Incident 86: Coding Errors in Leaving Certificate Grading Algorithm Caused Inaccurate Scores in Ireland

Description: Errors in Irish Department of Education's algorithm to calculate students’ Leaving Certificate exam grades resulted in thousands of inaccurate scores.

Tools

New ReportNew ReportNew ResponseNew ResponseDiscoverDiscoverView HistoryView History

Incident Stats

Incident ID
86
Report Count
2
Incident Date
2020-10-08
Editors
Sean McGregor, Khoa Lam

CSETv0 Taxonomy Classifications

Taxonomy Details

Full Description

In fall 2020, Ireland’s Department of Education announced that two errors had been found in the algorithm used to calculate students’ Leaving Certificate exam grades. The exams, normally held in person, were replaced with an algorithmically generated score in response to the Covid-19 pandemic. Due to errors in the calculation, more than 6,000 students received grades lower than they should have, while approximately 8,000 received higher marks. The Department of Education has announced that students whose grades were incorrectly inflated will not be denied admission to third-tier universities.

Short Description

In fall 2020, Ireland’s Department of Education announced that errors in the algorithm used to calculate students’ Leaving Certificate exam grades resulted in thousands of inaccurate scores.

Severity

Minor

Harm Type

Harm to social or political systems

AI System Description

Ireland's Department of Education and Skills algorithmic internal model for projecting student's final exam scores.

System Developer

Irish Department of Education and Skills

Sector of Deployment

Education

Relevant AI functions

Cognition

AI Techniques

machine learning

AI Applications

statistical projection

Location

Ireland

Named Entities

Irish Department of Education and Skills, Norma Foley

Technology Purveyor

Irish Department of Education and Skills

Beginning Date

2020-01-01T00:00:00.000Z

Ending Date

2020-01-01T00:00:00.000Z

Near Miss

Harm caused

Intent

Accident

Lives Lost

No

Data Inputs

student's class and exam grades

Explainer: why has one line of computer code caused such disruption to the Leaving Cert grades?
independent.ie · 2020

This week it emerged that a problem was discovered with the Leaving Certificate calculated grades system which means thousands of students will have their results upgraded. But what happened?

What is an algorithm?

It’s code that makes decis…

Leaving Cert: Why the Government deserves an F for algorithms
irishtimes.com · 2020

August, following the grading algorithm debacle in the UK, I wrote a column wondering if perhaps this unfortunate event might prove a critical tipping point for public trust in the almighty algorithm.

This new generation in the UK, about to…

Variants

A "variant" is an incident that shares the same causative factors, produces similar harms, and involves the same intelligent systems as a known AI incident. Rather than index variants as entirely separate incidents, we list variations of incidents under the first similar incident submitted to the database. Unlike other submission types to the incident database, variants are not required to have reporting in evidence external to the Incident Database. Learn more from the research paper.

Similar Incidents

By textual similarity

Did our AI mess up? Flag the unrelated incidents