College points system corrupts the true meaning of education

THERE’S not a moment to lose. We cannot allow the college points system to die a natural death; we have to get out there and make sure we kill it stone dead. A stake through the heart, that’s what it needs.

I’m sure you’ve been reading, as I have, all the talk in the papers over the past couple of weeks about the end of the points race. For the first time since the system was introduced, there seemed, this year, to be enough college places to go around, and the points requirements for many courses actually fell. Population trends are suggesting it may be some time, if ever, before students face the same pressures for points as they did in the recent past. I’ve even read some suggestions that third-level colleges may have to go out hunting for students in the future.

Well, now’s the time to act. I don’t want to read in another couple of years that points have started to rise again and that students once more are going to be subjected to the absurd and anti-education pressures of this system, the crudest possible manifestation of the law of supply and demand.