NUI to be dissolved

Red_Marauder wrote: »

However, you made a direct correlation between smart students and leaving cert points. That just can't be done with any degree of confidence.

Academic ability and results - I would be careful about a direct correlation between leaving cert points and intellect, or whether intelligence alone entitles one to go to college.

While you are correct to say that points required to gain entry to University have not risen, this is because of a huge increase in availability - a flood in the market of available places, if you will.

Irrelevant. It does not matter why the points have gone up or down, only that they have, allowing people with lower academic scores to enter college.

Lets be clear here, points have, after all, risen. That has been the trend.

Points for entry into courses? Looking briefly at the figures for the last ten or so years, they've decreased. Overall LC standards may have improved and more students may be getting more points in general, but that is not what we're addressing.

You cannot ignore the possibilities of revision courses, a huge variety of new publications, the increasing availability of past papers, the formation of a very user friendly SEC which now provides teachers and students with sample 'ideal' answers for exams, detailed marking schemes, and so on. Then there has been the rise in availability of specialist preparatory schools for maximising points, such as The Institute of Education, increased funding for schools generally, and increased access to information resources such as science multimedia and internet resources that were not around 20 years ago.

Actually most of these were around 20 years ago. Even if not what is the relevance of these to people with lower scores getting into college?

I'm not saying that I know for a fact that standards have changed. I just think it is interesting that you provide no such evidence, and do not seem to take the above into account.

I've supplied a link to the points requirements for the last ten years. I can also, from memory, estimate (as points were calculated differently in my day) that the requirements for courses such as commerce, engineering, science and even arts have dropped since the eighties. Finally, there's no shortage of material on the Interweb that also comments on the drop in entry requirements over the last two decades.

As to taking 'the above' into account, how is any of that relevant to lower entry points into courses?

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brianthebard wrote: »

I didn't think you were discussing statistics either, you asked what the possibilities of a student improving at third level was, the answer which I'm sure you know is far more complex than whether they got a lot of points or not, for reasons I mentioned and others.

You're not making sense. You mentioned numerous facilities that should improve students prior to third level, for their LC. And most of these have been around for decades, so either way their citing is irrelevant.

Even if students changing their academic level in college does happen, it is the exception rather than the rule - mediocre students do become brilliant ones, but generally they don't. You seem to want to rely upon these exceptions to prove your point, and that too makes no sense when discussing trends.

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T.W.H Byron wrote: »

No matter how good your Degree is, be it a 2.2 or a 1.1, it is only as good as the person who has "achieved" said qualifications. A moron with a 1.1 is still a moron where as a hard worker and intelligent person with a 2.1 is still intelligent.

Absolutely. And when you can add "hard worker and intelligent person" to your degree parchment and CV, I think everyone will take that home truth far more seriously.

nesf wrote: »

Employers aren't stupid, they figure out very quickly if a degree course is handing out high marks too easily.

Eventually. It's not so easy to write off colleges in a country as small as Ireland - you'd run out of places you take seriously very quickly.

College reputations are built up over time. You don't hand in your CV in a vacuum unless you're very far from your alma mater.

That's the important thing though, and when you are very far from your alma mater you do worry about these things as only one bad experience from someone who did their degree twenty years after you and turned out to be not as good as the piece of paper claimed can have an affect on you with a HR department. Assuming they have ever heard of your college and trust the quality of your qualification in the first place - that your bits of paper are recognised and taken seriously is a big issue out there.

nesf wrote: »

Sure but it's a big problem for all small universities.

It's not a question of being a small university, it's of being a university - full stop. I've seen hundreds of CV's on my desk over the years, many from foreign applicants. In many cases they have studied in degree factories and the quality of their degrees (even though they are officially recognised in their country) is questionable. An Irish university may have the advantage of being in the EU, but outside of Trinity and, perhaps, UCD - you might as well have come from a degree factory in Mumbai.

This was one of the advantages that the NUI gave the lesser known colleges.

The Corinthian wrote: »

Actually most of these were around 20 years ago. Even if not what is the relevance of these to people with lower scores getting into college?

