Inflated Leaving Cert grades will begin to reduce in stages from next year, Minister for Education Norma Foley has pledged.
While students’ marks this year were increased by an average of 7.5 per cent to keep them in line with previous years, following a direction from Ms Foley, she said the adjustment next year will be lower.
“From 2025 we will see the adjustment reduced over time, step by step,” Ms Foley told reporters in Co Kerry on Friday. “The State Examinations Commission will determine how long that will take. I am very clear that it shouldn’t be a cliff edge; it should be a very small reduction over a number of years.
“That will give an opportunity for students to return to pre-Covid levels ... while also acknowledging that it shouldn’t happen all of a sudden.”
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Grades surged during the Covid-19 era due to the use of teacher-predicted marks for the first time and measures aimed at giving candidates more choice in exams to make up for disruption to their education.
These high grade levels – which have been maintained for a fifth successive year – have knock-on consequences for CAO points.
A number of senior higher education figures have expressed concern that high grades are making it difficult to differentiate between top candidates, given so many students are achieving top marks.
However, the Minister has pledged to begin a “phased” approach to returning Leaving Cert results to more normal patterns next year.
It is likely that colleges will have to use random selection to choose candidates in some high-demand and high-points courses when college offers issue next Wednesday.
The move to keep grades inflated will also disadvantage students from Northern Ireland and further afield who have applied for university places here.
A-level results in the UK, for example, have returned to pre-pandemic norms, which means students there are competing with Irish candidates on inflated grades.
If plans to begin reducing grades to more normal levels begin next year, it likely that they will still be artificially boosted, but at a lower level.
Exam officials have said next year’s postmarking adjustment will aim to bring Leaving Certificate results in the aggregate to a point broadly midway between the 2020 and 2021 level.
This would see results fall to about 5.5 percentage points above pre-Covid averages from 2025.
It would likely take a number of further reductions over the following years for grades to return to normal levels last seen in 2019.
Ms Foley, however, said this will be a matter for the State Examinations Commission.
Some university figures have also criticised Leaving Cert grade inflation on the basis that it distorts academic achievement.
Some registrars have said more students are struggling in demanding university courses on the back of gaining entry to courses with inflated grades, leading to a rise in dropout rates.
However, other registrars say an increase is dropout rates is more likely to reflect a return to more “normal” non-completion rates after courses retained record numbers of students during the Covid pandemic.
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