Points race – a level playing field?

A chara, – Tom Collins, a former professor of education at Maynooth University, rightly states that the Higher Education Authority (HEA) has failed in one of its founding objectives, namely promoting equality of opportunity in access to higher education (“The points race is far from being a level playing field”, Education, January 31st).

He points out that the points race enables privileged socioeconomic groups, by virtue of educational attainment, to remain in their advantaged positions.

Assuming that students applying for third-level places have the necessary entry requirements for the faculty they hope to join, Prof Collins suggests that a lottery would be the fairest way to allocate scarce places in higher education.

Unfortunately he backs away from his own proposal on the grounds that there would be little public appetite for such an approach. I believe educationalists should argue in favour of the best and fairest approach to changing the negative consequences of the points race and worry about public opinion later . – Is mise,