Madam, – I am writing in relation to the misleading articles that you have published in your paper over the past few days.
Figures reporting 700 per cent increases in the proportion of first class honours degrees at NUI Maynooth are not true and NUI Maynooth are unhappy The Irish Times saw fit to publish them without the courtesy of checking with us if the figures were correct.
The data on which the news articles were based was the NIES paper on grade inflation in third level. In this paper, the authors tried to exclude from their data, degrees for which honours were not awarded and assumed that in any event these numbers were small. In 1994, 500 of our 700 graduates were pursuing such unclassified degrees, such as the BA general and BSc General. The NIES paper incorrectly includes these degrees in their calculations and therefore underestimates the percentage of first class degrees in NUI Maynooth in 1994 by a factor of three. The increase in the percentage of first-class honours degrees in NUI Maynooth is more in line with the sectoral average.
There has undoubtedly been an increase in the percentage of number of first-class honours in the university sector. In NUI Maynooth this has been due to two factors.
The first is that in or around 2000, the consistent advice from our external examiners (and indeed this advice was also received in all NUI universities) was that the proportion of first- class honours that we awarded was too low and had fallen out of line with international norms. The NUI universities acted collectively to correct this imbalance and the result is that the proportion of first-class honours is now in line with those international norms. We, and our external examiners, are happy that the proportions of first-class honours that we now award are appropriate to the standard attained by our students and stand up to the most rigorous scrutiny.
The second factor is that NUI Maynooth has seen spectacular growth in its popularity through the CAO. This has seen points rise considerably across all courses in the university. Average points on entry to NUI Maynooth have risen from 393 in 2001 to 425 in 2009. The omnibus arts programme at NUI Maynooth has had the highest entry points of any such programme in the country over the past two years. It is entirely correct and appropriate that the work and worth of these students is properly recognised and that the proportion of first-class honours awarded at NUI Maynooth is at the sectoral norms.
There has been no rational or reasonable analysis of this topic in your newspaper. Comparisons, inaccurate or not, between today and 1994 completely miss the point. The only relevant question is whether today, a 15 per cent proportion of first class honours graduates is appropriate. The answer is emphatically, yes. – Yours, etc,