Education Minister Norma Foley confirmed this afternoon that the hybrid model used by students for the past two years will not be available to this years 6th year students.
The Irish Second Level Students Union had demanded the hybrid model be kept for this years Leaving and Junior Cert exams, however teaching unions such as the TUI and the ASTI said the model should be dropped.
Adam Murphy and Cillian Hurrihane are 6th year students at Coláiste Eamann Rís in the city.
They told RedFM News about how they're feeling about the exams:
"It's good, just have clarification just like at this stage knowing what we're gonna be facing, I think, you know, I am confident that we have a lot of stuff covered. So as long as we all kind of put our heads down, hopefully shouldn't be an issue."
"I suppose I think it would have been nice to have the calculator degrades or something just to fall back on case the exam didn't go too well on the day, but just thinking about it now I would've really liked it. I was going to sit all the exams anyways, but would it be nice knowing that you have something to fall back on."
The Education Minister has said it wouldn't have been fair to run a predictive grades system for this year's Leaving Cert.
The Government has said it believes this is the fairest way to set an exam for students who have missed large amounts of school time due to Covid.
Minister Norma Foley says they did examine having a hybrid grade system again this year but couldn't manage it:
"What we have done in the previous two years is we have relied upon the student's own data, the junior cycle data and this year 95% of the students, one in four of the students, do not have that data. So we would not be in a position to provide for the accredited grades in a system that would be as fair as was provided for last year."
Eve Neville, president of the Irish Second Level Students Union, says it's not enough to give students more questions to choose from:
"What happens if a student catches COVID during the Leaving Cert and what if they're a close contact again for second sitting of the exams? You know, the second thing we're not taking into account is the fact that you know students can catch this illness you know more than once and students can be deemed a close contact and that will all play a big effect and then it will play a large role in the exam in June and whenever that second sitting is."
