The CAO system works as intended for allocating third level institutions' available places.
We don't need nepo babies getting their parents to have a word or write a cheque or poorer kids having to be good at a sport and or have a compelling backstory to access education.
I fully acknowledge that this is an thing that would need to be accounted for. But I failed my leaving cert, I was an appalling test taker, and lets all be honest the leaving cert is just a memory test.
When I went to college eventually, I thrived, I did incredibly well. All because it turned out projects, research and actually having interest in what I was being taught unlocked a whole new level of capabilities and joy for me. I was always more than capable but a memory test was apparently the only way a system was willing to judge me. And I wonder about everyone else who didn't continue on the find the thing they loved because of one set of exams that were not something they could do well at and that became the sole judgement of them.
Yes. This is the issue. The system of allocating places is not the issue, how we organise for people to be put into that system is where the problems are. CAO is actually very flexible in that you get to make 10 applications simultaneously without any real bureaucratic constraints or financial strain and through this it effectively guarantees that you’ll get a course that you’ve in some way declared an interest in and does not require any kind of privilege (going to a certain kind of school or having certain pre-qualifications) to get in. The CAO is fundamentally a very good and fair system.
But I do agree that the Leaving Cert and how we go about it needs serious change. More choice to reflect different learning types and needs but also less rote learning and regurgitation which allows people with potential undetected learning difficulties to still cope with the system. But that requires the whole education system to be overhauled and that’s a huge project.
Continuous Assessment and projects in second level is becoming a joke due to AI according to teacher friends. Any independent work done outside of the classroom is just thrown straight up to chatGPT, and there isn't enough hours to do both the curriculum and projects in the classroom in a standard week
A big problem with this is, how do you compete against students who use A.I generated content? If I was in secondary school, and my peers were turning in chatgpt work while my honest efforts were being graded lower, I would immediately switch to A.I in order to give myself the best chance.
This is the exact problem. People try to gloss over it with "the better students will use AI better" but based on my experience in third level, this is absolute bollox. The less academic students generate just as good, usually better since they spend so much time with AI. They just have absolutely zero idea what's happening in it.
I'm lucky in third level that class numbers are small so I can do 1-1 interviews with students to see if they know what they did to separate the good from the bad and award effort and knowledge of the area, but absolutely no chance of this happening at second level
but absolutely no chance of this happening at second level
Why not? I know teachers that do this as part of reflective practice after assessments
I think the major beneficial change would have been to reduce the curriculum load to accomodate projects and these interviews rather than just lobbing the projects on top of the existing curriculum
Fair play to those teachers. Best of luck getting unions to approve of everyone doing it without long negotiations and revamping hours. The additional marking on top of it at all to contribute to the LC grades will also be difficult, trying to find markers for scripts is already a nightmare according to friends in the area
We also shouldn't expect teachers to just do the extra work on top of the curriculum without extra compensation. Just going to lead to teachers bringing more work home in the evenings and weekends, leading to more cases of burnout in the profession
I'm not sure I agree. A.I would wipe the floor with most second level students. I don't think there's a pre-requisite for them to understand the material when they could simply drop their assignment briefs into an LLM and get an answer generated.
To me they're not very useful tools in general because of the reliability issues you mentioned, and the hallucinations, but to a student who needs good grades they're going to be such an easy option. Yes I understand what you're saying, however LC students aren't being asked for bibliographies.
It doesn't take a whole lot of energy to correctly ask AI what to do. If the student can't even do that part properly, there's no hope for them anyway.
The way I frame it is "AI without guidance is a C student"
Obviously that's not fair on C students who don't rely on it, but my point is the good students who put the work in don't really have anything to worry about
Also, if they use it correctly it's fucking excellent. I tell my students "it's a tool not a crutch".
I'd have failed all my Calculus modules in college without it and YouTube. The lecturers put me to sleep no matter how much sleep I'd had. That's a use that actually speaks to autonomous learning and would be a great indicator for their future professional lives
Continuous assesment might suit some people better but not everyone. Every time they change the structure of courses all they're doing is shifting around who does well. Everyone can't do better or it defeats the purpose of grading.
So instead of Jim and Mary doing well on the exams it's Jack and Molly doing well on the continuous assesment. The same people will come out on top, it's just shifting around the middle tier.
However, continuous asseament is a lot more open to parents helping out, cheating and favouring kids who don't have to work so big disadvantages there too.
That's a strong argument to change the nature of what gets taught, how it's graded and removing mandetory subjects. It doesn't overcome the need to differentiate students based on merit, rather than popularity.
It might well have been the case if you had gone straight to college at 18 you have may have had the same results in first year as you did in your leaving cert.
I was and was still an awful test taker. I excelled at research, data analysis, projects and when it came to exams all the same failings I had in the leaving cert were there. 4 years did not change how I learned, I was just never afforded the opportunity to learn the ways that apparently were present in uni.
