Leaving Cert to be cancelled

Oranage2

MrMusician18 wrote: »

Looks like this story is back with a bang. What a **** show, should never have been cancelled.

Any indication what the news is?

touts

Oranage2 wrote: »

Any indication what the news is?

My bet is they realised they were going to get cleaned out in the High Court and decided to upgrade the private school students back to the grades their teachers were paid to give them.

History Queen

Oranage2 wrote: »

Any indication what the news is?

https://www.independent.ie/irish-news/education/errors-found-in-leaving-cert-calculated-grades-system-39575956.html

Errors with calculated grades system according to this article, impacting 6000 students

touts

History Queen wrote: »

https://www.independent.ie/irish-news/education/errors-found-in-leaving-cert-calculated-grades-system-39575956.html

Errors with calculated grades system according to this article, impacting 6000 students

If that's the case then it 6000 new college offers to be made and 6000 college offers to be revoked.

History Queen

touts wrote: »

If that's the case then it 6000 new college offers to be made and 6000 college offers to be revoked.

That's not what will happen. If you look in the article, new places will be offered, but 6000 won't be needed.

touts

History Queen wrote: »

That's not what will happen. If you look in the article, new places will be offered, but 6000 won't be needed.

Maybe not the full 6000 will be revoked but colleges set numbers for a reason. They won't have the capacity on many courses to increase the numbers so if people suddenly get added then someone will have to drop out. My bet is the number of offers rebooked will be in 4 figures.

History Queen

touts wrote: »

Maybe not the full 6000 will be revoked but colleges set numbers for a reason. They won't have the capacity on many courses to increase the numbers so if people suddenly get added then someone will have to drop out. My bet is the number of offers rebooked will be in 4 figures.

People won't be forced to drop out of courses. The extranumbers will be accomodated I would imagine as problematic as that will be for some colleges/courses

Donald Trump

touts wrote: »

Maybe not the full 6000 will be revoked but colleges set numbers for a reason. They won't have the capacity on many courses to increase the numbers so if people suddenly get added then someone will have to drop out. My bet is the number of offers rebooked will be in 4 figures.

4 figures? Like 9999? :P





I still can't get my head around how these eejits ringing Liveline etc. can't figure out how the points work. If a loan of people are upgraded and the points for your course was originally cut off at say 500, but now with the bump you are at 505, then you probably aren't going to get it anyway as others begin lifted up will likely bring it above 505




As for offers being rescinded- that won't happen.

JP Liz V1

Surely Norma a goner as minister?

plodder

touts wrote: »

My bet is they realised they were going to get cleaned out in the High Court and decided to upgrade the private school students back to the grades their teachers were paid to give them.

I doubt that. The article is saying a "coding error" which makes it sound like some technical aspect of how the formula they were using was implemented. Wouldn't fancy being in the shoes of the "coder" or whoever was supposed to review their work. Though in fairness it was all done by the seat of the pants at short notice. It's not the first bug ever to be found in a piece of software (assuming that's what it is).

mickdw

To be honest, it was wrong how private schools were down graded so much. Ive never stood in a private school but if you continually achieve A grades then this years students were entitled similar grades.

There was other case also of fluent german speakers not getting good grades in leaving cert german when in reality they would be guaranteed to get top grades.

Happydays2020

JP Liz V1 wrote: »

Surely Norma a goner as minister?

I hope not. Unless there was specific Ministerial direction. But her officials should have to explain what happened.

plodder

plodder wrote: »

I doubt that. The article is saying a "coding error" which makes it sound like some technical aspect of how the formula they were using was implemented. Wouldn't fancy being in the shoes of the "coder" or whoever was supposed to review their work. Though in fairness it was all done by the seat of the pants at short notice. It's not the first bug ever to be found in a piece of software (assuming that's what it is).

blame the software rather than admitting a policy decision.

They deliberately ignored a schools past performance, because the schools that typically perform well are the fee paying schools. This resulted in things like a German school having a number of its German students see their German results downgraded from H1 to H2 and even down to H3.

Then when the court cases from kids at those schools started coming through they have had to back track, or get cleaned out very publicly. Instead they issue a statement that sounds like they are doing the kids a favour.

How the **** this scandal didn't explode across the news papers they way it did in Scotland and England really is a testament to just how deep up the arses of the FF and FG the national media really are.

eastie17

I have to admit a certain annoying smugness when some parents I know who were rejoicing when it was cancelled and nearly ate me for saying it should go ahead, were (and still are) bitter as f*ck, when their kids didn't get the course they wanted, in their opinion due to the "unfair" grading system.
You cant have it both ways people.

Oranage2

I guess most universities being online will help with the extra numbers, Norma hasn't been great, any challenge she's faced so far she hasn't done a good job at.

eastie17

eastie17 wrote: »

I have to admit a certain annoying smugness when some parents I know who were rejoicing when it was cancelled and nearly ate me for saying it should go ahead, were (and still are) bitter as f*ck, when their kids didn't get the course they wanted, in their opinion due to the "unfair" grading system.
You cant have it both ways people.

expecting a decent and fair grading system isn't having it both ways, its just expecting the government to do their job properly.

Fred Cryton

Happydays2020 wrote: »

I hope not. Unless there was specific Ministerial direction. But her officials should have to explain what happened.

