Sir, – The report by the State Examinations Commission on unconscious bias against boys in the Leaving Cert process isn't particularly new information ("Girls get Leaving Cert results boost from 'unconscious bias'", News, September 6th).
The effect was discussed in detail in the report by the national standardisation committee to the steering committee exactly a year ago to the day, relating to the 2020 process.
In spite of that, the process has been allowed to produce similar results this year. The net result of the issue is that the rank ordering will inevitably change, and some boys will lose out on places in third-level courses based purely on the bias in their grading.
The possibility of unconscious bias against other groups featured prominently from certain commentators before the initial predicted grades process. It is remarkable, therefore, that a short report 12 months after the issue was first aired is the sum of the media view now. – Yours, etc,
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ALBERT WINSTON,
Glasnevin,
Dublin 11.
Sir, – You report that boys, as a group, appear to have been the victims of “unconscious bias” because their predicted Leaving Certificate grades underestimated their performance in written exams. There is no suggestion in the article that there might be any bias associated with the written exams themselves, despite the fact that they saw girls achieve higher grades in almost every subject.
Traditional Leaving Certificate exams are fair in the sense that they are marked anonymously. However, the education system that delivers students to those exams is certainly not blind to gender. If boys have teachers who underestimate them in their final year, can it have been any different throughout the rest of their education? What effect must these low expectations have had on boys’ perceptions of their own ability or their aspirations for the future?
We should all be slow to criticise teachers. They are doing a demanding job in difficult circumstances and if, as it seems, they have a bias against male students, they are hardly alone. Boys have underperformed relative to girls every year for decades. That this has been allowed to continue with no effective policy response and with no outcry from either media commentators or the public at large suggests a widespread attitude that boys are either incapable or undeserving of anything better.
As a society, we know that our education system is failing boys. We have known it for a long time. We just don’t care enough to do anything about it. Let’s not add insult to injury by pretending that the only biases boys suffer under are “unconscious” ones. – Yours, etc,
DENIS McCARTHY,
Dundrum,
Dublin 16.