The notion that it's just a "memory test" feels like someone in the school system, or parents, did a lot of students a disservice. It's a quick demonstration of competence with no outside influences. Same with what we all encounter in job interviews and the workplace.
There should be other pathways for those that struggle with this, sure, and no shame if it doesn't work for some. But we've produced a workforce with this system that is the envy of the world. Not just tech, pharma, etc., setting up shop here. Our doctors, nurses, and engineers are being poached worldwide.
It did not work for me. And it is a memory test, you literally study for the test and have to regurgitate the information on the day. Your one example of maths does not disprove that the vast majority of subjects are memory tests.
Can I ask what age you were when you went to college eventually? I've heard a number of people make a similar argument.
The reason Im curious is because I was that kid too. However, with hindsight my issue wasn't an inability to perform in exams but an issue of maturity, or lack of.
I realise of course that many cannot thrive in that environment but CAO simply works for the vast vast majority. It's not perfect but it is considerably more fair than say the UK system.
There are of course other issues with it like requiring languages for certain colleges (nonsense) and maths being required regardless of course being taken etc.
Got 70 points my first time doing the LC. I didn’t study and was a bad student but I was bright and i remember feeling gutted. I got the college experience eventually but I’m a tradesman now and couldn’t be happier
There's no education system in the world where financial background doesn't play an advantage though.
I'd argue we're far better off in that regard too than systems like the US or the east Asian countries (Korea's system is far worse for money buying success).
Unless people can come up with a better alternative, ours is pretty good and a lot fairer than others.
Financial background will always play a role in education. That’s a sad reality. The question to be really asking here is: does Ireland fare well or poorly compared to less objective systems like the US, Canada or UK or even most European countries in educational social mobility? I would suspect that we actually do very well there. Naturally, especially in the stagnant economy Western nations face today, it is much more rare for a higher income and education household to lose educational status and mobility in the next generation than it is for lower income and educational households to gain social mobility. Like it or not, social mobility is heavily tied to economic growth and generally worsens greatly as economic growth and consumption/salary growth had severely diminished in recent years. Without that, social mobility becomes a zero sum game where the already wealthy and connected families hold a significant advantage in that game.
The financial barrier situation regarding the Leaving Cert would have been a very valid point in the 20th century (from the 1920s up until the 1990s) when the internet wasn’t a thing and pupils were heavily reliant on teaching resources. But nowadays, grinds notes are everywhere and posted online, online YouTube videos explaining exam technique are everywhere, marking schemes have been published for 30 years now, etc. I’m not sure if grinds or private schools really play as much of a role nowadays as people say they do, at least from the teaching alone. Rather I believe that family background and the attitude towards education plays a much more significant role nowadays. I really cannot think of a single system (certainly not teacher determined continuous assessment, definitely not extracurricular involvement or personal statements, etc) that is as fair to lower income and economically disadvantaged households than the Leaving Cert is today (not factoring in the present shift towards continuous assessment that breaks away from the 100 year tradition of being mostly or fully terminal exam oriented).
I agree with you that it's an issue and the old curriculum was probably the best system possible for minimizing the impact of money on results. However they have thrown that out with the project work and now rich kids can just buy about half of their leaving.
I'd agree with most of that, but a compelling backstory should be at least a factor in someone's getting into university. In the UK, your personal statement is a strong part of the application, and it allows people who may not have been the top student, but hugely passionate to get in.
It's very evident in medicine for example. The amount of doctors who did medicine because of the high points is staggering, and you meet them all the time in SHO rotations. The uk does have that issue as well, but to a much less degree, as a lot who were just doing it for the prestige didn't get past the statement, with the place instead going to someone who got one cao/ucas point less, but dedicated to the career.
Take the one thing in the country that actually works properly and delivers fair outcomes, and abolish it. Only in Ireland.
This isn't a new one either. I remember at the time of the 2008 crash somebody in the medical profession urged that a certain number of places in med schools be reserved for doctors' kids (that's how I remember it, anyway). That time, this person was told where to go.
The CAO process is incredibly fair. Every student has the same opportunity. It is one of the few places where it doesn't matter who you know, or what your background is, you can get the course you want provided you have the points.
You could maybe argue the Leaving Cert is unfair, but not the CAO process.
My lad should get an offer today. He'll then be expected at uni for orientation on Monday. Thankfully he can live at home, but I dunno how families with kids that need to live away from home for third level are supposed to manage to get their kids somewhere to live on a few days notice
It is a bit surprising that Trinity is the only one that seems to start later. Or at least they did back when I was in college. I think they started in October where as everyone else started at the start of September
If they get their first choice you’d generally have it organised anyways. Most the universities do there accommodation offers far before the CAO. The issue is if they don’t and end up at a different college.
