SEC and CAO in court

mirrorwall14

Was just reading this earlier ‘Teen claiming Leaving Cert marks were totted up incorrectly takes State exam board to High Court’ on the journal.

Obviously we cannot discuss the actual case in question but it does make for an interesting debate topic. I’ve always taken it as a given that even if you went up your spot was likely gone until the following year. But there is a point to be made that this really is incredibly unfair on the student in question who answered the paper in good faith but due to an error in the administration or application of the marking scheme to their paper is denied a place for an entire year.

I honestly never thought of it like that, I suppose I just had the attitude ‘isn’t it great you went up’.

Not sure if it’s ‘fixable’ so to speak. Do you delay all students results until they can view the papers and apply for recorrects if needed before the CAO comes out?

spurious

I thought tot errors were immediately 'fixed'.
Is there not a separate form for them?

AFAIK they do not need to go through the recheck process.

mirrorwall14

spurious wrote: »

I thought tot errors were immediately 'fixed'.
Is there not a separate form for them?

AFAIK they do not need to go through the recheck process.

Oh interesting. I thought it was a separate form but didn't know it wasn't a recheck

spurious

Perhaps I'm wrong though, if there is all that palaver with the High Court.

**edit
I think it's this bit covers it:
Rectification outside of the appeal process
If you have viewed your script and believe there is a clear discrepancy between the mark awarded and the subsequent grade awarded, you also have means of redress. You should ask the Organising Superintendent at the viewing session for a Rectification Outside of the Appeal Process Form (Form ROAP1).

This rectification service applies only where it is clear that the total mark is inconsistent with the grade awarded and where this matter can be resolved administratively. Information on appealing your results and rectification outside of the appeal process is available on the SEC's website.

ccazza

spurious wrote: »

Perhaps I'm wrong though, if there is all that palaver with the High Court.

**edit
I think it's this bit covers it:
Rectification outside of the appeal process
If you have viewed your script and believe there is a clear discrepancy between the mark awarded and the subsequent grade awarded, you also have means of redress. You should ask the Organising Superintendent at the viewing session for a Rectification Outside of the Appeal Process Form (Form ROAP1).

This rectification service applies only where it is clear that the total mark is inconsistent with the grade awarded and where this matter can be resolved administratively. Information on appealing your results and rectification outside of the appeal process is available on the SEC's website.

I think that’s only if the addition error occurs in the adding up of the marks for each question on the front cover of the paper, not if tot errors have occurred internally in the answer book.

pandoraj09

ccazza wrote: »

I think that’s only if the addition error occurs in the adding up of the marks for each question on the front cover of the paper, not if tot errors have occurred internally in the answer book.

No, it refers to any mistake that is made in the addition throughout the paper, once the student or whoever is looking at the paper with him/her sees the mistake. I haven't seen that article about the student taking the SEC to the High Court. We had repeat Leaving Cert in my school and there were a number of students this has happened to. College places are often given out before the mistake is rectified so the student has the place for the following year, if they've missed out because of the error in totting up the marks. The bottom line is that the exams are marked by humans and being human we all make mistakes. The SEC brought in the Cumulative Total at the end of every question to reduce the possibility of errors in the transfer of marks. we used to have to add up paper one, two and the listening in my subject and enter a total mark on the marking sheets but now we just enter all 3 marks and the SEC does the rest. There is no way the SEC can guarantee mistakes are never made, nor can we, as correctors, guarantee our work is error-free. Its just not possible.

mirrorwall14

This is the link sorry

I agree, no system is infallible. I think the issue here is whether a year long delay is justifiable or fair in the case of an error. I'm not sure if it can be any faster than it currently is but a year long delay is rough, particularly for a repeat student

RealJohn

mirrorwall14 wrote: »

This is the link sorry

I agree, no system is infallible. I think the issue here is whether a year long delay is justifiable or fair in the case of an error. I'm not sure if it can be any faster than it currently is but a year long delay is rough, particularly for a repeat student

Is it fair? No, but life’s not fair.
Is it justifiable? Obviously. Nobody is perfect. No matter how careful people are, some mistakes will be made.

