Number of deferrals expected to increase as points set to ease
Next year’s Leaving Certificate grades will be, on average, 2pc lower than this year’s. However, this unwinding of inflated grades carries the “potential for litigation”, according to the outgoing president of the University of Galway.
Professor Ciarán Ó hÓgartaigh wants a dialogue between the various stakeholders on how to manage a situation where future CAO applicants will be competing against previous years’ students who have higher grades.
“How could you make that system fair if you’ve got two students competing for one place and one student has higher grades because they were inflated and the other doesn’t?” he said.
Prof Ó hÓgartaigh suggested getting legal advice on how universities could ring-fence some places for students from different years.
“I would certainly think we need to have that conversation early so we can plan ahead and have the advice that we need in order to do something different,” he said.
So far, no other senior university leader has publicly supported his radical proposal, which was made on RTÉ Radio 1’s This Week programme last Sunday.
However, one told the Irish Independent: “The number of students involved is not that big and we don’t want to overcomplicate things with changes like ring-fencing places for different years. We prefer a wait-and-see approach.”
They hope the pressure on some high-points courses will be eased by additional places, especially in the healthcare disciplines.
They are also awaiting the long-promised announcement of at least one new veterinary school, which they believe will be made before the next general election.
The universities will also be watching with interest the number of deferrals this year, which is expected to increase.
The accommodation crisis in some university cities is one reason. A senior administrator predicted some applicants will put off starting college this autumn in the hope the situation will improve next year.
If large numbers defer, it could mean fewer places on certain courses for new applicants next year.
Some who narrowly failed to get into the course of their choice yesterday also know they will stand a better chance next year when points start to ease.
If a student defers, they have to re-apply to the CAO again. Next time around, they can only put the deferred course code on the application form. If they list more courses, they will forfeit that guaranteed place and enter the competition for places in the normal way.
However, some will take the risk of applying for it next year on the assumption the points will drop. A few will see it as a safe bet.
Besides, they can also apply for something else more to their liking with higher points than next year’s class will have.
Of course, the reason so many people are going to college in the first place is to try to ensure a brighter future for themselves. If the world’s political and economic systems don’t go completely crazy, those entering higher education and staying the course will get jobs much quicker than those without.
The European Centre for the Development of Vocational Training, Cedefop, says: “Ireland is expected to see a continued increase in the share of the higher qualified in the labour market. While the share was 52pc in 2022, it is expected to increase to 59pc by 2035, well above the EU-27 average.”
Its latest skills forecast for Ireland warns, however, that some of our high-level graduates will take jobs from those with lower qualifications.
A good example is clerical jobs, where the number of workers with low and medium qualifications is forecast to decline up to 2035, whereas an additional 41,000 with high qualifications will be employed in these roles.
In service and sales roles, those with low qualifications will be squeezed out and an increasing number of their jobs will go to those with medium and high-level qualifications.
We can already see that trend in many coffee shops, where bright young baristas are often over-qualified for the job.
“The high share of high-level graduates in Ireland means that some graduates are employed in jobs below their skill levels,” the Cedefop report says.
Not all, obviously, as many more will get highly paid jobs. Indeed, graduates will get the lion’s share (90pc) of the new jobs being created in the economy, it predicts.
Cedefop is an agency of the EU. When we joined the European Economic Community in 1973, we had 1,067,000 people at work in Ireland. Back then, nobody predicted this would triple to 3,021,000 by 2035, as the EU is now doing.
If somebody did, the response would have been predictable: “Well, that beats Banagher.”