New Grading System

NOS3 wrote: »

The part that I can't understand is how colleges are going to reduce the amount of courses available. There are a lot of courses to choose from, which is both advantageous and disadvantageous, but many of these courses are undenominated, such as arts, engineering, science, etc. This allows you to specialize later in the course.

I have an interest in the fields of healthcare and science. There is a lot of careers in healthcare which appeal to me, such as Pharmacy, Radiography, Occupational therapy and Biomedical science. In 2017, will there be a general health sciences course which has the option of branching into different fields of healthcare? probably not. :P These courses, along with many others I'm sure, would not work out well as part of a common entry degree. Some of these fields are just too broad. Hopefully I have sussed out the course I want by then.

However, I think that the new idea for bonus points and the new grading system in general could work out well if there is cooperation between the department of education and third level institutions.

Why probably not? That's just you speculating. There are some courses that are pretty specialised and won't easily lend themselves to becoming part of a non denominated system, however an awful lot of courses share common modules in first year.

So while some of the courses you have listed might be very different in their final outcome, first year is quite similar. A non denominated first year health care course could involves some core modules that are common to all students and then it might have a number of electives, which would allow a student to follow one or two paths in second year. For popular courses then such as Pharmacy there may be a limit on the number of students they allow to continue that path in second year.

E.g. in Arts in NUIG (and the other universities) students choose four subjects typically and take two into second year. I know there is a limit in NUIG on the number of students they accept into second year Psychology so only the top twenty (or whatever) in first year can take it into second year, others who have taken it in first year have to choose one of their other electives.

I could see a similar system working for healthcare, reasoning being that you have an equal chance to get into the stream you want in second year if you are good enough and work hard enough.

irishlad12345 wrote: »

i think they should allow students to pick one subject they are particularly good at and give them the bonus 25 points in that particular subject instead of awarding students who are just good at maths. i know that some subjects are easier then others and that it would cause a lot of disruption in the cao process and the bonus points are only there to encourage students to take higher maths but it always seemed unfair to me that because i was losing out by not being good at maths.

Doesn't that just mean that every student would get an extra 25 points automatically and it would make no difference to the overall standings only that everyone would be 25 points higher than they should be?

Mldj wrote: »

This new grading system, in my opinion, is detrimental to thr CAO system. Firstly, giving points for a mark of 30% is a joke. People can get 30% HL with very little work. The reality is if you are liable to get 30% in the HL paper you should do OL. The result of this is that very few people will do ordinary level now, as getting a H8 at HL is easy enough.
Secondly, the fact that the number of courses will be reduced limits our opportunities. there will be less choice available at third level, and many will end up forking out huge sums of money to pay for a masters degree as their undergraduate one was not specialised enough. If you dont know what to do after you leave school, there is always a general arts degree. Why is there a need to reduce the number of specialised courses when a general opion already exists?

As a third year student going into fifth year in september, I am personally very against the new changes.

Reducing the number of courses doesn't reduce your options it simply means you do a common first year and make your choice in second or even third year of college when you are better informed.

Eg. A college might have 4 different engineering courses : mechanical, electrical, industrial and civil. Currently you might have to choose between the four without having experienced any of them. The reality is that course content is pretty much identical in first year and wouldn't be uncommon for all those students to be in the same modules together. However at the end of a common first year you might decide that you actually prefer the mechanical to the electrical having spent a year doing aspects of both and you can make a more informed choice which path to take on into second year rather than going into a rigid degree course structure which you might end up dropping out of it needing to repeat or try and get a transfer.

irishlad12345 wrote: »

i suppose your right i just wish there was someway to make the bonus points system fairer for people that aren't good at maths.

It's also not fair for students who aren't good at languages. Currently students must pass english, Irish and a foreign language for entry to an NUI college and English and either irish or a foreign language for TCD/UL. I realise those rules have been relaxed for some science / engineering courses but I eegularly see lads in particular who are taking ordinary irish and French to meet requirements and struggling with them when they could have a better points score if they could have done a STEM subject instead.

The leaving cert isn't perfect and no matter what is presented it will never suit all students

EoghanIRL wrote: »

Languages aren't solely about speaking a language though.
Achieving a good grade in a language implies a candidate has certain skills which allowed them to achieve those grades. Universities obviously see having a third language as important.

Some people would consider languages to be very mathematical. Understanding comprehensions shows problem solving skills and being able to quickly make sense of situations. Doing well in orals show lots of skills too.
These skills are important is certain professions and in my opinion doing well in a language is a good way to assess whether a candidate has these skills without using an interview system such as in other countries.

You could make an argument to support the Irish system being unfair with regards to lots of aspects. Why fix something that isn't broken.

I'm not suggesting that languages aren't important, but the fact that NUI college entry requirements require 3 languages does skew things in favour of the linguistic student in some cases, when the average student takes 7 subjects for the Leaving Cert.

I find the grammer and structure of languages very logical, but I don't think that is borne out across the country on a wider scale. Looking at the sheer numbers of boys in particular that breeze through science/technology subjects and struggle with languages year after year is testament to that.

Eoghan, first of all, thank you for making with incredible clarity the strongest case for studying modern languages that I have heard from a student for years.

Various issues in play here. There is talk of a relevance bonus coming in where you will get bonus points for subjects that are relevant to the course you are going for. I would very much welcome that. In France, for example, which also requires students to study a wide range of subjects for the Bac (LC equivalent), there have long been streams allowing students to effectively specialise. In that way, people specialising in business might see those subjects, maths and a language count for 1.5 or even 2 subjects whereas history might just be 1.

