Computer glitch allowed 20 Junior Cycle students access to their results last week

About 20 Junior Cycle students were able to access their exam results online a week ago due to a computer glitch.

As 67,000 students received their results in school on Wednesday, the State Examinations Commission confirmed that a small number were able to access a draft version of their results last week.

A spokeswoman for the commission said it posted individual candidate letters to schools nine days ago containing a pin code and exam numbers which students would need to access their Junior Cycle results online on November 23rd.

She said that after intermittent testing of the system was conducted on November 16th, the commission received a phone call from a school alerting it that a candidate could access the system using a link on the State Examination Commission’s website. On foot of this, the link to Junior Cycle results was disabled and access was “immediately shut down”, she said.

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A review has indicated that during this testing period a total of 20 unique log-ins were recorded on the system.

The spokeswoman said the data that would have been available was not the final graded set of results.

“The information was from our test database. The final grading process for the Junior Cycle examinations completed on Friday November 18th, at which point the final processing and printing of the results commenced,” she said.

Personal information

The spokeswoman added that it was important to note that candidates required their exam number and their confidential individual pin number to access the system. “Therefore, any candidate who did access the system, and noting that there were 20 log-ins recorded, could only have accessed their own personal information.

“The SEC is satisfied that there was no breach of personal data involved in this incident. The SEC will review the testing process to ensure that this cannot happen in future.”

The vast majority of students received their results on Wednesday, six months after they sat the exams. They are the first Junior Cycle results to be issued in three years after the exams were cancelled during the Covid-19 pandemic.

The SEC said a shortage of examiners is a key factor in the delay in finalising the results and said the recruitment and retention of teachers was an “urgent whole of system issue”.

The number of teachers available to grade Junior Cycle exams this year dropped by about 500, or 14 per cent, compared to 2019.

This is despite marking fees for these exams increasing by about 50 per cent or more. Ms Foley has confirmed that higher rates of pay for examiners, introduced on a once-off basis this year, will be retained next year.