Leaving Cert system is a 'legal challenge waiting to happen'

ireland
Leaving Cert System Is A 'Legal Challenge Waiting To Happen'
Share this article
James Cox
The decision not to tell Leaving Cert students their teachers' predicted grades is a legal challenge waiting to happen, according to a guidance counsellor.

The issue of estimating results has now become a major controversy in the UK.

On Friday, 280,000 final year A-level students in the UK received lower grades than those predicted by their teachers. Confusion then grew when guidance about appealing them was withdrawn.

Advertisement

It led to large protests in London at the weekend with UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson under pressure to deal with the situation.

Guidance counsellor Brian Mooney says the issue in the UK is unlikely here as predictive grades from teachers can not be given out; but he believes this is a legal challenge waiting to happen.

Legal challenge

Mr Mooney said: "Our system is designed so that there cannot be any controversy because you won't be told anything. What if somebody goes to court and the court decides that you have a constitutional right to know what grades your teachers recommended?"

The Leaving Cert calculated grades system is already the subject of a legal challenge as an 18-year-old Mayo student has taken a case over his exclusion from the process because he has been home-schooled.

Elijah Burke has been taught at home by his mother but marks are not accepted from teachers who are close relatives of a student. The High Court begun hearing his challenge today with Mr Burke arguing that his exclusion is a breach of his constitutional rights.

Read More

Message submitting... Thank you for waiting.

Want us to email you top stories each lunch time?

Download our Apps
© BreakingNews.ie 2024, developed by Square1 and powered by PublisherPlus.com