Last week's launch of the Points Commission report went down a treat. The Minister was delighted, Professor Aine Hyland, who chaired the commission, was relieved and educators went home happy.
However, anyone hoping for major changes to the system will be distinctly disconcerted. After two years of intense deliberations, the Points Commission has decided that entry to third level should remain unchanged. Tinkering at the margins apart, the "dreaded points race" will remain. When the Minister launched the commission in October 1997, he did so against a background of points hysteria. College applications were on the increase, but the number of places available had failed to keep pace.
Parents, students and teachers were feeling the pressure as entry points continued to rise. At the time of its establishment, the Points Commission was regarded, in some quarters, as a whitewash job. It was the Minister's way of damping down the hysteria and currying public favour. Something had to be done, the spin told us, and Martin was the man to do it. Since then, however, some of the heat has already been taken out of the points race. In 1998, college applications through the CAO peaked at just over 66,000. This year numbers fell to 65,253 and applications from school-leavers are likely to continue to decline due to demographics. Moreover, additional places and new types of courses have also helped relieve the pressure.
The fact that the commission has failed to come up with a new system of entry to third level doesn't mean that there isn't a better way. The most brilliant inventions and ideas are often the most simple.
Interestingly, the commission found merit in a system of weighted random selection which has been used in the Netherlands to select medical students. However, the lack of public support for this method meant that the commission opted to reject it. This brings into question the value of the consultation process versus expert opinion. While consultation is important, should public opinion be allowed to override the views of experts? Does it result in the best way forward, or is simply a dumbing down?
DESPITE its shortcomings, the report of the Points Commission represents an excellent body of work. It has thrown up a few controversial recommendations - the ending of additional marks for sitting Leaving Cert papers through Irish, for example - and very many welcome ones.
These include quotas for mature students and those from disadvantaged backgrounds. Furthermore, it has commissioned some excellent research papers over the last two years. Research on the demand for third-level places, second-level students' perceptions of the points system and a study of the predictive validity of the points system have made significant contributions to our knowledge and understanding of our education system.