The CAO points requirement for any individual course signifies the points that the worst academically performing students in that course got. The median level of points of course participants is a far more reliable marker of trends than the lowest scores of entrants, which is what you keep referring to.
If a course has ten places, nine people have 600 points and the tenth only got 200 points, then the entry requirement is listed as 200. You cannot use entry points as a reliable indicator of the intelligence of university entrants.

I've supplied a link to the points requirements for the last ten years. I can also, from memory, estimate (as points were calculated differently in my day) that the requirements for courses such as commerce, engineering, science and even arts have dropped since the eighties.

Of course they have. Back then, you could repeat you leaving cert to combine the points you got over two years! It was crazy, people did it to get artificially high points for commerce, engineering, science, and even arts. That's what i would have called grade inflation.

Finally, there's no shortage of material on the Interweb that also comments on the drop in entry requirements over the last two decades.

But there are many thousands more places available, it is common sense that this will lower the entry requirements in general. If you suddenly let the top 120,000 applicants study at third level when it used to be 20,000, what do you expect?
Can you please explain how you think one can increase college places and prevent entry requirements from falling excatly?

nesf wrote:

there is huge pressure on departments to pass students. This is further complicated because funding is distributed based on how many students you have, not how good the students you produce are. This results in a necessary dumbing down of degree courses to not fail the increased numbers of lower skilled students entering the systems. .

Firstly, funding for a particular department is not dependant on student numbers in itself - engineering departments need far more funding than theology departments. Student funds go to the University administrators, it has nothing to do with people marking exam papers.
Furthermore, why would failing students cause a problem with funding? If you fail, the university gets an extra year of funding which you pay for yourself in a private capacity.

donegalfella wrote:

Increasingly, employers are instituting their own exams and tests, because they simply cannot trust academic evaluations to have any objective basis.

What do you mean increasingly? I know a tiny minority of companies who have entrance exams. Where is this happening increasingly?

donegalfella wrote: »

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Are you quite sure that this isn't because of a surge in demand of students with identically good degrees, who pre-bust would not have been so keen in their jobsearches?
I know that a new graduate replaced me when I left my last job. My boss chose her because the applicants who got to interview had the same degree, the only difference with her was that she knew his wife. I'm sure if he ran a much larger business, he would have considered resorting to entrance exams.

The most interesting aspect of that article you posted was this

She insisted it was "quite an incorrect" assumption that standards had fallen -- particularly in the university sector, and contended that improvements in staff teaching had led to improved student learning.

"If you examine the percentage of males in the medical field back in 1963, you find that 70pc of them had less than 300 points. In law 80pc had less than 300 points and in commerce 70pc had under 300 points."

By the way, Martin O'Grady who made the comments you have posted is that same person who you (or I think it was you) quoted before. He is the most quoted person in this thread by people who believe in grade inflation - he's the guy who works in Tralee IT and runs that website. His articles on grade inflation have not been published in any journal based on the higher education database journals I've searched on.
He, and the other two members of his campaign, rely totally on the fact grades have risen to attempt to prove that standards have fallen.

He also provides zero evidence to show that what he says is true about employers not having the same regard for Irish degrees anymore. Where is his evidence of this?

Look, I'm not dismissing the possibility that grade inflation exists. I am entirely open to the idea. I just think that saying "grades are up, therefore standards are falling" is as clear a logical non sequitur as you can have. You need to provide a clear link to show there is a relationship.

Rising grades are not enough.

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Scofflaw wrote: »

one cannot assume that standards are either rising or falling, although evidently something has changed.

Absolutely correct.
I am not a university student anymore. I pay income tax, I contribute towards my pension, I work strange and uncompromising hours when my college friends are still in bed hungover, grumbling about falling standards compared to "my time" would be one sweet pleasure, but I just don't see any supporting facts.

My view would be that in the absence of other evidence, we should look (a) at the quite well-reported grade inflation elsewhere (such as the US), and not assume that Ireland constitutes some kind of sui generis which bucks yet another global trend; and (b) motive - is there a clear motive for universities to engage in grade inflation without any corresponding increase in academic ability?

I think these are the strongest arguments made for the evidence of grade inflation so far in this thread and this thread's predecessor.

On the other hand, a report linked to earlier in this thread showed the minutes of a Trinity College Academics meeting where an external examiner had remarked on the low proportion of first class hons. degrees awarded compared with our UK counterparts.