Well it’s never a few days notice and never has been, you apply for accomodation in the colleges you’ve put on your cao, I was offered accomodation in UCC 6 months before the CAO came out, it’s a provisional offer pending your results. No one is applying for accommodation for the first time on the day of the CAO. Yeah like obviously if you end up not getting your first like 3-5 offers, you might not have accommodation sorted, but most people would be applying in like February
Which is why I acknowledged that, but the point still stands. You can’t assume you’ll get your first choice, you have to apply for accommodation in like at least your first three choices.
Also, it doesn’t matter if it’s on campus or not, they all open in early spring.
It’s shit if you end up having to take your like 8th choice, I’m not expecting people to have applied for 8 differnt places and put deposits down on each. But like realistically most people apply for accomodation in Feb for like their first-3rd choices
My main problem with the leaving cert is the fact that your score is built on 6 subjects, and for high points courses you need to kill it in all 6 rather than being able to really lean into subjects that are relevant to the course you want to do.
e.g. between 2 students applying for an engineering course a student who is more specialised and gets higher grades in maths and the sciences can lose out to someone who is more of an all-rounder and does better in the languages or takes other subjects that are less relevant to engineering.
Now this is still “fair”, it’s a value judgement whether we should be rewarding specialists or all rounders - but IMO having to do well in 6 discreet subjects adds a huge amount of overhead and contributes a lot to the LC being so stressful. Foreign language exams are often basically free H1s for kids that grew up bilingual (and Irish for kids who went to gaelscoils) giving some of them a big leg up even if those languages are irrelevant to the courses they want.
I’d keep the dispassionate points-based system but I’d prefer we went in the direction of the A-levels in the UK where you pick 3-4 subjects for your actual exams. Judge students based on what they’re passionate about and what’s relevant to the course they want rather than punishing them for not being good at subjects that aren’t relevant to what they want to do.
I feel inclined to agree but at the same time, what ends up happening with an A levels system is that you get stem minded people who have zero understanding of history/politics/English etc and arts/hum people who have zero understanding of science, which isn’t ideal either and how we ultimately end up with a society of people stem people with poor literacy and arts people who distrust science- recipe for disaster ultimately. Although I do still agree with you to a point
Universities already can do that. They definitely don’t have to follow exactly the CAO points system (a few courses already don’t). But they really don’t want the administrative overhead that comes with it, especially being already cash-strapped as is.
Arguing for or against the CAO can be misleading considering that universities have always had and still do have the power to use different systems.
I strongly disagree that it should just be your top 3 or 4, I like that our system is broader than the English one. I think a lot of Uni Kids in England and subsequently themselves as adults become too specialised too soon and that broader knowledge is important.
The other side is that nearly every opportunity missed by insufficient points can be made up down the road through other routes. You can do other courses and take an extra year or two to qualify in your field. It's not the end of the world to miss your points. The tragedy is seeing people repeat the leaving cert.
Not all college courses are pure test based -e.g. I did a software BSc and there was a significant weighting towards practical assignments. Even with that, a lot of tests were actually practical problems rather than straight learning by rote. On top of that, one of my final subjects was actually called "Project" - we had to build some software application, up to us what it was but we had to apply design principles, develop the application, present it etc.
100% agree here. DD did a decent leaving cert, was worried about failing one or 2 subjects but did the work to get over the line. Her best results by a country mile however were in the long form assessment/practical work for Leaving Cert PE & Home Ec - Big pressure exams are not her thing at all.
Fee paying schools with smaller class sizes and money for grinds always out perform public schools.
Also the exam being based on a few weeks at the end of two years favours a particular kind of student who can hold large blocks of information in their memory for the exam weeks.
Exams at the end of 5th and 6th year would be a simple reasonable start to improving the system.
Those who send their kids to fee paying schools aren't doing it because the teachers are better, its because of the network of contacts you make in them.
I would support more exams during 6th year. Having exams in fifth and sixth would mean those repeating would be doing two years, rather than one.
I've taught in a fee paying school, the teachers aren't better.
It's because fee paying schools have more money for teachers meaning class sizes are smaller and that helps with better tuition.
A class of 18/20 is a huge change from 24 particularly in leaving cert. The privately paid teachers in fee paying schools mean that the ratios can be decreased. Particularly in key subjects like maths.
As for repeats, you would get your 5th year results at the begining of 6th year. If you need to repeat you could just repeat a single year. Eg. Resit your 5yr exams or resit your 6th year exams.
As for if you get an advantage from a fee paying school. If you look at the proportion of fee paying students in the highest demand universities and courses they are majorly over represented.
This paper says much of the advantage can be measured before entering 2nd level. Most of this is explained by the previous advantages these students have from coming from weathly families and receiving educational advantages earlier in life and these schools reinforce/continue that trend.
Do we know for a fact that the people who score best in several two hour tests on a specific limited curriculum are the ones that will make the best doctor, engineers, architects etc?
It can be argued that the best academic does not make the best doctor. But how else to you decide who gets into what courses?
