“Almost one fifth of teachers’ predicted results for Leaving Cert students are set to be downgraded under the Department of Education’s new calculated grades process. However, a large majority (79%) of students’ estimated grades will remain the same. The remainder will be either reduced (17%) or increased (4%) …” (more)
[Carl O’Brien, Irish Times, 1 September]
There appears to be no reference to taking into account the extent and nature of gender bias in these subjective assessments of student’s performance across single sex girls, boys and co-ed schools. This seems extremely likely to have occurred.
Has the DES asked the Economic and Social Research Institute to compare the trends this year with those in the past 3-5 years looked at gender variation in grades across these settings? If not, why not??
Thank you
Prof Pat O’Connor