The case should have been thrown out and those who brought it made liable for all costs.

Time

RealJohn wrote: »

Is it fair? No, but life’s not fair.
Is it justifiable? Obviously. Nobody is perfect. No matter how careful people are, some mistakes will be made.

The case should have been thrown out and those who brought it made liable for all costs.

That's very unlikely to happen, her argument is one of legitimate expectation and on its face it does appear that she was failed in this regard. I see the court siding with her here.

rainbowtrout

mirrorwall14 wrote: »

I’ve always taken it as a given that even if you went up your spot was likely gone until the following year. But there is a point to be made that this really is incredibly unfair on the student in question who answered the paper in good faith but due to an error in the administration or application of the marking scheme to their paper is denied a place for an entire year.

Not in all cases. I would imagine that in large courses like Arts and Business, one more isn't going to make a difference. In niche courses like Dentistry and Veterinary where there is a high demand and a small number of places it is a bigger problem, particularly courses that involve labs. Only so many will fit in a lab. Also with some courses by mid October some students will have dropped out so often late entries after appeals can be accommodated, and often the student is given the option of late start or defer. In some cases they have no choice that their place is deferred until the following year.

For two of my own students one got physiotherapy in October after the appeals and transferred in straight away. The second appealed the appeal and won her appeal and it was the start of December when she transferred into Pharmacy. They told her she was pretty much on her own to make up that ground, but she did it.

mirrorwall14 wrote: »

Not sure if it’s ‘fixable’ so to speak. Do you delay all students results until they can view the papers and apply for recorrects if needed before the CAO comes out?

It would probably only pull things forward by a couple of weeks, and the reality is that as a percentage very few scripts are successful on appeal. And of those, not all are dependent on them for points. The start of the college year would have to be delayed to allow for the appeals process to be completed before offers were made. Given that the viewing weekend normally takes place about 2 weeks after results with the CAO round one in between that, at best I would imagine that you could pull forward viewing and subsequent appeals corrections by a week and then offers would go into early October.

Also if students didn't know what points their courses were going to be as they hadn't been offered places, everyone would be appealing left right and centre to maximise their results. Students appeal because they are short points, this would be impossible to predict without CAO offers.

rainbowtrout

Time wrote: »

That's very unlikely to happen, her argument is one of legitimate expectation and on its face it does appear that she was failed in this regard. I see the court siding with her here.

A legitimate expectation yes, but human error happens in all sorts of situations every day. There is a process in place to allow for errors to be rectified through the appeals process. It's a bit crap for her, but she will still get her place.

What does she hope to gain by bringing this to court?


I would certainly hope the court would not side with her. It would just open the floodgates for students to appeal wholesale for compensation because of human error.

RealJohn

rainbowtrout wrote: »

It would probably only pull things forward by a couple of weeks, and the reality is that as a percentage very few scripts are successful on appeal. And of those, not all are dependent on them for points. The start of the college year would have to be delayed to allow for the appeals process to be completed before offers were made. Given that the viewing weekend normally takes place about 2 weeks after results with the CAO round one in between that, at best I would imagine that you could pull forward viewing and subsequent appeals corrections by a week and then offers would go into early October.

Also if students didn't know what points their courses were going to be as they hadn't been offered places, everyone would be appealing left right and centre to maximise their results. Students appeal because they are short points, this would be impossible to predict without CAO offers.

Perhaps if they did pull the viewing forward a week, leave the first round of offers as it is but withhold a certain number of places based on how many of the unsuccessful applicants were within, say, ten points of the points required, and only make second round offers once the appeals are in? Presumably, the admin could still be handled relatively easily by competent computer programmers.

Personally, I don’t think there’s a problem though. People need to learn to accept that things don’t always go exactly as they’d like them to, and at that age, it’s well worth learning. Is it fair? No, but so what?

