Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 13 May 2021
361. Deputy Bríd Smith asked the Minister for Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science if he will consider the plight of students who sat exams in November 2020 by accommodating these students' course preferences ahead of the class of 2021 given the difficulties they faced, especially with some having had their calculated grades reduced; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [25260/21]
View answer364. Deputy Bríd Smith asked the Minister for Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science if, in the event that points needed are increased for third-level courses, he will make some arrangements for the class of 2020 who sat exams in November 2020 by facilitating their admission based on the 2020 points needed; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [25262/21]
View answerI propose to take Questions Nos. 361 and 364 together.
Universities and Institutes of Technology are autonomous and determine their own procedures for admission. The CAO process applications for undergraduate, and some postgraduate, courses on their behalf.
Decisions on admissions are made by the higher education institutions who then instruct the CAO to make offers to successful candidates. Therefore neither I nor my Department have a function in relation to such matters and it is not within my remit to determine admissions criteria or direct HEIs to admit certain students.
It is my understanding that a total of 632 CAO offers have been made to students whose results in the 2020 written Leaving Certificate examinations brought them into consideration for a higher preference offer from their 2020 CAO application. These students will have the option to take up these offers for the 2021 academic year. Students who sat the 2020 written examinations but did not achieve the points needed for a higher preference offer had the option to apply for the 2021 academic year using their updated results. However any offers made to these students will be on the basis of the 2021 points requirements.
The CAO system is a system that works on the assumption that grades obtained in the Leaving Certificate by candidates determine their points. It is on this basis that the CAO system allocates places to applicants including those from different years. To ensure impartiality, the automatic CAO points systems have been created in a way that does not allow for different treatment to be applied to different sub-groups, or students with results from different years.