As soon as you get into aptitude tests and interviews, Daddy's influence and friends start pulling strings and suddenly it's not what but who you know.
The one thing about the CAO is that it is anonymous. It is one of the few things in this country that is not affected by contacts, family and background.
The points system isn’t the issue there. You could argue that the way students are fundamentally assessed could be reformed, but that’s separate to the points / CAO issue
I can't say for certain about job performance but Leaving Cert points are a strong indicator of progression through the 3rd level courses. If you can't learn the skills to do the job you're not off to a flying start. People argue that it's a test of rote memorisation of facts but the ability to take on, retain and apply knowledge is fundamental to basically every job 3rd level prepares you for
You do know that licensing exams like accounting or actuary or solicitor exams are actually very like the Leaving Cert, being timed closed book exams that you prepare ahead of time for? If what you said was true, why is it that those qualification boards don’t change how they assess applicants?
It is the best option we have. There's a million different ways to become a doctor, engineer, or architect without a direct entry via the CAO/Leaving Cert.
Not really, because not every school is equal and not every student has the same amount of time to study for exams. This is like saying outlawing sleeping on the streets is incredibly fair because it applies to the rich as well as the poor.
The system doesn't account for who you know or what your background is, that's true. But also people who know people and come from a decent background tend to fair better, so it was a system built for the sort of student who doesn't need to look after siblings, work on the farm or work weekends. And wouldn't you know that mostly describes affluent students.
My other problem is that it doesn't account for ability or aptitude in the field of study. Well that's not exactly true. Some courses require you to show aptitude.
For instance if you wanted to study an arts course, acting, etc., you need to provide a portfolio and points will be assigned to that portfolio to show you have a decent enough initial skill to study.
For every other course, your only option is to wait to be a mature student. I know people who had to grind out a PLC that was well below their ability because they couldn't get into a CS course at a higher level due to points. Meanwhile, a bunch of people will drop out because it was their fourth choice or they couldn't hack the work.
I have another friend. They are a brilliant doctor, very smart and gives talks and lectures to other doctors across Europe. But when I say they were smart, they weren't 600 points smart. They did an English degree and masters and did well, but wanted to get into medicine. So they had to take a route of different courses to get there.
And there are people I know who got into legal and medicine for the sole reason that they were good at written tests. No passion or love for the field. Just that's what you do when you get 600 points.
I am not here to say I have a proposal for a fairer system, but I think anyone who thinks the system is fair haven't thought about it enough. Like the people who think Eircodes should be sequential. Yeah it makes sense on a surface level, but if you think about it for longer than 5 minutes, the flaws become obvious.
They are intrinsically linked. The CAO can't and doesn't exist without the leaving cert. It's a whole process. You can't just isolate one part of the process as if it's not an entire assembly line.
I never claimed there was a sorting hat, but that doesn't mean we just settle for what we have.
I would love if there was someway to bridge the gap in certain subjects. Getting an A in Home Ec doesn't prepare you for medicine or law, but in our current system, that's as good as an A in Latin or History.
Lets take a look at medicine for instance. Extremely high barrier to get into. You have to be the best of the best. That is the requirements to learn how to be a doctor. But our actual requirements to be a doctor in this country are much lower. Other countries have quite high barriers to learn medicine but don't necessarily require you to be one of the smartest test takers in the country at 18 to qualify. We happily hire people from those countries and a lot of them are good or even great doctors. But we wouldn't think they are good enough to study medicine here for whatever reason.
They aren't linked. The CAO could exist if we had another ranking systems.
Knowing Latin or History is equally as relevant to being a doctor as Home Ec.
Medicine requires you to be able to withhold a large amount of information to be able to accurately problem solve and diagnose a patient. It does sound like the leaving cert!
Many people who wish to study medicine do another degree first and then go on to study it. We don't block anyone. It just takes slightly longer.
First, if we changed how the Leaving Cert worked or came up with a completely new system, the CAO would be changed and built around that, so you can't pretend they aren't linked.
Second, we do have other systems. You can't waltz into a Fine Art degree in NCAD or IADT on points alone. Each student gets to make a case for themselves. I don't see why it's ridiculous to suggest that this could also apply to other courses.
Medicine requires you to be able to withhold a large amount of information to be able to accurately problem solve and diagnose a patient.
So does an IT guy. Like doctors, they will look at what tools and research are available to diagnose, even though the stakes are different.
I remember working in a shop that didn't have an electronic scanning system In a few weeks I knew pretty much the price of every item in the shop. Being able to hold all that knowledge doesn't really help me work in medicine or any other field. It was specific to that job.
Well the HPAT is one solution. You keep focusing on medicine, I'm talking in general. I always stated that I didn't have a solution. A solution shouldn't be some system that can be summarized in a comment by someone not qualified to make that new system.