Oh come on. The buck stops with her, ministers have to take responsibility. If this happened in the UK the minister would be gone within a day.

super1290

kwestfan08 wrote: »

I was thinking the same. How is that not workable?

iv been saying this since before the summer. open every classroom in the school and put a few in each room. plenty teachers out there since march who didnt meet their weekly goals in PMDS . im sure they could all be pulled in to supervise.

plodder

Aegir wrote: »

blame the software rather than admitting a policy decision.

well either it is one or the other ... and it sounds like the former

They deliberately ignored a schools past performance, because the schools that typically perform well are the fee paying schools. This resulted in things like a German school having a number of its German students see their German results downgraded from H1 to H2 and even down to H3.

Rightly so, imo. I'm still amazed that people would justify doing it any other way ..

Then when the court cases from kids at those schools started coming through they have had to back track, or get cleaned out very publicly. Instead they issue a statement that sounds like they are doing the kids a favour.

How the **** this scandal didn't explode across the news papers they way it did in Scotland and England really is a testament to just how deep up the arses of the FF and FG the national media really are.

StackSteevens

Fred Cryton wrote: »

Oh come on. The buck stops with her, ministers have to take responsibility.

If this happened in the UK the minister would be gone within a day.

But it did happen in the UK!

AND

The Minister (Gavin Williamson) didn't resign,

BUT

the person responsible did!


The head of Ofqual has quit in the wake of the A-level and GCSE results U-turn in England, the exams regulator said. Sally Collier resigned as chief regulator after four years, just days before she was due to face questions from the Commons Education Select Committee over the exam results fiasco.
The Ofqual Board said it "supports" her decision that the next stage of the awarding process would be "better overseen by new leadership".

Mrsmum

If a student, let's call her Ann is not one of those directly effected by this error but is a student that didn't get her chosen course, seeing as Norma said some pupils effected by this error got a grade higher than they should have but their grade would not now be changed, let's call one of them Mary, how does Ann know that Mary hasn't gotten Ann's rightful place in college ?

carr62

So, what happens if a student is now in a different college, doing a different course than their first choice, which possibly they will have enough points for now, when this mess is rectified? Also, will this result in any students being downgraded? ( and possibly having enough points for a course they've already started!) Also, how will all this affect the amount of spaces/ point requirements for the poor kids facing the leaving cert in 2021?? I wish they'd just put the courses online next year, let them all enrol but of course I'm dreaming.....

crossman47

Fred Cryton wrote: »

Oh come on. The buck stops with her, ministers have to take responsibility. If this happened in the UK the minister would be gone within a day.

I have no time for FF but this can hardly be laid at her door. Shes only there a wet week and this work was well underway before she got there. The company is responsible but anyone who ever dealt with code will know how easy a mistake this was. It could have been as simple as putting in < when > was needed.

As for the UK and ministerial responsibility, you must be joking.

History Queen

carr62 wrote: »

So, what happens if a student is now in a different college, doing a different course than their first choice, which possibly they will have enough points for now, when this mess is rectified? Also, will this result in any students being downgraded? ( and possibly having enough points for a course they've already started!) Also, how will all this affect the amount of spaces/ point requirements for the poor kids facing the leaving cert in 2021?? I wish they'd just put the courses online next year, let them all enrol but of course I'm dreaming.....

No studemt will be downgraded. Any student who should have been given a better cao offer will get that offer now but not all may be able to be accomodated this year, they may have to defer their place but they hope it'll be a tiny number if that does happen.

touts

carr62 wrote: »

So, what happens if a student is now in a different college, doing a different course than their first choice, which possibly they will have enough points for now, when this mess is rectified? Also, will this result in any students being downgraded? ( and possibly having enough points for a course they've already started!) Also, how will all this affect the amount of spaces/ point requirements for the poor kids facing the leaving cert in 2021?? I wish they'd just put the courses online next year, let them all enrol but of course I'm dreaming.....

From what I can make out of the absolute car crash that is the press conference.

If a student was offered a place they won't have that taken away from them.

If a student has a course and now gets offered a higher preference they can choose.

HOWEVER they are "working with the colleges so see how any upgraded students might be accomodated on their chosen course". So from that it seems the colleges told them to **** off and there won't be any new places for anyone who is upgraded.

Jizique

Fred Cryton wrote: »

Oh come on. The buck stops with her, ministers have to take responsibility. If this happened in the UK the minister would be gone within a day.

It did and the UK minister is still in place

plodder

The error was the Junior Cert part of the calculation used the core subjects plus the two weakest non core results, instead of the two strongest. <edit> Possibly a sorting error where the programmer misunderstood the sorting order of the code he/she was using. Murphy's law applies unless you have proper reviewing, testing and finally - auditing procedures.

So, it wouldn't have affected the highest achievers who got top results in all subjects. But would have affected those who had one or two subjects a lot weaker than the rest.

spurious

Coding errors happen, but that is why you run (more than) a few tests.

Pull marks from the 2000 Junior and 2002 Leaving exams. Let someone put in 'predicted grades' based on the actual results, another person put in marks off the top of their head randomly and then a last group where you give everyone a H3 or H4. Run the algorithm. See what results are thrown out. Adjust accordingly if marks following the process are way off.

The lowest minion in the place could have spotted CSPE had been included when it should not.

Alarm bells should have rung somewhere. Unless it was never actually tested?

Smacruairi

Conspiracy theory... But I wager that in a few years it'll come out that this coding company was thrown a few Bob to jump on the grenade here. Clearly a policy decision that has been changed. I never heard anything about CSPE when this was first announced.

spurious

Smacruairi wrote: »

Conspiracy theory... But I wager that in a few years it'll come out that this coding company was thrown a few Bob to jump on the grenade here. Clearly a policy decision that has been changed. I never heard anything about CSPE when this was first announced.

CSPE was a Common level subject which would have added another complication to things.