Minister for Education Norma Foley has said her department is not in a position to offer students the same Leaving Cert options as last year, where students could choose between being awarded accredited grades or sitting an exam.
Instead, the minister confirmed today that the Leaving Cert will go ahead in June as an exam only. Ms Foley said students will get "considerable choice" with "less content required to be studied".
Minister Foley said students would be offered even greater choice in their exams this year compared to 2019 and 2018, with papers that were "radically different".
So what exactly is in the new plan?
Changes to papers
At a press conference today the Minister gave examples from the Leaving Cert maths and English papers.
In maths, she said students will have six topics to cover instead of ten in papers one and two. And in English, in higher level paper two, students will now answer just two sections compared to the previous three.
The minister also said there will be changes to the aural and oral exams, as well as alterations to practical and course work.
Minister Foley gave the example of the Irish oral, which now sees 20 topics reduced to ten and in Spanish five role-plays cut back to three.
In biology, candidates will have to answer eight instead of 11 questions, and "can further focus on a reduced range of mandatory activities".
In art, the coursework has been almost halved, life-sketching has been removed entirely, and the number of questions to be answered on the written paper has been reduced from three to two.
No hybrid exam
Minister Foley said a hybrid exam would not be "as fair" as previous years, because one in four students didn't sit a Junior Cert.
She added that the profile of grades received by students in this year's Leaving Certificate exams will be similar to that of last year.
This means that a similar number of H1s, H2s etc should be awarded to students this year compared to 2021.
Marking
"I have asked the State Examinations Commission to put in place measures to ensure that the overall set of results in the aggregate for this year will be no lower than last year," Minister Foley said.
"That will be dealt with via the marking scheme, that is how standardisation is generally dealt with."
Alternative Leaving Cert
An alternative set of Leaving Cert exams will run shortly after the main examinations, limited to certain students, such as those who experience a close family bereavement, Covid-19 illness and certain other categories of serious illness, during the first examination period.
Junior Cert
Minister Foley said Junior Cert exams would go ahead this year for the first time in three years.
Full details
Full details of the changes made to the examinations will be published next week on gov.ie/Leavingcertificate and on the SEC website.
The Department of Education said the exam papers from 2021 are a useful guide to students in preparing for the exams.