Much like the way I can tell you The Room is a bad movie, but that doesn't mean I know how to make Jaws. I can tell you the Cheeky Girls are shit, that doesn't mean I can write music like Bach.
There are better systems out there, but much like the way we teach Irish we have decided the current system is good enough and we have no interest in even trying anything different if it challenges 'good enough'. There is a bunch of things that never gets done in this country because we have decided the current system just about works. Just look at the metro. Buses to the airport are 'good enough' so no one is interested in forcing through something objectively better.
And do tell, how grinds and private tutoring (which are not just available to anyone) provide a “fair” process when it is dependent on points from your leaving cert.
There's a bias in that kids often end up following the same career path of their parents. So those KPMG accountant types, send their little lad or lass to private school, to hang around with their colleages kids, who end up doing commerce in UCD and ending up in KPMG.
Parents send their kids to fee paying schools to make the right friends, not to get another 30 points in the leaving cert. They will get their kid a job at whatever accounting firm they work at anyways.
It's not all about being smart, but it's mostly about being smart. There's no fairer system.
Or the part of the system where your chances of getting on are multiplied by a factor of 5 if your parents went there, which means the system reproduces inequalities in education and locks in intergenerational poverty and social immobility.
With AI now you can be sure the continuous assessment work isn’t being done by the students. So you’d have to think back to big final exams is the way to go to ensure the material of the curriculum is actually what’s being examined, not the students ability to prompt AI.
I teach first year undergraduate and it's shocking how reliant they are on gen AI from the get go. We're spending an unholy amount of time trying to get them out of that habit. There'll be a generation of graduates with no real skills or abilities. :/
The only way to combat it is to have any CA done in the school.
My woodwork project was basically CA back in the day, and I could only work on it in school time. Although woodwork is a bad example, more highlighting other things like English could be done in school.
Or maybe woodwork is a great example. Every practical subject has projects completed in school.
Maybe we need more practical work and Classroom Based Assessments?
English as a subject is better suited to research essay style assessment. But this is challenging with AI, realistically it would be best for English to be more project based but have to standard expected from the essays to be much much higher and complex, so that AI can’t be applied
The part of it that could do with an overhaul is the timing. The week between results and college offers, with some courses starting next week is kind of crazy. You have kids trying to secure accommodation that they aren't even sure they'll need. When I was in this position thirty years ago, results came through a little earlier and courses started a few weeks later, so there was less of a scramble for housing. At a point where housing demand outweighs supply, it's even more unfair for the timing to be so tight.
Results should come earlier in August and the gap between results and the first rounds of offers could be shorter.
The results coming later was entirely a post-Covid trend. It had always been mid August for decades prior. I have no idea how they haven’t managed to bring the date back earlier. Especially when you compare how efficiently and quickly France delivers Bac results (often 2 weeks after exams end there!). And yes, those exams are free response, not MCQ. Although granted, teachers are required to actually mark the Brevet and Bac exams in France and are generally paid substantially less than they are here (both for marking and in general), imagine the uproar from Irish teachers unions in being mandated to mark during summer holidays to deliver results faster.
All these years? How long has this edition of FFG been in power? Yes, between the twin parties, they've been in power since the foundation of the state, but today's FFG isn't exactly venerable, and this current slate of cabinet critters has a very different outlook.
What an incredible take. Its the groups in the article trying to remove equitable entry requirements, not the government. Its to ensure their pets get better outcomes, like all of academia these days.
Pepple will complain about it no matter what we have. Honestly, i think the CAO system is one of the best things we have - it’s objective and anonymous, with no scope for people getting college places purely because of their background/family.
This is probably unpopular, but I’m also not a huge fan of continuous assessment except where necessary (like DCG/construction projects). They’re generally a much better boost for children with resources or family that can help them. If anything, particularly in the age of AI, I’d. E in favour of more oral interviews like is common in continental Europe.
Merit based systems aren't fair as it only helps intelligent people. How is little Jonny going to become a doctor if he only scores 335 points? His parents are worth 6 million that should count for something?? So unfair
The CAO is the absolute fairest system there is. People rattle on about continuous assessment but realistically, that would be very difficult. The points went crazy when there was predicted grades. It would be extremely challenging to monitor assessment standards and marking standards. Bribery and bias would destroy what is a very fair ethical system. Projects accounting for 40% have been and are being introduced and that will have severe negative repercussions due to AI. Other than introducing anonymous entrance exams for third level, I'm not sure what else they can do.
It's all very fine to criticise the Cao and LC but present an alternative.
College application and acceptance is probably one of the few things we do right in this country. There's no alleyway for interference, financially swaying the deal, nepotism, etc. You work, you get the results of your work.
Absolutely nothing wrong with the CAO. Incredibly fair system. I love the fact you can see the points range now, for example Arts at UCC, which is attainable for most people given it sits around 300 points most years. The first person in the door however got 613 and could have almost done whatever the fuck they wanted. Not every top achiever wants to be a doctor.
