A PRICE WATERHOUSE review of the Leaving Certificate exam appeals process has concluded that it is "essentially sound", although there is a case for some form of additional second tier appeals mechanism.
The consultants' report does not deal with individual failures of the Leaving Cert marking system, as manifested in the 1995 art exam. Those were dealt with in a separate Price Waterhouse report published last June.
The report concluded that the present appeals process needed "fine tuning rather than radical change", Mr Pat Burke, assistant secretary of the Department of Education, told a press conference yesterday.
To implement this fine tuning, the report recommends the publication of "simple but comprehensive guides" to both the exam and appeals systems to make them easier for students and parents to understand, the simplification of the appeals application form and a number of other measures to make the current system more "open and transparent".
The report rejects any statutory independent appeals authority on the UK model. It also advises against any third marking" of candidates' work after the second marking required by the present system.
It also recommends against any scheme which allows schools to submit test cases and, based on the outcome of these, to review the results for a whole class. It warns against moving away from the present system which is "individual candidate oriented" to one which allows group or class appeals as a new form of appeal.
However, it puts forward four options for reviewing appeals procedures for further debate among education interests. The first of these is to continue, and perhaps extend, the current system by which a specially designated assistant chief inspector monitors appeals, with final recourse to the Ombudsman if appellants wish.
The second is to set up an internal mechanism in the Department of Education, independent of the exam structure and reporting directly to the Minister, which could consider "outstanding aggrieved cases" after the results of appeals.
The third option is to appoint an independent person or group on a non statutory basis to review such cases. The report suggests any second tier system should incorporate elements of these three options.
It emphasises however the extreme complexity of the issue; that any change should be gradual and carried out with the maximum degree of consensus in consultation with the education partners.
The Fianna Fail education spokesman, Mr Micheal Martin, yesterday called for the setting up of an independent appeals system, and warned that the Minister for Education "must deal effectively with a widespread perception that the management of the exam system is not on a sound footing".
Mr John White, assistant secretary of the Association of Secondary Teachers, Ireland, 4,000 of whose members mark exams, welcomed the Price Waterhouse conclusion that the appeals system was "essentially reliable and sound".
He also welcomed the recommendation that simple guides to the system should be published as evidence that the old "culture whereby all the exam arrangements were inhibited by the Official Secrets Act is being dissipated".
Sometimes parents did not know how to appeal, he said.