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A young woman who scored 613 points on the 2019 Leaving Certificate filed a Superior Court challenge claiming that the way Leaving Cert scores were standardized this year has had an unfair impact on her ambition to pursue a career in dentistry.
Martha Woods, Millbrook House, Murragh, Enniskeane, Co Cork, said that points for dentistry at UCC increased this year from 590 points to 613.
All final applicants for that course scored 613 points and places were assigned by random selection and she was unable to get a place.
When his action was presented today before Judge Charles Meenan, he accepted that it was a “very important” matter, but expressed concern about the ability of the courts to accommodate early hearings of a multiplicity of cases related to the qualification process of the Leaving Cert 2020.
He said he will treat another case started earlier this week as the lead case addressing issues with the 2020 exit certification process and he hoped to give him an early hearing date.
That case is from Aine Finnegan, from Fairview, Dublin, who missed a place in Medicine at Trinity College Dublin by two points after three of her calculated grades were lowered.
The judge hoped that the outcome of the Finnegan case would decide some or all of the issues raised in other cases, adding that parties in other cases may seek to join the main case.
In those circumstances, the judge told Pearse Sreenan SC, instructed by Amy Connolly, Cantillons Solicitors, for Ms. Woods, that she was adjourning for next week her request to start the judicial review process against the Minister of Education , the State Examinations Commission, the State. , CAO and UCC.
Describing the case, Sreenan said the Woods 2019 ratings were assessed this year using a “completely different” system that involved 4.4% rating inflation, with the effect that it was assessed in the same basket as other applicants who have the benefit of the inflation rating.
That violates their right to equality and creates an injustice and “imbalance” that the Department of Education, the CAO and the UCC have not taken steps to address, he said.
If the Department is unable or unwilling to increase the scores of Leaving Cert students who came before 2020 by 4.4%, the CAO and UCC have discretion to take into account the fact that she did not go through the process of 2020 but it did not and was using “a one-size-fits-all approach” for people who have gone through different processes.
In his affidavit, Woods said that he had secured a place in physical therapy at the University of Limerick for the 2019/2020 academic year but realized shortly after starting that course that he did not want to pursue that career.
He decided to reapply for a place in Dentistry at UCC in the 2020/2021 academic year and hoped to get one on the basis that 590 points was the requirement, he had 613 points, and over the years, the points for that course ranged from 580 to 590.
He also expected that the Leaving Certificate results in 2020 would be standardized to ensure that the average points earned would remain largely constant.
In your 2020 CAO application, you identified Dentistry and Pharmacy at UCC as your first and second preference, but you would have identified Dental Science at TCD if you believed there were risk scores and the points awarded to students in 2020 “would not be standardized. with previous years “results”.
After the coronavirus emergency measures were introduced, he contacted the CAO for an update on the position of applicants who completed their Departure in 2019 and had applied for a place at the university in 2020 and received a response. general.
She understood, from a guide on grades calculated for 2020 Leaving Cert students, that grade standardization would be applied to ensure that the results and points obtained by students in 2020 are in line with those achieved in previous years.
When the place offers were published, she was “shocked and surprised” that the points had increased so significantly and was very disappointed when she was not offered a place in the UCC Dentistry course.
She had reluctantly accepted a place in Pharmacy at UCC “but my absolute career choice is dentistry” and would move on to a Dentistry course as soon as she could, even if that required re-applying for CAO next year.
She was “extremely disappointed” in the way she was treated, “disenchanted by the whole system” and had suffered “significant stress, anxiety and discomfort.”
If you are not offered a place in Dentistry at UCC this year, that would mean a year late in earning a dentistry qualification and seeking employment as a result, he said.
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