Cert results are being withheld until September 7. All results are estimated or calculated this year because of Covid-19.

Of the 511,070 grades submitted by Scottish teachers, 124,564 were decreased by the SQA. That is about 25% of all grades.

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Candidates from schools in the most deprived areas of Scotland suffered grade reduction far in excess of candidates from upper income families. This has led to allegations that SQA assessed the school not the candidate and that the SQA treated teachers’ professional judgment with contempt.

SQA is being inundated with appeals. The standard appeal fee of £39.95 per subject for fast-track appeals has been waived and SQA has promised to process all appeals submitted by 14th August in time for UCAS – the British CAO – to confirm university places.

A huge backlash is expected from candidates and parents when the A Level results are released on Thursday amid fears that disadvantaged students will be unfairly downgraded by statistical moderation.

What the Irish Department of Education and Skills is playing-down and what candidates may not be aware of, is that there is no facility this year to appeal the calculated grade awarded, only the paper trail leading to the grade awarded.

This is a fundamental denial of a candidate’s civil right to due process and a major departure from long established practice in the state exams.

Last year for example, the Leaving Cert exams culminated in the issue of 395,117 grades to 56,071 candidates.

A total of 9,049 candidates appealed against 16,965 grades leading to 2,916 upgrades. This meant that 17.2%, or 1 in every 6, of the grades appealed were upgraded. That is a very significant number.

Any candidate, who lodges an appeal this year, should be entitled to know if the mark submitted by her/his school has been reduced by the Department of Education and Skills. If so, on what grounds has it been reduced?

The school has already undertaken three detailed steps in arriving at the mark before returning it to the Department of Education and Skills. That mark is the most accurate calculation available of the candidate’s entitlement in the subject, as decided by those who are best placed to make it.

Any attempt by the Department of Education and Skills to reduce the mark so that it complies with the ‘normal curve’ in abnormal times should take into consideration that the candidate is not an element of raw manipulative data but a young person with feelings, emotions, anxieties and dreams.

A very simple example makes my point. A H4 Grade, 60% but less than 70%, in Higher Level Irish is a minimum entry requirement for Primary Teaching. The school submits a mark of 61%, which fulfils the entry requirement.

If, after a process of statistical standardisation based on previous years’ results, the mark is reduced by the Department of Education and Skills to 59%, a H5 Grade, the candidate’s ambition to become a Primary Teacher is cruelly dashed with no right to appeal the grade.

The Department of Education and Skills must urgently expand the calculated grades appeal process to include a re-examination of the grade awarded.

It must follow the Scottish example and provide a fast-track grade appeal process free of charge for all candidates who wish to avail of it.

On behalf of 61,000 Leaving Cert candidates, I am appealing to the Department of Education and Skills, in the immortal words of W B Yeats, to ‘tread softly because you tread on my dreams.’

CHECKLIST

• The Scottish Higher exam resulted have caused major controversy
• A huge backlash is expected when the A Level results are released on Thursday
• Leaving Cert calculated grades will be issued to candidates on 7th Sept. at 9.00am
• Leaving Cert calculated grades will be simultaneously issued to students’ schools
• A candidate can submit an appeal from 14th September to recheck the paper trail which led to the grade awarded
• In a major departure from standard practice, the calculated grade cannot be appealed
• In 2019, a total of 9,049 candidates lodged appeals against 16,965 grades
• 2,916 upgrades, 17.2%, or 1 in every 6, of the grades appealed were upgraded
• A candidate, who appeals this year, should be entitled to know if the mark submitted by her/his school has been reduced by the Department of Education and Skills
• A candidate, who appeals this year, should be entitled to know why the mark was reduced by the Department of Education and Skills
• A candidate’s civil right to appeal a grade is a principle of natural justice
• A candidate is not an element of raw data but a young person with feelings, emotions, anxieties and dreams

• Billy Ryle is a Career Guidance Counsellor and Educational Commentator

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