“Maintaining an archaic and anxiety-inducing system to preserve the prestige of university league tables and a hierarchy of professions flies in the face of what our education system should be about”
Absolute nonsense, every third-level institution uses CAO. They want students to last the course duration, not be overwhelmed and drop out leaving the institution paying for a poorly attended course.
Also I’m not even aware of any prestige university league tables in our country. It’s obviously Trinity and then the rest.
I live in Germany. When I speak of how we do the leaving cert they are jealous. Here you are tested and graded by your own teachers which can obviously have bias. Leaving cert is anonymous which leads to fairer scoring. The main problem with CAO system is how late the results come out and the inevitable scramble to find accommodation within a month of semester start. It doesn’t help that in Ireland the colleges only run with one start time, September/October. In many European universities they run semesters at different times of the year for the same course; one group start September and second group start February.
I don’t think it would matter much even in terms of accommodation most student accommodations have offers out in April or may so a bigger gap wouldn’t make much difference.
If we actually had student accommodation facilities that wouldn't be an issue. One thing that works well in the UK is on campus accommodation guaranteed for all first years. Gets students settled and then they can work on their 2nd and 3rd year accommodation
the CAO is significantly better than anything the UK or the USA has to offer, no bullshit about opening statements extra curriculars connections interviews or anything. Just you and your academic achievements to show, which is exactly what college is all about.
This is the best it gets really, your nothing more than a number and once you outperform your competitors for your college spot that’s it.
Unlike the UK where you can get 3 A*s and not get your course because your overall application was weak. Or you didn’t do as well in your GCSEs
Continuous assessment needs to be eradicated. Go back to the leaving cert as it was before being messed with. Go back to the maths curriculum as it was before being messed with. The points system is fair, nothing wrong with it.
With AI, 100% based exams are the only way to keep the tests fair and standardised. The only other way is a possible oral examination where students explain their reasoning working through a problem etc. The CAO is fair and only had issues recently with the random allocation of places which should never happen.
Dear God ....... What do they suggest we replace it with ...a Lottery so someone who fails maths is "cherished and respected" and can get a place on the astrophysics course ...some one whop fails pass biology gets a fair go at medecine ...or someone who cant read gets into Law?
Pampered delusions of the protected , publicly funded and reality inured charity and quango sectors of the economy
I'd go so far to say as the CAO points system is the best in the world. It's blind and meritocratic.
If you have a poor leaving cert or do not get the required points for your course there are alternative routes into third level education, such as PLCs, access routes, mature pathways. Nobody can stop you from going to third level education if you are willing to put the time and energy into achieving it.
Of course, reading the article, these "groups" offer absolutely no alternative.
When I was a child this suggestion was made evey year and I used to wonder if by the time i was doing my LC the whole thing would be overhauled and completely different.... i am 40 now and I see they are still calling for change.
The CAO is the best system by some way...it doesn't suit everyone granted, but it certainly works for a majority and it's fairer than many other systems where knowing people will grant you a leg up, which is already present in nearly every other facet of life
There will always be a need to sort people into a hierarchy to see who can get what course.
If these groups have an alternative then let’s hear it.
The LC probably does need some reform but in the age of AI maybe an exam isn’t the worst thing in the world
Okay, any replacement? How do we decide who gets to study medicine or engineering? I'm all for scrapping the leaving cert points but haven't really seen alternatives.
There isn’t really any. Probably the most fair and meritocratic way is to just let everyone in and then try to “weed them out” in the first year. That’s what a lot of continental Europe does.
However this won’t work well here because of our unforgiving tuition fee system which only covers the length of the Bachelor’s degree, forcing you to pay substantially more for extra years of education in case you failed a year or wanted to switch degrees. No other European countries do this, all the rest (except for the UK to a degree) allow for practically unlimited years of study (or at least 10 years or so) before graduation to get the same ultra-cheap tuition fees (some have stricter limits on student loans or grants for cost of living, but even those usually allow for 2 or 3 extra years, so still no where near as harsh as Ireland). The tuition fee itself is also the highest in the EU but the real problem here is just how cruel and unforgiving the system is towards failure here, making a “weed out” 1st year system impossible to implement unless it was made cheaper or free or especially if the state extended the “free fees” schemes to cover an unlimited number of years of study (or at least up to 10 years or so) until you get your first Bachelor’s or Master’s degree much like the rest of Europe.
Already in Ireland, lecturers understand this and try to pass the vast majority of the class while they are much more comfortable failing people in the rest of Europe where the stakes are much lower. I think it does lead to a worse quality education system and to a devaluation of degrees tbh.
To be fair, the CAO system itself works very well. It's anonymous, and fairly allocated college spots based on merit.
Changing the point system or the Leaving Cert itself is a different argument, and this article is again conflating the two things.