As for any potential court cases, surely they can only find in favour of the candidate if it can be found that the marking process did not have proper safeguards in place to minimise the chances of this happening. It would be nearly impossible to eliminate all mistakes and it probably would be impossible to eliminate all mistakes without both bankrupting the SEC and making the marking process so drawn out that you’d be into October or November before anyone gets their results.

Time

rainbowtrout wrote: »

A legitimate expectation yes, but human error happens in all sorts of situations every day. There is a process in place to allow for errors to be rectified through the appeals process. It's a bit crap for her, but she will still get her place.

What does she hope to gain by bringing this to court?


I would certainly hope the court would not side with her. It would just open the floodgates for students to appeal wholesale for compensation because of human error.

Yes mistakes happen and as outlined the mistake is a simple one so it should not take until October to resolve when it has been known for so long, she’s not suing for compensation anyway she’s suing for a court order. I think it can be very reasonably be argued that the delay and the impact it would have on her is excessive and unduly harsh, when compared to the fox that is required

nim1bdeh38l2cw

RealJohn wrote: »

Is it fair? No, but life’s not fair.
Is it justifiable? Obviously. Nobody is perfect. No matter how careful people are, some mistakes will be made.

The case should have been thrown out and those who brought it made liable for all costs.

You're one of those teachers that everyone hates aren't you?

fed_u

I read this earlier and when I realised it was a tot error it is pure misfortune. I corrected JC and would be in no way surprised if I had made a mistake along the way..
For this student to get caught out a second time over a miscalculation must have been very tough to take and facing another year waiting as a result is worse!!
I would be interested to know if the system spurious referred to is in fact in place or was it a case no-one was aware of it so the student went and appealed instead of seeking rectification?

chocoholic999

10 marks in a business exam in 2.5%. We don’t know for sure what percentage this candidate was on before the 10 marks but it is likely they have only just scrapped into the next grade. If appealing a result the entire exam needs to be marked again and it is possible that somewhere else in the paper there may be a few marks that shouldn’t have been awarded and as such no change in grade.

torbie

It is a clear error of addition. Its very easy mistake which has been spotted and could be easily corrected - there's no need for all this dragging through the courts - The CAO and are in the wrong and have the power to correct it easily. Its making the COA look like idiots and theyve brought it on themselves. Fair play to the students parents for doing this.

evolving_doors

torbie wrote: »

It is a clear error of addition. Its very easy mistake which has been spotted and could be easily corrected - there's no need for all this dragging through the courts - The CAO and are in the wrong and have the power to correct it easily. Its making the COA look like idiots and theyve brought it on themselves. Fair play to the students parents for doing this.

I agree, it's a blatant admin error on the part of the SEC, they're just being pig-headed by telling her to wait till October. They're effectively telling her to wait another year.
She repeated already so I'd say she wants to move on with her life. I think there is a cost to this applicant. A year later out of college, is a year extra to retire. At the other end when you're in your 60's that can be a very long and arduous year.
College could also do the decent thing.

mirrorwall14

Well she won

https://m.independent.ie/irish-news/courts/student-who-missed-out-on-place-on-college-course-after-leaving-cert-marks-error-wins-high-court-challenge-37357699.html

SEC even requested a stay which the judge pointed out would make the whole win pointless as she’d miss the deadline. The mind boggles on this one tbh and it feels like a total waste of taxpayers money. If the SEC have a quick solution for totting errors on the front box of the paper, it should also apply inside. This wasn’t a girl fishing for points by getting it rechecked-it was an addition error not caught by the examiner

techdiver

RealJohn wrote: »

Is it fair? No, but life’s not fair.
Is it justifiable? Obviously. Nobody is perfect. No matter how careful people are, some mistakes will be made.

The case should have been thrown out and those who brought it made liable for all costs.

rainbowtrout wrote: »

A legitimate expectation yes, but human error happens in all sorts of situations every day. There is a process in place to allow for errors to be rectified through the appeals process. It's a bit crap for her, but she will still get her place.

What does she hope to gain by bringing this to court?


