At the risk of sounding like a snob, there are a few possibilities that might explain why somebody achieved a leaving cert result of 250 points out of a possible 625.
One of those possibilities is that they are a brilliant individual whose particular talents simply did not suit academic study. Perhaps they are a star in sports, or a brilliant creative. Another possibility is that they had a bad year and had a personal tragedy or a bad breakup that prevented them from studying.
And another possibility is that they are simply a person of average to slightly below average intelligence or academic ability. There’s no shame in that, but it’s a real possibility. Not everyone is the same.
I mention it because one of the things about the CAO system every year is that you can use it to divine the base level of academic performance for people entering various courses. The weakest person entering law school at Trinity College Dublin this year, for example, will have achieved 578 out of 625 points. That suggests that even the weakest student in that course is a person of very considerable academic ability, as we might expect.
At the same time, 320 points will get you into education studies (primary teaching) at Marino College, from whence you may graduate to become a primary school teacher.
This is no shade on existing primary school teachers: Points vary by year, and besides, 320 is the minimum required. It may be that there are some very smart people doing that course who scored a lot more than that.
What it does tell us though is that the demand to become a primary school teacher is so low relatively speaking that the people who end up doing it may, in some cases, be people of below average academic ability themselves. And that as such, the people entrusted in the future with nurturing students of the next generation may not have had to cross a particularly high academic bar to get the job.
I pointed out on twitter yesterday that the same is true of journalism: For a profession that is ever-present and very influential in most people’s daily lives via the news on radio or in a paper, the 409 points it takes to get into the top journalism course in the country in DCU is…. not enormously onerous.
Again, at the risk of sounding like a snob, there’s an old saying about paying peanuts and getting monkeys. If primary school teachers were paid what Trinity Law graduates are paid, we might find that the points for teaching suddenly soared. If journalists were able to turn their work into reliable income that didn’t require government subsidy, we might get slightly sharper and less conventional minds in the media.
This I think speaks to a wider problem with the CAO system that is unlikely ever to change, since it is one of those things that – for whatever reason – Irish people have decided “works well” and therefore need never be improved.
That problem, in short, is that sheer supply and demand is a terrible way to match young people with potential careers. Consider this: In the 2021/22 academic year, almost a third of students enrolling in “level 7” courses in Irish third level institutions dropped out inside the first year. At level 6, that figure was 25%. And at the most elite undergraduate level – level eight – just under one in six students did not complete their first year.
What does this tell us? It tells us that lots of students are picking courses that do not suit them or their abilities, and that a system which simply allocates based on supply and demand is not properly matching students to courses that suit their particular abilities. It is a dead certainty that amongst the high achievers in the Trinity Law Course, there are more than a few who would be tremendous teachers or brilliant journalists, but prove to be poor lawyers. But those with academic abilities are being directed, via the incentives of the CAO system, to pursue courses based on perceptions of prestige and income, rather than suitability.
The other problem, of course, is that far too many people are going to college.
Here’s a controversial statement, and people can fight with me about it if they wish: There are third level courses available in Ireland for people who achieved 250 points. Those people, by and large, should not be in third level at all. They have been tested by the academic system and proven to be of below average academic ability. Many of them, however, would be brilliant and skilled mechanics, or tradesmen, or builders, or carers, and so on. And some of them, frankly, might have happier lives in a low-skill job being active in their communities. Directing such people into three or four year degrees in “business studies” is transparently, I would argue, a waste of time.
We can do better by our young people than this system. It directs too many of them down paths to which they are unsuited. The result is a lot of young people spending valuable years doing courses they don’t like to end up in jobs they find unsatisfying. You’ll never convince me otherwise.
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