College boss calls for change to points system

A COLLEGE boss has called for third level institutions to change the entry points system which is causing huge stress to students.

Professor Tom Collins, interim president of the National University of Ireland Maynooth (NUIM), is one of the country’s top education experts and chairs the National Council for Curriclum and Assessment (NCCA), which advises the Government on schools policy, including exams.

He said that colleges may have themselves to blame for their complaints about the abilities of many students in recent years who are unable to meet the demands of third-level education. Many academics have raised concerns about the aptitude of some students in maths and science, for example, with some colleges having to teach basics to new entrants, and certain courses recording very high dropout rates.

“The system works for higher education because it delivers students to lecture theatres with a great degree of ease. But it’s clearly not giving them the right kind of students with the right attitude to learning,” Prof Collins said.

“They are coached for entrance and become accustomed to just learning by rote. Schools are entirely constrained by this albatross created for them by the higher education sector, and we have to look at ways to free them up to respond to the challenges children face in that development phase of their lives,” he said.

Preliminary findings of research for the NCCA have shown that students are losing sleep in sixth year because of exam stresses, but girls are twice as likely to be hit with anxiety as 40% of them lose sleep because of worry. The work was part of a wider study by the Economic and Social Research Institute of 900 students through second level.

It found that females study harder and longer than boys, something which is held up by results of Junior and Leaving Certificate results and in similar grades overseas. The reliance on rote learning is also acknowledged by students, who know they have no choice but to learn specifically for the exams. The research, due to be published later this year, will also reveal the pressure on teachers to focus on test preparation.

The question of how students are selected for entry to third level is not in the terms of reference of a strategy group finalising a report for Education Minister Mary Coughlan on higher education strategy for the next 20 years. But Prof Collins said there could be an argument for a repeat exercise of a commission on the points system, whose 1999 report found it was fair and more transparent than selection methods in other countries.

He said alternatives worth looking at might include random selection of students above a set number of Leaving Certificate points who have achieved a minimum grade in certain subjects relevant to their chosen course. He said the use of portfolios could be widened to include, for example, social science students showing their involvement in the local community or applicants to literature courses showing their creative writing.