Madam, - I note the report (The Irish Times, November 7th) of the timely speech made by Dr Ferdinand von Prondzynski, Dublin City University's president, advocating a drastic overhaul of university entry requirements and uttering the word "lottery" (euphemistically known as random selection).
It is commonly claimed that the points criterion is the fairest. But what may be regarded as fairest for the individual teacher or student is not necessarily fairest to the nation as a whole, as there is a brain drain from one set of professionals to another. And as a medical doctor, I am keenly aware of the increased intellectual strength of medical and paramedical students in Ireland and Britain in the past 20 years or so. Fees remission is not the only contributory factor.
One has noted official backing for a suggested special test in addition to the Leaving Certificate for medical future applicants. This implies inadequacy of the scope of the points system per se. However, I would not favour placing an aspirant with a good primary degree - in say, Ruritanian Studies - ahead of a young school leaver who has just performed "reasonably well" in the Leaving Cert.
A BSc Honours qualification in medically relevant subjects prior to medical school entry has been a requirement in Cambridge for years. Its introduction here might certainly reduce the distortion of secondary school programmes.
As I suggested in a medical journal editorial some years ago, the Dutch weighted lottery system needs to be studied carefully. Its principle is exemplified as follows. Suppose a country's universities can accept 600 medical candidates, classifiable as very good (A), good (B) and sufficient (C), depending on their school-leaving examination marks. Suppose there are 300 places for As, 200 for Bs and 100 for Cs. About 10 per cent fail to get in on the lottery for A: but 15 per cent get in from C, who might have little hope for a place in our highly competitive points system.
The Dutch compromise should appeal not only to left-wing parties. It attempts to balance the two types of "fairness". The degree of weighting has been hotly debated in the Dutch parliament. I believe that, given a choice, a brilliant offspring would opt for our present system, whereas the majority, including many good all-rounders, might prefer to try their luck to some extent and "go Dutch". - Yours, etc,
PAUL J. CANNON, Professor Emeritus, Glenageary, Co Dublin.