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IT’S “INEVITABLE” THAT points for college courses will increase following the record-breaking results in this years’ Leaving Cert, the chair of the Central Applications Office (CAO) has said.
Pól Ó Dochartaigh said today that the “hard reality” is that some students will not secure their first choice as the points required for a “large proportion” of college courses will increase.
“The points have gone up and therefore the demand for the places has gone up. The supply of places has been increased slightly,” Ó Dochartaigh said on RTÉ’s This Week radio programme.
When it all balances out, I think it’s likely to be, as it was a year ago, that the points, not for all courses, but for a large proportion of the courses will go up. That is inevitable.
The proportion of top grades awarded to candidates in this year’s Leaving Certificate has risen significantly compared to last year, which, in turn, was higher than in 2019.
Grades are up by an average of 2.4% compared with 2020. However the increase is greater across many higher level subjects. The number of students achieving H1 grades in some popular subjects has increased by over 7%.
Ó Dochartaigh noted that the increases have left students who did their leaving cert in 2019 but deferred going into third level education “very significantly disadvantaged”.
“Any student who deferred for a year or, for whatever reason, was forced to sit out for a year, has actually now not got a level playing.
I think we should find some way of actually re-evaluating that, to give those students, who worked just as hard pre-2020, a way into university.
“We’ve tried to do our best by this years’ students and last years’ students in Covid, but I think we fundamentally have been unfair to the students pre-2020 as a result,” Ó Dochartaigh added.
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The points go up because of the limit on places in colleges.
@iohanx: that’s not true. 18,000 extra places this year compared to 2 years ago.
The points have gone up because teachers understood how downgrades worked last year and upgraded all the estimated grades this year. It’s very simple.
Honestly they had so long to plan the necessary adjustments for this year, there was really no excuse for not holding the actual exams.
@John Black: they did hold the actual exams
@SmallbutMighty: They did but students could opt for accredited grades which means a predicted grade. The results from the last two years will become statistical anomalies in future. CAO and grades should normalise in 2022 when students actually have to sit them and can’t choose to let a teacher call their mark.
@WadeBoggs: the accredited grades were based of 3 classroom tests and their percentile of where they were at in school previously so if they chose accredited grades they still had to sit exams. This option had to be given because the course is taught out of sync so there’s no way of knowing what part of the course students missed. If a kid sat back and did nothing all year they would still get poor results. They still needed to put the work in to achieve good results. Lots of kids did both this meant being in exam mode since the Easter break. It will be interesting to see the difference in results next week.
And that kids is the first lesson of inflation.
It makes no difference. If the top 1000 students last year got offered places in Medicine, Law and Dentistry, the top 1000 students this year will likewise get offered places in Medicine, Law and Dentistry. The ‘points’ just represents the grades/scores of the lowest person accepted.
@sean o’dhubhghaill: incorrect. The points that students got in LC2019 but who deferred are badly affected by the debacle of the last 2 years. LC2022 students will also be badly impacted as the current govt plan is to abandon their experiment and revert to normal LC next year.
@GoanInch: If they got offered a place, and deferred, my understanding is that that place is reserved for them until the following year.
@sean o’dhubhghaill: that is correct but many people defer going to 3rd level for a year. Difference between deferring confirmed offer of place, and defer going to 3rd level for a year (which is what article is referring to).
@GoanInch: in fairness not accepting a place and applying a year or two later has always had its risks with popular courses that fill up fast. Those students have two options wait another year or two and go as a mature student which has its own allocation of places or do a plc which gives you an advantage in getting accepted. The current leaving cert years should never be disadvantaged because someone else decided not to accept a place the previous year. Points fluctuate always have done always will do but there are always more than one path to take.
Tis all a load of bollix
@Quiet Goer: As a general philosophical position that’s right up there with ‘what’s the point’? or in this case points…
Given that one positive to come from the pandemic response, has been that the concept of work has been adjusted to include remote working as an option where possible, which will mean in practice that less physical office space is required by companies for numbers of active staff, why is this evolution of thought about what being present and participating means, not being included in the future of third level education, to also increase it’s capacity?
Excluding young people from third level education to facilitate the reinstatement of the pre-pandemic model with all its barriers to once again, seems like a cynical regressive measure, in which third level institutions appear to be happy to consign those excluded to an uncertain future.
@David Van-Standen: Remote working a positive? If a job can be done by a person working remotely from Leitrim, it can be done remotely by a person working in Bangladesh.
@sean o’dhubhghaill: There’s barriers to that, and that’s been debunked numerous times. Besides, remote working is environmentally friendly, reduces urban pressures, particularly Dublin, and benefits rural Ireland. It would solve all the governments problems if they weren’t landlords.
@David Van-Standen: Increasing capacity is more than just going online with existing courses. Teaching online does not allow for the same class/teaching model to be used, it requires rewriting of entire modules, recording of quality content and development of platforms to create a high-quality education experience.
Online courses don’t suit everyone or all subjects. For example, the areas that I teach require workshop and lab access, and this plays a major role in many STEM areas of study, these are at the core of the learning process and cannot be substituted.
This is the same in the Arts and Creative Arts, where access to stage or studio alongside your peers forms the basis of learning.
From discussions with friends, it took many of us 60-100 hours per week with the current academic staffing levels (while getting zero overtime) to create engaging content and a meaningful education experience over the last 18 months.
Changing the model of third-level education delivery would require monumental investment by the state in staffing and technology. Even after this, the quality of education could suffer and a large part of what makes education in many areas work (peer learning and tactile/tacit knowledge) could be lost.
Over the lockdowns I’ve seen online teaching create more barriers than it has removed, it still requires access to the internet, laptops (sometimes high-end ones), and a space to study. College buildings provide these to students who can’t afford them as well as face-to-face interaction with lecturers who can identify those struggling, learning supports for those with disabilities (who have struggled online) and equipment to use.
Some teaching may remain online, but we have to be careful not to think that that means we can just add more students to classes or have teaching online in place of all on-site content delivery.
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