Both of those factors point to the view that Irish grade inflation is most likely the same phenomenon as elsewhere - once a degree is seen primarily in terms of its job market potential, and potential entrants and sponsors begin to look at universities in the light of post-graduation employment prospects, there is a competitive advantage to be gained for each institution in giving better grades to their graduates, followed by pressure for other institutions to 'keep up'.

That is certainly a possibility, and I wouldn't be surprised if it were the case in some situations - nobody wants to be seen to be failing half of the graduating year.
Now this will vary hugely depending on the nature of the course at hand. In science, mathematics, engineering and medicine, it is very difficult to "swing" a student's results up. Students are answering questions of fact, as opposed to dealing what would appear to be a largely more subjective field like literature or philosophy in the arts.

That suggests, in turn, that anyone claiming the rise in good grades reflects better pedagogic methods or a brighter/harder-working student body, should really be required to demonstrate this by rather more than mere reference to the rising grades themselves.

Well, again, I'm not advocating any one position here. I think it is a fact that academic facilities have improved enormously, but would I be willing to put money on that being the cause of better grades? Maybe not.

There is not one single position here that should be taken as fact without the corroboratory evidence.
You cannot advocate a change in educational policy, at cost to the taxpayer without (a) proving that a clear problem exists, explaining the causes of that problem (b) the problem is linked to a specific remedy.

So far we have the alleged problem: basically better grades coming out of university. There is no clear link to standards falling or standards rising - so do you want the Department to pour in funds to an already money-guzzling system without any clear evidence.

To the people who keep referring to Martin O Grady (lecturer in tralee) and the campaign he has formed with two others, can I ask, why are these papers not printed in any journals? Why do they quote no other Irish academics but themselves? Why do they not bear any reference to Tralee IT? And should we really take as unbiased, "research" that is actually part of a campaign? A first year student in just about any course should be able to tell you the answer to that is a large NO.

donegalfella wrote:

Can you really compare CAO points in 1963 with CAO points today? The curriculum has been changed radically, and many subjects have been made easier—ask anybody who did honours maths back in the 1980s, for instance.

That's like some old lady going on about the evils of microwave food. You know what wholesome food they all ate when old ladies were young? Tinned food.
Firstly, people will always be nostalgic about how hard it was for them back in the day and are prone to exaggerate how hard they had it.
Secondly, how can they compare?
How can you compare a maths curriculum after about 10 - 20 years with any degree of objectivity? Especially if you have gone down the maths or maths teaching route - and parametric equations are now the doddle that they certainly weren't when you were seventeen.

donegalfella wrote:

This means that 66 percent of graduates are getting one of the top two possible grades—and you have to be in the bottom third of your graduating class to get below a 2:1. This would have been patently ridiculous to anyone who went through the system before the mid-1990s.

So would the internet, blackberries, online lectures, and the idea of Trinity's Humanities Departments being in the World Top 30. There are many possibilities to explain this rise, falling standards being only one of them.

You quoted a psychology lecturer (from Tralee IT) who said businesses are not taking Irish degrees seriously. What business leader has actually come out and said this?

nesf wrote:

Base funding is student numbers based, additional claims can be made for lab equipment etc... Failing students is a problem because pressure is put on lecturers to pass them from further up the chain of command.

But why would there be? Like I said, the university gets the same funds if the government pays or if the student pays for his repeat tuition fees himself. In effect the university gets an extra year of tuition fees. Explain why would they bother applying that pressure to not fail students for any sort of financial gain?

T.W.H Byron wrote: »

I think the days of having a long term career on a single Bachelors Degree have been gone for a while now in my opinion.

You started seeing it a bit in the late eighties, but it really came into its own in the ninties as business and marketing PgDips started appearing, many EU funded at first.

Twenty years ago very few graduates felt the need to do (or did) postgrads, with the exception of professional ones (so as to qualify as a solicitor, barrister, accountant, etc.) and you generally only did a masters if you wanted to become an academic - although the some of the sciences were a little different in that postgrads were already popular due to the quasi-academic nature of a lot of the jobs.

donegalfella wrote: »

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Yeah, I remember a chap who wanted to do a masters but got a third and so had to do an MAQ for a year.

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