Sir, – As a parent with three children at the European School in Brussels, the eldest due to sit her European Baccalaureate in 2025, I was glad to see Sarah Ironside’s letter (September 3rd) highlighting the concerns of parents.
Like many of the 2024 cohort, my eldest daughter also hopes to study at an Irish university.
However, unlike her friends from the Dublin primary school she attended up to sixth class, an unfair grade conversion table and the ongoing inflation of Leaving Certificate grades mean that as a European Baccalaureate student, she will struggle to access her chosen degree programme.
Over the past year, our group of parents from the European Schools in Brussels has written to the presidents of all Irish universities, to the Irish Universities Association and to the Minister of Education Norma Foley expressing our concern at this unfair system.
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The convention defining the State of the European Schools (1994), to which Ireland is a signed member, states: “Holders of the European Baccalaureate obtained at the School shall . . . be entitled to seek admission to any university in the territory of any Member State on the same terms as nationals of that Member State with equivalent qualifications.”
It is clear that with the ongoing inflation of Leaving Certificate results this is no longer the case.
We believe that in the current circumstances if inflation is applied to Leaving Certificate students, then it should be applied to all school leaving students. That way our children can access Irish higher education on an equal footing to their Leaving Certificate equivalents, just as Irish students access universities across Europe each year. – Yours, etc,
Dr VICTORIA BRUCE,
Brussels,
Belgium.