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The government must consider whether additional third-tier venues are needed to help thousands of deferred students who may lose out due to grade-level inflation in this year’s results.
A total of 60,000 Leaving Cert students received the highest set of grades ever recorded after their calculated grades were issued on Monday.
While these scores will benefit the class of 2020, grade inflation will devalue the results of at least 10,000-20,000 college applicants whose scores were based on tests they took in previous years.
A spokesman for the Department of Education said the provision of more than 1,250 additional higher education places in “high demand” courses was aimed in part to ease pressure on points.
A senior government source, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said he plans to wait to see how big the problem remains after the CAO’s first round of offers on Friday afternoon.
The hope among policy makers is that a “cascade” effect of the creation of additional third-level seats will free up seats for students and relieve pressure on some points.
The source did not rule out the provision of additional higher education places as a possible solution if thousands of students are still severely affected.
The exact scale of the number of deferred students affected by grade inflation is unclear.
One of those who fear the shock is Ronan Cloney (20) of Co Wexford, who completed his Leaving Cert in 2019 and took a year to work and reapply through CAO this year.
“I understand that applicants like me are not the priority in the current situation, but I really feel like we are falling behind,” he said.
The CAO said a total of 20,201 students were applying for college places this year based on past results.
However, government sources say the actual number affected by ratings inflation is likely to be about half that, as many have already received college offers and are not competing for CAO points.
Meanwhile, CAO sources have indicated that the ratings inflation scale creates “big problems” in trying to assign seats fairly.
Unlike the UK university application system, the Irish system relies on Leaving Cert results being comparable from year to year for the sake of fairness.
Opposition parties have suggested a number of possible solutions, such as increasing the grades of deferred students according to grade inflation or reducing a proportion of university places.
Potential litigation
However, it is understood that the CAO fears that any step like this could expose tertiary universities to potential litigation from students who felt they were unfairly denied places.
Professor Pól Ó Dochartaigh, chairman of the CAO board, has said that the idea of fenced places for college students was problematic as the CAO had no legal basis to do this. If they did, he said universities would expose themselves to potential litigation.
For example, a student in this year’s Leaving Cert student cohort who ended up losing a place at the university because spaces were fenced off could sue the university in question.
“This is not for the third-level sector to solve it by opening us up to litigation. The ball is just and directly on the court of the Department of Education, ”he said.
He also said that the idea of adjusting the grades of previous Leaving Cert students to account for any grade inflation in 2020 was very difficult due to the reduced turnaround time in processing the results.
Any attempt to do this, he said, would likely result in a delay in offerings for all college students and could affect the start of the academic year.
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