Leaving Cert 2021 Grade inflation

I thought it was down to students being allowed to take the higher of the estimated grade or the exam paper. That was always going to lead to grade inflation. It was an interesting experiment though which revealed certain biases that have been suspected but never proven before.

I sat it 16 years ago, and remember hearing hwo it was well known that it was a different beast to 10-20 years prior.

Is anyone reading the thread who sat it 30 odd years ago and heard the same when they sat it?

Probably best to compare past papers to make sure it's not "back in my day"isms at play.

Inflation in anything is problematic and is particularly bad in this case given the effects on people's careers and the undermining of the continuity of the system in a short space of time. What happens next year, will a way need to be found to keep points inflated so that next year's students aren't disadvantaged by having to compete with those who apply for college courses in 2022 with their 2021 points.

CAO points have been trending upwards for many years but at least it was gradual. E.g. the percentage of students achieving 500+ points roughly doubled between 1995 and 2003.

Was the running of aptitude tests in 2021 instead of a traditional LC ever considered. Points inflation could have been avoided by standardising scores to 2019 CAO points. If 500 points was the 90th percentile in 2019 and someone is in the 90th percentile in the aptitude test in 2021, award them 500 points. If the aptitude tests only required minimal study then that could solve another problem - the disruption to the academic year with some students suffering much more than others e.g. cases where there was a covid outbreak in a school or at home, distracting and stressing students and affecting their studies. Then, possibly and depending on personality etc., having a teacher "feel sorry for them" and awarding a generous predictive grade which is obviously problematic.

Headline in the Independent today: 'Number of students with 625 points in Leaving Cert more than doubles.' The real story is that it has increased more than fivefold on 2019. How could they possibly ignore that angle?

I agree with your sentiment but I'm not sure aptitude tests or deflating to historical trends would have resolved anything. What's ignored in the excitement about record points is that the inflation is not uniform. Last year there were many many students aggrieved by their under-performance, many whose teacher-determined grades were marked down by an algorithm. Your suggestion of deflating grades would only have exacerbated that imbalance and brought arbitrary grade-reductions to scandalous levels, all for the benefit of past and future years. In years gone by, with B2, B3, C1, etc, it might have mattered less, but nowadays a grade reduction is a huge penalty. As for aptitude tests, that's a whole other kettle of fish: there are always ways to hack them, hugely controversial, likely to be better predictors of success for some courses than others...

Why isn't the overall score simply the sum of the percentage scores in the top six subjects? Why is it based on grades at all?

I sat it in 1996 and it's as pointless today as it was then. Its sole purpose is to gain points to get into college. If you've no interest in going to college it isn't worth worrying about it. Just do enough to pass it and move on with your life. I've never had any employer show interest at all in how I did in it, was only FAS who required the bare minimum grades to enter the trade I entered.

Similarly if you do want to go to college then study and do well but once you get to college no employer will be interested in your leaving cert, only how you did in college. Told my own son not to worry or stress over it, his future career and prospects aren't set by how he does in this thing, only in what he does after it.

How many times do people miss the blindingly obvious. Grade inflation means that students are being rewarded with a depreciating currency, As in ordinary price inflation the root cause is excess points/money creation. Just as your €100 will buy a lot less than it would have a year ago if inflation were 10% p.a., your depreciated grade-inflated points will not "buy" you the same course as they would have a year ago, But the while process is caused by the average joe getting more points than they would have a year ago, so in real terms they are generally no worse off

Economists often talk about "money illusion" when people tend to confuse nominal changes in income with real changes at a time of price inflation. A lot of people now seem to suffer from "points illusion", exactly the same mistake.

What happens when more people apply than there are places?

I guess for things like medicine there is competition for places so grades and subject choice would matter. They seem to be chasing foreign students so they probably have more capacity than students

jesus christ, when will we ever drop this ridiculous leaving cert/points system, ffs!

You are quite correct. In principle one might adjust for this by upping the 2000 points score by x% or maybe by a constant y points to compensate for the inflation. Of course in 2022 you might have to lower the inflated 2021 grades to "compensate" if you are consistent. I can only imagine the outrage that this would cause among the easily-outraged on Joe Duffy and in the Irish Times.

And so the futile search for perfect fairness in an imperfect world continues....

no question our educational system is academically biased, the whole systems a mess, society needs a good mixture of academically trained and non-academically trained, but degrees are not practically worthless, scarcity of something doesnt always mean its good for society