Colleges set precedent for foundation-level maths

HUNDREDS of institute of technology courses will next week accept students with foundation-level maths for the first time.

As third-level admissions staff and Central Applications Office (CAO) officials gather to decide cut-off points for around 38,000 college places to be offered on Monday, the institutes (IoTs) hit back at suggestions from Education Minister Mary Hanafin that they were excluding those with foundation level maths from most courses.

The Council of Directors of the Institutes of Technology said at least 10 of its 13 members have decided in recent months to accept applicants with an A or B grade at that level for entry to most of their programmes. Of this year’s 5,104 foundation level candidates, 1,965 achieved that mark.

“We have been examining the issue for some time and considered the foundation level syllabus to be a very good basic maths course that would satisfy entry requirements to a lot of courses, except in things like engineering,” said council senior executive Dermot Douglas.

Following this decision, the institutes’ registrars recommended accepting foundation level maths for certain courses to their academic councils.

These changes have been notified to the CAO for selecting entrants to some of the estimated 700 IoT courses in the coming days, although not all colleges made the new minimum entry requirements known in time.

Institute of Technology Sligo director Dr Richard Thorn said its academic council decided in June that an A or B in foundation level maths would meet entry requirements for courses in its school of science and business and humanities.

The Council of Directors expressed disappointment at the tone of Ms Hanafin’s comments on Wednesday, as they felt she was implying an element of snobbishness on their part in relation to foundation level maths.

In the wake of another set of Leaving Certificate maths results with high rates of failure at ordinary level, she had said many students were attempting ordinary level because most institutes would not accept foundation level, even for courses with little or no maths content.

A Department of Education spokesperson said that, while changes may have been made to entry requirements during the summer, this was not apparent from most IoTs’ websites or literature and would not have been known to the majority of CAO applicants choosing their courses up to May 1 so those planning to do foundation level maths might not have applied to courses requiring higher levels at the time.

However, the new entry requirements will also apply to vacant places offered next week on the CAO website, which are open to people who have not already made an application.

Mr Douglas said that prospective applicants can contact the admissions office of the relevant college to check if the amended requirements apply to these courses.

The institutes of technology have recognised qualifications from Post Leaving Certificate (PLC) programmes for entry to their courses since 1995.

“We concentrate on the standard of outcome for our students much more than the level they are coming in with,” Mr Douglas said.