The Minister for Education Joe McHugh TD announced a series of measures today to ease pressure on students who are preparing for exams while schools are closed
All Leaving Certificate oral language tests have been cancelled.
Practical tests at both Leaving Certificate and Junior Cycle, which were originally due to start next Monday, have also been cancelled
All students who were due to sit these tests will be given full marks for these parts of the exams.
The decision ensures no student will score less than they would have if schools had been open
The deadline for students to complete other project work and coursework is also being extended to 15th May
Students will be required to sit the written paper in affected subjects at the standard they indicated in January
Why were these decisions taken?
Because of school closures it would not be possible to hold the oral and practical exams next week. Nor will it be possible to reschedule them.
It would be unfair to students to expect them to sit these tests at a later stage in a busy exam timetable when they would be expecting to prepare for other tests.
At the Minister’s request, the State Examinations Commission examined a number of different options. This is the fairest response.
Students on average score highly in the oral and practical tests eg for the Irish, Spanish, Italian orals it is above 82%; in French, German and Japanese above 72%; and Russian 93%
In the case of Music at Higher level in 2019 92% of students secured a Grade 1 or 2 in the practical performance

Will the Leaving Cert go ahead?
The State Examinations Commission and the Department will continue to closely monitor the Covid-19 situation in terms of its potential impact on the state examinations timetable.
What exams are affected?
The change to the 2020 state examinations means all students who were due to take oral and practical performance tests in the following subjects will be given full marks for this part of the examination:
Oral tests in Leaving Certificate Irish and the Modern Languages of French, German, Spanish, Italian, Russian and Japanese.
Practical performance tests in Leaving Certificate Music.
Practical performance tests in Junior Certificate Music and Home Economics.
126,000 students are due to take the state examinations in 2020:
65,190 students sitting the Junior Cycle examinations
61,053 students are due to sit the Leaving Certificate Established, Leaving Certificate Vocational Programme and Leaving Certificate Applied.