The Irish Times reports a worried Minister for Education is going to investigate the possibility of grade inflation in Irish education. One wonders if the Minister is drawing on the same number of conversations (2) that he did when suggesting lecturers teach too few hours.
The article states
It is widely expected that the reviews now under way will find clear evidence of grade inflation. Previous studies show the percentage of first class honours degrees awarded in Irish universities has almost trebled since the mid-1990s. The number of students securing the perfect Leaving Cert is up 500 per cent.
I’m not sure how a five fold improvement in the Leaving Cert and a three fold improvement at the top in third level is evidence of grade inflation- well, at third level anyway. If anything it suggests that the third institutes are getting tougher since better ‘raw material’ is not translating into a corresponding improvement in firsts.
Perhaps this will now be evidence of the poor performance of third level academics.