More than half of all level eight college courses across Ireland saw a rise in points this year after CAO round one offers went out to students on Wednesday afternoon.
50.6 per cent of courses rose by an average of 23 points. The points increases varied significantly, between one and 211 points.
Almost 41 per cent of courses fell by an average of 21 points, while 8.5 per cent remained the same as last year.
Students received 90,866 round one CAO offers across the country on Wednesday, consisting of 56,618 Level 8 course offers and 34,248 Level 7/6 course offers.
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Sources had indicated that CAO points requirements would fall for information and communication technology programmes this year due to a drop in demand, with a smaller decrease for agriculture and primary teaching.
This has been borne out, with points for primary teaching at Dublin City University (DCU) going from 485 last year in round one to 473 this year.
Computer science at University College Dublin (UCD) dropped from 542 last year to 510 this year.
Agricultural science at UCD dropped from 432 last year to 417 this year.
Applications for veterinary medicine, physiotherapy and medicine all increased. This meant points either rose or remained the same for many of these courses.
Medicine at Trinity College Dublin rose slightly from 739 last year to 741 this year. Veterinary medicine at UCD went from 590 to 589.
Physiotherapy at the University of Limerick fell from 589 last year to 579.
Students who achieved the points required for some of these courses will be put into a random selection process used by the CAO when there are multiple applicants for a course that has fewer spaces available than candidates.
Applicants to a total of 35 courses are being put into random selection, including medicine at Trinity, UCC, the RCSI, UCD, the University of Galway and the University of Limerick.
Just two of these 35 courses are at maximum points of 625 – dental science at Trinity College Dublin and dentistry at University College Cork.
However, Minister for Further and Higher Education James Lawless said this year was the first in several that a student who obtained maximum points would not lose out to random selection.
Speaking after the round one CAO offers, Lawless said students who were “unfortunate” to achieve 625 points and not secure their first choice would have offerings elsewhere for the same courses, saying this was a “positive” when compared to previous years.
Meanwhile, a coalition of education activists said the CAO points system has a “pressure cooker effect” on young learners and needs to be reformed.
The Children’s Rights Alliance (CRA) held a press conference on Wednesday alongside the Irish Second-Level Students’ Union (ISSU), the National Parents’ Union (NPU), the Teachers Union of Ireland (TUI) and the National Association for Principals & Deputy Principals (NAPD), calling for reform.
Many young people would not feel a sense of achievement and excitement on Wednesday, but will have “a stomach-curling dread”, Tanya Ward of the CRA said.
“Maintaining an archaic and anxiety-inducing system to preserve the prestige of university league tables and a hierarchy of professions flies in the face of what our education system should be about,” she said.
“The Government promised this review when entering office and now as we approach halfway of that term and a new school year, we want to see some follow-through.”
The programme for government committed to working “with the sector to reform the CAO system to ensure that young people are best served by it”.