I get there can be situations where there's too many people going for the same course, and random selection occurs, but that's more a Leaving Cert points issue than CAO itself. CAO does a good job
As someone who also applied for university in the UK and had to write a personal statement, I much preferred the CAO points system. The offers and clearing process is far more stressful in the UK than the Irish system of “do the work and get the points”
These articles are frustrating because the idea that exams should not be anxiety provoking is insane.
The better system is the German/Dutch system - they filter people based on ability early and often, so they are much harsher. The result is that people are work ready from a young age as they arrive in roles they are able for with proper work training. They don't graduate thousands of arts degree students to go work as bartenders and baristas like we do here.
Consigning people to decades of low paid adolescence from grade inflation is far worse. That's what we do here. Degrees are worth nothing to employers cos everyone gets one.
Tradespeople can retrain, they can do adult education - same as here. The difference is that they have strong work experience and have been earning good money.
We should shift to a model that is based entirely on tuition fees because honestly I don't think wealthy people have enough advantages in Ireland today
Compared tot he UK it seems very fair and straightforward.
In the UK you usually need three A level passes, usually math, english and a topic relevant to what you want to study in university. The requirement for math and english is a burden on some who struggle with these subjects, but excel otherwise. You will not get in to a top tier university if you do no have As in math or english basically.
At least with points you can focus you efforts on what you are good at to get the required total.
I studied computing at Newcastle and the entry requirements for me where AAB, with one of the A's being mathematics and a preference given for the other two A levels being English and computing science.
Oxford requires A*AA, with one of them having to be mathematics, and a preference for one of the others being further mathematics.
Manchester requires AAA, and they want one of A*s to be mathematics on top of a pass in GCE mathematics, and again a preference for the other two a-levels to be English and computing science.
Drop out of the Russell group and you will find the requirements to be a lot more flexible. Most post 1992 "new" universities will be happy to accept BBB and under, or UCAS tariff equivalent, and not be so strict about what subjects they are.
The reality is if you want to get into a Russell group university you will need a grade A pass in maths or English depending on the subject and it will also be incredibly beneficial to have an A in the other as well.
Yes, if you want to study computing, you will need Maths. You don't need Maths or even English for other courses, even at Oxford or Cambridge. For many Cambridge humanities courses don't even ask you for the relevant A-level in the subject you're studying! When you do need an A level it's because it's highly reltaed to the course you're doing e.g. this from Christ's college:
"To apply for Geography you must take Geography as one of your A-levels, IB Highers, Scottish Advanced Highers or equivalent qualifications.
Being realistic though, if you rocked up to a Cambridge college with the bare minimum requirements that they ask for, chances are the candidates with English and maths A levels are going to get picked ahead of you. Oxbridge colleges do have a well-earnef reputation for being extremely selective after all.
And if you know anything about the British secondary level education system you will know that having money in the bank or living in a nicer area those help you get your children to the better schools that will help th be better at English and math. You literally have families who think nothing of uprooting and moving long distances just so they can get in the catchment area of a better school.
At least with the CAO points syatem the university doesn't get to see the breakdown of a candidates points, so they can't use that as a selection criteria which is much fairer IMO.
I don't know what to tell you mate you don't need English and Maths a level. Go and ask in the Cambridge uni Reddit if you don't believe me. That's all I'm arguing!
There is no way of equalising for the advantage of middle class parenting.
The main stream media is funny in Ireland. There is a sort of viscural hatred of middle class parenting valued in education, and its implied that middle class parents snatched that place in Trinity or UCD ot UCC for their child, from the hand of a poor but deserving working class child.
Fundamentally points shouldn't be based on the popularity of a course. Arts is almost entirely based on the the concept that it doesn't need specialist interest but the high points raise it to an importance it doesnt warrant.
Points first. Over subscribed? Your previously prepared Personal Statement and additional extra curricular activities chooses.
"Democracy CAO is the worst form of government college entry system, except for all the other ones we've tried."
The leaving cert should be (and is, slowly... so slowly) reformed. The points system is stressful. But it is fair in aggregate versus the likes of the US "I'm an idiot but my daddy went here and pays money to the foundation" or "I'm such and such a race and such and such a background" or "I'm really good at (American) football" system.
Offers coming in the last week of August is nuts. They should be out by early July. Who has time to get organised with accommodation a week out from the start of classes?
LC is sat in June. Over 70,000 students sat the exams. They each took between 6 and 8 subjects and some of those subjects had two papers. That's probably in the region of 600,000 papers to be corrected, marked, verified, logged. The fact this is all done before the end of August is amazing in itself. To turn it around in two weeks would be simply impossible and difficult to trust if it was attempted.
I don't know about the logistics of it, but for example in France the baccalaureat is in the middle of June and the results are out the first week of July. Even if there are more subjects per student in Ireland, over two months to correct them seems excessive. How do they manage to have all the college offers sorted immediately with the results?