I would certainly hope the court would not side with her. It would just open the floodgates for students to appeal wholesale for compensation because of human error.

Did either of you read the details before commenting I wonder?

Mr Justice Richard Humphreys was told that UCD had agreed not to allocate Rebecca’s potential placing until 30 September allowing the court to deal with her judicial review of decisions to date relating to her exam results.

She merely wanted the points corrected before a required deadline, which IMHO opinion should be standard practice in such instances. She wasn't looking for compensation, she wasn't looking to cash in, she just wanted her rightful place in college. SEC made the error and they have it within their powers to make it right in a timely manner, but they chose not to. Bureaucracy and red tape at its finest.

It's laughable that the only solution prescribed here is "ah well. wait another year".

r93kaey5p2izun

Delighted for her. The SEC should be ashamed of itself. "Computer says no" is just not an acceptable excuse for this outlandish bureaucracy.

Postgrad10

Bit of silly behaviour from UCD too. If I were registrar I'd have checked in with the SEC that there was a tot error and went ahead and gave her the place and got her settled in to the college. Needless time wasting.

Icsics

Delighted for her. Should never have gone to court

Solli

Icsics wrote: »

Delighted for her. Should never have gone to court

Anyone hear the Drivetime slot this evening? A woman rang in from Kerry to say her son had similar tot error on one of his LC papers. He got his 2nd choice course in another uni and went there while waiting for the appeal result.
In the meantime.......
His teacher contacted someone she knew in UCC in his first choice course. a 3 days after my man starting in another university course he gets offered a guest student place in UCC because his teacher said she was sure his appeal would be granted. We never heard the result of his appeal....
And I thought the CAO was the only place in Ireland where pull couldn’t happen.

Now we know there’s a way into uni.., for those who know someone...

evolving_doors

Solli wrote: »

Anyone hear the Drivetime slot this evening? A woman rang in from Kerry to say her son had similar tot error on one of his LC papers. He got his 2nd choice course in another uni and went there while waiting for the appeal result.
In the meantime.......
His teacher contacted someone she knew in UCC in his first choice course. a 3 days after my man starting in another university course he gets offered a guest student place in UCC because his teacher said she was sure his appeal would be granted. We never heard the result of his appeal....
And I thought the CAO was the only place in Ireland where pull couldn’t happen.

Now we know there’s a way into uni.., for those who know someone...

I think some courses and colleges you can appeal to their better nature (esp if it's an SEC error). Also if the course isn't high demand. So it's not so much that they are shady in their admissions, its just that UCD were overly strict in theirs.
If it were my child I'd be contacting the college too.

Solli

But Biotech in UCC is in high demand hence the very high points required!
I have never heard of getting in through a contact like this. It’s grossly unfair

spurious

Icsics wrote: »

Delighted for her. Should never have gone to court

I agree. I think a mistake was made locally at the viewing as regards what to do with a tot error.
AFAIK it does not explicitly say the tot error has to be on the front of the script.
This should have been sorted with the ROAP1 form.

karkar athlete

I was reading this story during the week and was wondering how it managed to make it to court.

A similar scenario happened to me in my LC back in 2011. I was a good 40 points off my course but didn't get C3 in Irish for Primary Teaching so decided to view my script in the off chance of possibly getting something without having to repeat.

Out of curiosity I decided to view all of my scripts to have a look at them to see was there anything and if I was close to the next band in any of the subjects.

I went through my Geography paper with my teacher and she was satisfied it was fine and looked at the cover and said sure it was a B2 anyway. I had infact received a B3 in my results. The superintending teacher filled out the required forms etc. (I am assuming it was the ROAP1 form) and I received my updated results the following week/fortnight.

The superintending teacher couldn't fathom how the mistake was made as they said each result had to be inputted through the SEC system twice for double checking! They also went about checking all other geography results for my school/class to ensure no other errors were made. I would have never have copped it myself and was only for the teacher making the comment that it was noticed!

Also appealed the Irish result anyway in the off chance but didn't get it changed and had to repeat it anyway!