FEARS of `exams by the back door' are causing great anxiety among school pupils, it has been warned.
The assembly education committee was told some GCSE students, who have missed months of face-to-face learning, could sit up to 40 in-school assessments to help determine grades.
This was extremely damaging to mental health, members were told.
The committee yesterday heard from various young people's organisations about the effect of the pandemic on education and wellbeing.
They included the Secondary Students' Union of Northern Ireland (SSUNI), NI Youth Forum, Pure Mental and Crisis Cafe.
SSUNI President Cormac Savage said exams were a major issue and recent developments had caused upset.
GCSEs, AS and A-levels have all been cancelled with pupils due to receive predicted grades instead.
In recent days, the CCEA exams board said it would send schools papers in each subject which pupils could sit upon their return.
While these are optional and intended to help schools get more evidence to award results, CCEA has advised schools to use at least one in each subject.
When taken under high control conditions, CCEA said these assessments would be a good indicator of the standard of student performance.
Mr Savage said young people had been "blindsided".
"We campaigned for exams to be cancelled since November. We knew there was no equitable way exams could go ahead this year," he said.
"We were very pleased when the minister made his statement to the assembly on what the alternatives would be, but it feels like what has been announced now is not in the spirit of what the minister announced on the floor of the assembly. What has been announced, instead, is exams by the back door.
"As young people are learning more about it, there is an anxiety, there is a fear, and it is having an impact.
"There is a possibility that a GCSE student who has not done any formal assessment all year, studying 10 subjects, could theoretically in a four-week period between after Easter and the end of May be doing 40 different tests. That will severely damage the mental health of pupils."
A wellbeing survey conducted by SSUNI found 84 per cent of pupils admitted exam uncertainty had a negative impact on their mental health.
"I can only imagine what that number would be now," Mr Savage said.
"Many are actually describing this as being worse than having to do exams this year after prolonged school closures."
The committee also heard from Inez Murray from the mental health support organisation Crisis Cafe.
"We are studying so hard and it never ends. We don't know what we are working for," she said.
"It is not healthy. The academic pressure that this pandemic has created, combined with the months of uncertainty from the Department of Education, has been so toxic for our mental health.
"Young people feel let down in terms of exams. The Department of Education has had months and months to give clarity and yet we are still in the dark."