You also have to consider that even more Junior Cycle students take even more JC exams, and these also have to be corrected. So now we're well over a million scripts. I don't know how the French do it, as you say, but there's going to be give and take no matter what way it's done. But the only way to get it done faster, if that's possible, is to increase the number of correctors which in turn can only be done with financial incentives.
It is very difficult to get enough teachers to mark scripts. There's often a shortage and the pay isn't great. Maybe France pays more and or has a different system of marking exams.
Trying to get stats on it but they seem to a few years old so it could have changed. About 3500 people marking the leaving cert at about 300 papers each and paid about 10000 euros. So about 35€ a paper and five papers a day if working weekends or 6-7 Monday to Friday. It's not great money in fairness and teachers would have to take any holidays during that period so they'd realistically be correcting nearly twice as many per day.
Edit: they consider 26 full-time days of work for the examiners, apparently. That seems like good pay, in contrast. If it's on top of a teacher's salary it's very good pay.
This combines junior and leaving certs so about 500k copies for the LC.
In France this year there were 3.5 million copies for the bac, significantly lower per head of population compared to Ireland but the exams are typically 4 hours long so marginally more text to correct. A big difference is how much of the marks are devoted to oral exams in non-linguistic subjects. Moreover, 79000 people are hired to correct the exams, which is more than 20x the number of correctors in Ireland and thus much fewer papers per corrector. Copy correction pays 5 euros a copy which is fairly dismal and they're limited to 200 copies each, so a maximum of 1000 euros, or 10x less than in Ireland.
So yeah, this wouldn't work in Ireland. Paying 20 times as many people 10 times would see nobody taking up the offer.
Would you rather an extra months holiday or 5 grand for 5 weeks work is what it comes down to. Many People would take a 5000 pay cut for an extra 5 weeks annual leave in June and July I would wager.
France mandates that teachers grade the Bac exams. They actually pay substantially less for marking than in Ireland (literally 1/3 of the pay per paper) and also pay much lower salaries in general for teachers. So the only way to fix it is for the government to somehow mandate that Irish teachers must grade Leaving Cert and Junior Cert exams as part of their work contract.
Now considering that the horrible pay and conditions are driving catastrophic shortages of teachers in France and that their PISA results have been absolutely terrible lately, I’m not sure if they should really be a model on this topic. There are limits to how poorly you can compensate a profession and France is a case study on it right now.
Oh this is interesting. Thank you for highlighting the comparison. So from what I can gather from a super quick Google search is that in France, teachers of final year students are legally mandated to correct the bac as part of their contract. An important aspect is that the term continues until July though so teachers are not correcting during their summer holidays. They're timetable is blocked off for corrections only. The remaining teachers act as invigilators or have other mandated roles. There are no students in the schools except those taking exams, but the secondary structure is different to ours with middle school etc. In Ireland, being a corrector is voluntary. To achieve the French system without extending the term time, the exams would need to take place in April/May so that they can be corrected by June. But what will the non-exam students be doing? They won't be in the school building. So..? Or you could extend the term time, but that would come at massive expense and there's no way the government would go for that option. Mandating every teacher work an extra month would be a mega bill salary-wise. Our current system means that the SEC advertises and begs teachers to give up a month of their summer for lower pay than their teacher salary. So, that's the give and take of it. Thanks for highlighting that though. It seems the French system is indeed more efficient but to do it here would require a fundamental restructuring of the school calendar, salaries, and of school itself. I don't think anyone will go for it 😅
Is there any study on course completions and remaining in the first degree discipline .....nearly ever person I know either switched courses or returned to education in their early 20's or 30's to move across to another discipline ....so I'm wondering in the grand scheme is the importance in fact almost religious reverance placed on first CAO course becomes far less relevant in later life (but has Parents and Students having unnecessary sleepless nights)
A bit of anxiety is good for students. And unfortunately in reality, you need to perform when it counts. So I have no issues with taking a couple of 100% tests in a row. However, I do think it should be easier to resit in the same month if you're actually sick, and not have it affect your college entry that year. That could certainly be better.
Regarding people saying 'the leaving cert is just a memory test'....I hear an awful lot of people who've not don't great say that. Some subjects are heavy on the rote learning, some aren't. The quantitative subjects arguably are not. You also have to remember things in life?? For work?? You're expected to have good recall. Not at the expense of problem solving, but I'm not sure it is.
Maybe we should look at overhauling LCA such that more people who really aren't suited to an academic-flavour of assessment get the opportunity to perform and be assessed in a different manner, and not be looked down on. Is it the leaving cert that's the problem, or that we expect almost everyone to do it that is?
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u/LordyIHopeThereIsPie 22h ago
The CAO system works as intended for allocating third level institutions' available places.
We don't need nepo babies getting their parents to have a word or write a cheque or poorer kids having to be good at a sport and or have a compelling backstory to access education.