In terms of Manutd4life's question, as things stand in the LC, I can confirm that major scrutiny is applied to scripts straddling the boundary of an E and a D given the implications for those candidates. It is also the case that the vast majority of those who fail higher level, in my experience, are well above 30%. Therefore, it seems likely that the major scrutiny will now take place regarding scripts very close to 30% and because this effectively becomes the pass/fail point, it seems reasonable that marking schemes will have to be constructed in such a way as a certain number do, unfortunately, drop below 30% in order for the exam to be seen to have full validity.

Those of you going into fifth year are the guinea pigs for a whole new adventure in senior cycle assessment and third level entry. It is vital that you raise your voices and demand real clarity from the outset. The new points system is due to be published early in the autumn. But you need to know if there will be changes to the format of examination papers and the distribution of marks in order to 'fit' the new points system. Another really important thing you need to know is whether 30% really will be the all or nothing cut off point. At the moment, you get a D3 if you get 38%. Will you now actually pass with 28%? You need to ask these questions and keep asking them. School principals and deputy principals have a lot of form in being very favourable to reforms. Cynics say it's easy for them because they don't actually have to teach and face students every day! So I would like to see fifth years knocking on principals' doors before they go to their conferences where they get quality time with the Minister demanding that they come back with real answers to very fundamental questions about how it's going to work and that they do so this year before it becomes critical for you in sixth year.

Hi rainbowtrout. Sorry for the delay in reponding. I think many of the points I've made stand for reasons I'll try to explain although of course you make very good points regarding minimum requirements for courses etc.

Our starting point here has to be the fact that the points system is all about third level entry. In an ideal world, the SEC wouldn't give a damn about bell curves or anything else because there would be a separation between assessing learning outcomes in senior cycle and getting into third level. However, that simply isn't the case. There is an integrated system. If you've examined the LC, you'll know that a point made at marking conferences is the tightness of all the deadlines since the results have to be out in time for fixed dates such as UCAS offers in England. It is the third level institutions that drive matriculation standards but the SEC produces the results that fuel them!

Coming to the specific points. Yes, the notion of pass/fail is going the way of honours/pass. However, again, I can assure you from examining experience that the grade boundaries are taken very seriously. Every year when the spreadsheets are published, percentages for ABC and other key indicators, including 'failure' rates in subjects are the subject of much press scrutiny. So I stand over what I say that wherever the line between no points and some points is drawn will become a major focus in the finalising of marking schemes and scrutiny of examiners' work.

On the question of the 2% tolerance on grade D3 whereby 38% or higher becomes a D3, this is a hangover from the days when the grades were simply A, B, C etc. Arguably, this could have been done away with when the current points system came in but it wasn't. So it is reasonable to ask whether the cut off will be strictly 30% or whether the prevailing logic will apply. There would be many more appeals under the current set up if people were 1 or 2 percent off a D.

There is no point in awarding points for 30-40% unless they are going to count! I agree with you that the universities will require much higher for specialising in particular subjects. But what's the point in bringing this change in if those points won't count?

The real solution that is required here is for higher level papers to focus much more on higher order questioning and reasoning and really push the rote learning down to ordinary level insofar as possible. However, it seems to me that the Minister simply wants to push students to take higher level papers where they don't really have the proper ability to do so. I do feel a little sorry for the ones aiming for top grades because it's going to be a lot harder to teach such a diverse and indeed stubborn cohort.

Eoghanc2 wrote: »

I think the new grading system is unfair to elite students that are aiming for very high points. Students that previously aimed for all A1 and A2's now have to aim for mostly H1's to push ahead of other students as a higher amount of students can get H2's now putting more pressure on the students who previously settled for A1 and A2's. There may be subjects where the student can push themself to get a max of 85% but now by getting 85% they are rewarded in the same way as someone who can only get max 80%. How does the new grading system decrease pressure? Students will now find it harder to move up grades and perhaps have more pressure on them. When there was a gap of 5% between B1 and B2's etc it seperated students in a lesser margin but now someone who gets 80% in tests and someone who gets 89% are placed in the same bracket. I will be the first year using this new grading system and I think it's unfair.

You could argue that about any band, and it's easy to take the top of the band and the bottom of the band to demonstrate that point. What about the student who gets 89% and is given an A2/H2/? Are they that different from the student who gets 90% and gets the A1/H1?

It's not nice being the guinea pigs, but I'd imagine the SEC / CAO have done lots of simulations to see how points will pan out for a variety of grade combinations.

Grade bands are fairly arbitrary from country to country. Up to 1992 here for the Leaving Cert we had grades similar to Junior Cert, A, B, C, D and fail.

I think that the main problem lies with the points for, what is currently considered, a failing grade. The CAO system loses integrity if it awards points to students who got 30% on a higher level paper. Weaker students will now be content with a mark of 30%.

People are saying that it is to stop people from dropping to pass on the day. The harsh reality is that if you are considering dropping as a result of poor performance during the year, you shouldn't be doing higher level.

I also believe that the fact that the points for each grade diminish in a nonlinear fashion will put more pressure on strong students to gain that extra few percent. With the old system, if I were to get 89 percent but was aiming for an A1, I would lose 10 points, or 1.6% of the maximum 600 (ignoring hl maths points). I would lose 15 points, or 2.1% of the max with the new system.