Leaving Cert shake-up not ‘dumbing down’ exercise

The Government has defended the shaking up of the Leaving Certificate grading system and insisted it is not dumbing down the State’s major examination.

Thu, 30 Apr, 2015 - 01:00

Evelyn Ring

Education Minister, Jan O’Sullivan said the new system was not about lowering standards but making it fairer for students.

“They are intended to better serve students, to encourage them to be ambitious in their choices and reduce the high stress levels that are currently associated with the Leaving Certificate,” she said.

Ms O’Sullivan said the current Leaving Certificate grading system that had remained unchanged for more than 20 years increased pressure on students, because they were only 2.5% away from going up or down a grade. Students were striving to gain minimal percentages increases to achieve higher grades.

The current system was also unfair because no points were awarded to students between 30 and 39% on a higher whereas a student with the same level of ability gets points for getting a C on an ordinary level paper.

A new common points system being developed by the universities and institutes of technology will be published in September. The Minister also welcomed the commitment of higher education institutions to reduce the number of undergraduate courses.

“Too many entry routes into higher education programmes provide a bewildering array of choice for second level students in 6th year and many find this complexity very difficult to successfully navigate.”

The Association of Secondary Teachers, Ireland, (ASTI) said it broadly supported the new model because it would stop students from making choices about the level of study too early.

It would also encourage more students to take higher level because they could gain points even if they did not get high marks. Widening the grade bands would also discourage students from “gaming” the system to get maximum points and from taking subjects to get points.

Institutes of Technology Ireland who welcomed the reforms said students should be encouraged to challenge themselves by sitting higher level papers. IOTI said all too often attention was focused on a small cohort of high achievers. However, fewer than 3% (one in 34) of the Leaving Certificate cohort achieved 550 points or higher, fewer than 10% achieved 500 points while just over one in 4 scored between 300 and 399 points.