Someone was always going to cry unfairness at exam grade inflation – minister

There were always going to be cries of unfairness over the way the Leaving Cert was changed to reflect education gaps due to the Covid-19 pandemic, a minister has said.

Patrick O’Donovan, Minister for Further and Higher Education, was responding to questions after more than 56,000 students were offered a college place on Wednesday based on their State exam results.

Grade inflation, which was introduced during the pandemic, has affected this year’s Leaving Cert results again and will see universities having to randomly allocate places for courses in high demand.

Addressing those concerns, Mr O’Donovan said the statistics for this year’s Leaving Cert are “quite positive”.

Of those offered a Level 8 course, 56% are for the applicant’s first preference course, while 83% are for a course in the applicant’s top three preferences.

Mr O’Donovan said the latter figure is “in line” with previous years.

He said 99% of those offered a Level 6/7 course in their top three preferences is an improvement.

“The numbers by and large haven’t fluctuated too much in terms of percentages of people across the board having offers for Level 6/7 and 8,” he said on RTE Radio.

“Obviously there is disappointment, but as Minister for Further and Higher Education, regardless of their career choice, there are a huge amount of different avenues now into higher education.”

He said Minister for Education Norma Foley has been clear about the intention to “rewind” grade inflation introduced during the Covid-19 years to standardise the Leaving Cert results with pre-pandemic years.

“This is the last class that will have had really any formal attachment to Covid considering a lot of this class wouldn’t have sat, for instance, a Junior Cert,” he said.

“It was important that their journey through secondary education was properly reflected.

“We had to be fair, we had to take into account that for an awful lot of students, they had never sat a formal second level exam under the State Examinations Commission.”

He added: “No matter what way this is approached someone was going to cry that this is unfair.

“Covid in its entirety was unfair. For a lot of students they couldn’t even sit the Leaving Cert and they were given predictive grades and in a lot of ways they felt hard done by.

“We’ve now finally washed through the end of that and Norma Foley will begin the process of unwinding that to see what it will mean for the points system.”

Asked about student accommodation, and a claim by the Union of Students in Ireland that there is a shortage of 30,000 units across Ireland, he said purpose-built student accommodation is under way.

He said 100 million euro in funding was given to UCD, DCU and Maynooth to build accommodation and the Government has moved to reduce the length of tenancies for student accommodation from 52 to 40 weeks.

He said he will be seeking “direct capital supports” in the budget for directly-built student accommodation.