Sir, - The Minister for Education has decided that, in future, Leaving Certificate candidates may peruse their marked examination scripts. I presume that this means that their actual percentage marks as well as their grades A1, A2, B1 etc., will be available to candidates. If this is so, then I suggest that entry to university be based on actual marks rather than grades.
To illustrate the unfairness of the present system of A1, A2 . . . for admission purposes, I present a trivial example. Others will occur to your readers.
For simplicity, I confine attention to higher papers and note that a grade A1 is awarded for 90-100 per cent on a paper. The corresponding entry points are 100. Also, a grade A2 is awarded for 85-89 per cent on a paper with corresponding entry points being 90.
Now, consider Candidates X and Y who take the same six higher level papers.
Candidate X has percentages of 91 on each of six papers. Thus, X's total marks are 546 and total entry points 600 for six A1's.
Candidate Y has percentages of 100 on each of four papers and 89 on each of two papers. Thus, Y's total marks come to 578, and total entry points of 580 for four A1's and two A2's.
So Candidate Y has higher marks (578) than Candidate X (546), but receives lower entry points - 580 compared to 600. This is not fair. - Yours, etc.,
(Prof.) M. A. Hayes,
Mathematical Physics Dept., University College Dublin, Dublin 4.