When will there be ever a good time to end the ‘Norma bonus’?

The allocation of additional places in high-demand courses and the reduction in high grades due to an unfairly challenging higher level (HL) maths paper have saved Norma Foley’s bacon. The clamour about why the Education Minister instructed the State Examinations Commission (SEC) to institutionalise grade inflation through postmarking adjustment has mostly subsided.

This populist instruction to the SEC cannot be unconnected to the possibility of a future general election where she would be painted as the Minister who made the class of 2023 suffer even more.

But when will there be a good time to end grade inflation? England A level and GCSEs and grades are now more or less back to pre-Covid levels. Wales and Northern Ireland have begun the process, although in a less steep fashion than England.

There has been some backlash that fewer students from England have received their first choice place at university this year. More had to depend on the ‘clearing’ system, that is, applying for courses in universities where there are still spare places.

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There is a highly controversial 25 bonus points available for anyone who gets a H6 (40 to 49 per cent) in HL maths

Yet in England, 79 per cent of students received their first preference of university this year, even after ending grade inflation.

In Ireland, just under 60 per cent of CAO applicants have secured their first-choice college course this year, with 85 per cent securing one of their top three. The UCAS application system is entirely different from our CAO but nonetheless, it is striking that far fewer Irish students get their first preference.

We are now in the fourth year of adjusted grades for Leaving Cert. This year, not a single mark was reduced and students can see on their scripts the total marks allocated to each component and also, the postmarking adjustment – or in other words, the Norma bonus.

The SEC issued a detailed explanation of how the assessment and marking were adjusted.

There is an important distinction to be made between adjustments to the assessment process (examination format, coursework demands and so on) and the adjustments made afterwards to the marking. By and large, the adjustments to assessment were a good thing. For example, there was no choice on the higher level Leaving Cert maths paper before Covid. This was very unfair, given the level of choice that there is on most (though not all) papers. A greater level of choice should be retained, not just in maths but in other subjects, as it eases stress.

However, the postmarking adjustment has far-reaching consequences. The SEC has explained that this year, results were lower across the board than the unadjusted marks of 2022. The 2023 adjustment results in an average adjustment of 7.9 marks, while in 2022 the average adjustment was 5.6 marks.

There is a highly controversial 25 bonus points available for anyone who gets a H6 (40 to 49 per cent) in HL maths. If someone received 38 per cent in HL maths but was adjusted upwards afterwards to 45 per cent, instead of receiving 37 CAO points for an H7, they will now receive 46 points for a H6 plus 25 bonus points – 71 CAO points in total.

This is a massive difference. It is most stark in relation to HL maths but the postmarking adjustment will mean that some students will benefit disproportionately in other subjects, too.

[ ‘Stressful’ and ‘selective’: OECD warns about Leaving Cert grade inflation and CAO process ]

Currently, grades are set at 10 point intervals. So if one student receives, say, 81 per cent and is adjusted upwards by 5 per cent, that has no impact on the final CAO points accrued – she or he is still in the H2 band.

But if someone gets 78 per cent and is adjusted upwards by 5 per cent, that results in an increase of 11 CAO points because the student has moved from a H3 to a H2. This will have happened to many students.

This raises an even more important point about the whole way in which CAO points are allocated in the first place. The grade boundaries were adjusted in 2017 because it was considered that differences of 15 marks between grades were too wide.

But even without postmarking adjustment, does anyone think that 70 and 79 per cent are the same? Without adjustment, a difference of one per cent which moves you up a grade can mean a difference of between 8 and 12 CAO points. What’s level about that playing pitch?

Danny O’Hare and Michael Ryan produced a paper in March which argued that CAO points should not be based on grades, but by tallying the percentage marks achieved in the top six subjects, with an adjustment based on where that percentage places a student in relation to other students in the subject. It is way above my pay grade to judge whether O’Hare’s and Ryan’s proposal would work to eliminate unfairness.

It is crystal clear, however, that continuing the grade inflation through postmarking adjustment is damaging – to the high flyers who lose out in lotteries, to the students who accept courses that are too challenging and then drop out, and Northern Irish and foreign students competing with inflated points.

It is also damaging to every student who feels that their hard work and results are devalued by being dismissed as post-Covid grade inflation.