Leaving Cert: Grade inflation to end with 'gradual return to normal'

Vivienne Clarke

Minister for Higher Education Simon Harris has said that he thinks there should be an end of grade inflation in the Leaving Cert and a gradual return to normal.

“But how you do it matters,” he told RTÉ radio’s Morning Ireland.

Minister for Education Norma Foley had been correct in her approach this year as a cliff edge needed to be avoided, he said. “There needed to be a fairness to a Leaving Cert student this year applying to the CAO who might have also been seeing Leaving Cert students from previous years applying.

“But despite the grade inflation this year, we've seen more students getting their first choice this year than any recent year at all. And we've actually seen college points fall for 60 percent of courses yesterday.”

CAO offers

Grade inflation would not be stopped in one year. It should start from next year in a gradual fashion, he said. Huge progress had been made by the Department of Education this year in getting the results date back to August and getting CAO offers back to August.

“So this year has been a relatively normal year in terms of the Leaving Cert process and I think that now provides the space and the bandwidth from my Department and the State Examinations Commission to begin a discussion about how you unwind grade inflation. But I do think it should be done over a number of years.

“I think we do need to move beyond grade inflation. But I think we also need to recognise that we didn't we didn't get here by design. We got here in a response to a global pandemic and the education system and education partners in both the school system and the education system have been working to deal with it.

"Now, as we move beyond the pandemic, we do need to look at how we can unwind it. And I know my colleague, the Minister for Education, is really committed to that.”

When asked if he had been consulted by the Minister for Education about grade inflation this year, Mr Harris said there had not been any consultation, nor should there have been. “I fully support the Minister for Education's decision in relation to this. What she was endeavouring to do was make sure that there was a fairness for the Leaving Cert students and from my perspective, at a higher education level, what we've actually seen is more Leaving Cert students getting their first choice this year than last year.

“We've seen 85 per cent of students getting their top three choices up on last year. And crucially, and this is important for context, we've seen points fall. We've seen the first fall in medicine places in many years. And 60 percent of courses yesterday saw their points fall. So overall, I actually think the system has worked reasonably well this year.”

College fee reduction

Mr Harris said he hoped that a fee reduction of €1,000 for the college registration fee could be included in this year’s Budget, but he did not want to pre-empt the Minister for Finance.

“It's certainly something I'd like to see happen, but I can't obviously preempt the budget. Both the fees and the grants were important measures in last year's budget, reducing fees and increasing grants. And I'd like to see us continue on that path.”

Mr Harris pointed out that the student registration fee of €3,000 brings in about €90 million a year, “so it's about €270 million to scrap the student registration fee, and it won't be done in one go.

“What we did commit to as a government was every year we publish a cost of education paper that would show the various ways you could reduce the cost of education. Last year we managed to reduce fees by €1,000 on a one-off basis. But I didn't just do this. I permanently reduced fees by €500 for any family with household income of less than €100,000. And I want to try and build on that.”