Sir, – William Reville ("Grade inflation", November 4th) worries unnecessarily about the fact that grade distributions in higher education are not the same as they used to be.
Given how much assessment has been transformed in the last 20 years, it would be miraculous if grade distributions had remained the same.
It is worth commenting, however, on his suggestion that employers place less emphasis on grades these days because they can no longer trust grades as a measure of graduate “quality”.
In fact, employers have begun to recognise that performance in the workplace is determined by a whole range of personal attributes, and not just a student’s transcript. This has nothing to do with so-called grade inflation. It’s just common sense.
I see this all the time when I visit my students on Intra, DCU’s work placement programme. Students I might have had concerns about because of their exam performance almost invariably receive glowing reports from employers precisely because their exam performance gives an incomplete picture of their capabilities. This has always been the case.
The world of education, and the world of work, are changing all the time. There was no golden age and we shouldn’t waste time trying to turn back the clock and obsessing about the definition of a first class honour. – Yours, etc,
GREG FOLEY,
School of Biotechnology,
Dublin City University,
Dublin 9.