November 11th, 2007
Dr Ferdinand von Prondzynski — crazy name, crazy guy. Now he has come up with a crazy scheme. Von Prondzynski, the president of Dublin City University (DCU), has called for the abolition of the CAO points system for assigning university places. He wants to replace it with a lottery.
If you thought a big Euromillions jackpot could get people in a tizzy, just imagine the frenzy if the country’s 18-year-olds had to rely on the luck of the draw to determine their university courses and, by extension, their future careers?
I’m not sure exactly how von Prondzynski (oh let’s just call him Ferdi for short) thinks such a scheme could be administered. Scratch cards could do the job. The kids would have to match three hard hats to win a place on an engineering course, or three black polo necks for an Arts place. Students matching three stars could send in their ticket for a place on a televised lottery show, where the overall winner would spin the wheel in the hope of getting to study medicine, dentistry or architecture.
The DCU president could not fault this plan on grounds of egalitarianism. Under the current system, a student is unlikely to become a doctor unless they achieve almost maximum points in the Leaving Cert. On CAO Winning Streak, the contestants wouldn’t have to display any intelligence, apart from the ability to wave at their sloshed, placard-brandishing relations in the audience.
Alright, so Ferdi didn’t mean that sort of lottery. He suggested that all students who meet a certain minimum standard could throw their hats in the ring for a place on their preferred course. Rather than requiring a string of As to garner a spot on a sought-after course, all students with, say, 500 points, could sit aptitude tests. Those deemed suitable would then partake in the lottery. A similar system has been used in the Netherlands since 1972 to fill medicine, dentistry and veterinary science courses. Ferdi outlined his lottery idea at a DCU conferring ceremony last week, a day after it was reported that just such a process is being put in place from 2009 for courses in medicine. This followed pressure on the universities from Mary Hanafin, the minister for education. From 2009 on, Leaving Cert results will be combined with aptitude tests in order to find the most suitable candidates for medical training.
The details of the new system are complicated, with points from Leaving Cert results being worth twice those from the aptitude test, except in certain cases, but the idea is that any student who achieves over 480 points will be eligible to sit the aptitude test. Parents please note: the Foley Grind School will be offering exclusive and extremely expensive courses in spatial ability and diagrammatic reasoning from Christmas 2008.
In theory, at least, the combined examination/aptitude test system is a good idea. When the only students who can become doctors are robo-kids who score top marks in the Leaving Cert, we must miss out on some fantastic medics. Because being a doctor requires more than an ability to learn by rote. A good bedside manner, as much of a clichŽ as that might be, is also pretty important.
Medical professionals need to be compassionate more than omniscient. I would rather be treated by a likable doctor who occasionally had to look up unusual symptoms than one who could diagnose on sight but was unable to have a friendly conversation. The use of aptitude tests might prove a more holistic approach to selecting medical students.
In order to assess whether or not the current points system works, it’s worth looking at why certain courses are so difficult to get into. Many teenagers are probably lured by lucre into law and the medical professions. News reports on the earnings of consultants in private practice and barristers at tribunals can’t go unnoticed by bright pupils. Ferdi argues, however, that many high-flying teenagers are currently forced into applying for courses to which they are not suited in order to not to “waste” points.
As a result, he says, Ireland has too many lawyers and not scientists. While it probably seems to most of us that there are too many lawyers full stop, it’s worth pointing out Ferdi has good reason to push kids towards IT and science. DCU is light on medical courses and heavy on degrees involving computers and Bunsen burners. Furthermore, Ferdi is a non-executive director of Skillsoft, an e-learning company that would presumably welcome a larger pool of well-qualified IT graduates. Although he is right to reprove pushy parents and teachers who want to bask in the reflected glory of children getting into medicine, I’m not sure a radical overhaul of the points system is needed. The third-level landscape has changed dramatically in the past decade, with a fragmentation of the old courses and a mushrooming of specialised degree programmes. The increased number of places on offer means that the points race is now limited to a handful of particularly sought-after courses. This year, 76% of applicants to degree courses got one of their first three choices. Among applicants to ordinary degree and higher-cert courses, that figure rose to 96%.
Furthermore, science and technology courses are not unpopular. Earlier this year the Higher Education Authority released a report on “High Points CAO Acceptors”, students who got over 450 points. It found that technology (including science and engineering) courses were actually their most popular selection.
If the vast majority of applicants succeed in getting into one of their preferred courses, where’s the need to complicate matters by introducing a lottery? Extending the new system for allocating medical places to other high-points courses is probably all that’s needed to make the system more equitable. Well, either that or lock parents and teachers into the staff room and leave those kids alone to fill out their CAO forms.
