You clearly have not read my post.I have tried to stretch that every which way but i just don't quite get it:
versus
One of the few things we've got right. It's disappointing to see it being gradually undermined in recent years.I’ve looked at university entry systems in five or six countries over the years and the CAO is by far the best.
It’s cheap to run. The rules are clear. It’s almost incorruptible. It’s as fair as you can get.
How, exactly?It's disappointing to see it being gradually undermined in recent years.
Grade inflation and consequent increasing use of lottery to distribute places.How, exactly?
Plus pressure to move towards continuous assessment.Grade inflation and consequent increasing use of lottery to distribute places.
My point was that some people in senior positions often act unilaterally, without reference to agreed protocols. They assume they’ll get away with it and generally do.That's a more complex situation. There's an argument that what one person views as favourism is actually the head honcho trying to get the best people promoted. Networking and building relationships is a specific competency at higher levels. It occurs to some degree for every internal promotion competition in public or private sector.
That's not a defence of the practice- I've seen my share morons promoted way above their abilities. But I've no real doubt that the decision makers believed they deserved the promotions- if for no other reason than the fact that virtually nobody consciously decides to defecate in their own well....
It's a very poor process though. Open competitions are much harder to influence in such a fashion, but they're a relatively recent development at senior levels of the public sector.
Not all examples of poor management are examples of corruption. If the head of an organisation thinks that having underlings who display loyalty, obey without question and never present unwelome alternatative viewpoints is the best thing for the organisation, and makes promotion decisions on that basis, that may be a poor decision that will have negative consquences, but it's not corrupt.In my experience, some (and I would emphasise some) people in positions of authority think they’re invincible. I know of one former head of a government department who ensured that promotions and upgrades went to followers and sycophants to the detriment of others. No money changed hands of course but it’s an abuse of power that equates to corruption in my world.
I get all that but if a head of an organisation bypasses established and agreed protocols, that reflect best practice, to achieve a personally-preferred outcome, it goes beyond bad management and strays into the broader definition of corrupt practices.Not all examples of poor management are examples of corruption. If the head of an organisation thinks that having underlings who display loyalty, obey without question and never present unwelome alternatative viewpoints is the best thing for the organisation, and makes promotion decisions on that basis, that may be a poor decision that will have negative consquences, but it's not corrupt.
Similarly if the head thinks that men are generally better workers than women and so favours men over women in promotion decisions (or the other way around) that may be a poor decision, and illegal, but it's also not not corrupt.
Corruption is the abuse of power, office, authority etc that has been entrusted to you for public benefit, or for the benefit of your employer, your church, your club, your society, etc to secure private benefit (for yourself or for someone else).
If what you do is intended to benefit the organisation that you lead or serve, no matter how wrong-headed your thinking is and how unlikely it is that any benefit will result what you do is not corrupt. But if what you do is intended to benefit you, or your friend, or your relative rather than the organisation that you lead or serve, it is corrupt.
I wouldn't say they've got it right from a users point of view. Students go into their exams with no idea what they have to achieve to get their course. Even when they have their results, they still don't know where they stand. Compare that to UCAS where some of the risk is transferred to the universities. They make offers to the students that if they get certain results, they get a place. A student knows when they get their exam results if they're in or not.One of the few things we've got right. It's disappointing to see it being gradually undermined in recent years.
Two points.I wouldn't say they've got it right from a users point of view. Students go into their exams with no idea what they have to achieve to get their course. Even when they have their results, they still don't know where they stand. Compare that to UCAS where some of the risk is transferred to the universities. They make offers to the students that if they get certain results, they get a place. A student knows when they get their exam results if they're in or not.
You didn't say in your earlier post that you were only talking about people who make appointments in the expectation of returned favours down the line. Nor did you mention by-passing protocols.I get all that but if a head of an organisation bypasses established and agreed protocols, that reflect best practice, to achieve a personally-preferred outcome, it goes beyond bad management and strays into the broader definition of corrupt practices.
Perhaps not the sort of corruption that requires brown envelopes but corruption nonetheless - the sort that anticipates returned “favours” further down the line.
That wasn't inferred in the OP though, when the person suggested 'there'd be no problem at all as their relative was Head of XY Department at ABC University, and it wasn't what you know its who you know.'Psychology in Trinity is one course where places are regularly given via lottery. I've met a few people who got onto this course outside of the CAO via TAP.
Hey, if all the people in high, medium, low, and no offices acted responsibly we wouldn't have so much waste! People are people, though the more senior the role and the greater the responsibility, the more systems that are usually put in place around decision making to protect from corruption.It would be nice to think that all people in high office acted responsibly but that’s not the reality.
Okay, so to clarify.You didn't say in your earlier post that you were only talking about people who make appointments in the expectation of returned favours down the line. Nor did you mention by-passing protocols.
That is corrupt, of course, if it's the motivation for makin the appointment. But any appointment made for that reason is corrupt, not just the appointment of "followers and sycophants". Conversely, the appointment of followers and sycophants because you think it will be good for the organisation is not corrupt.
In any event, the point I was trying to make is that the heads of organisations can’t necessarily be trusted to do the right thing, certainly not by dint of the office they occupy.
Sound like a breach of the Criminal Justice (Corruption Offences) Act 2018.The civil servant I spoke of regularly bypassed established protocols, designed to create transparency and to ensure impartiality in a competitive protocols, to create an outcome ensured that rewarded followers, sycophants and the offspring of friends. The person is far from alone in this approach.
It would be nice to think that would resolve matters. However I also have experience of how whistleblowers ultimately fare in the civil service.Sound like a breach of the Criminal Justice (Corruption Offences) Act 2018.
If you have evidence you should take it to law enforcement.
I applied for the maximum 6 courses, and received 6 conditional offers. I don't remember hearing of anyone who didn't get an offer. For the other people, they're no worse off than under the CAO system. A big advantage is knowing you have grades to aim for, rather than hoping the best students didn't apply for your top choices.Two points.
First, this is only true for some students. The universities are relatively conservative amout making conditional offers, since they have no way of knowing how many students will acheive the specified grades and they must honour all the offers. Consequently, they can't make more offers than they can honour. Inevitably, some of the students who receive a conditional offer will not acheive the required grades, or will acheive them but will not accept the offer anyway (because they accept a different offer, or decide to travel for a year, or whatever). The result is that places are freed up and further rounds of offers are made to students who didn't receive a conditional offer. So while some students know on the day the results come out that they have a place on a particular course, others don't know that, but may yet get a place on the course; they won't know, until the offers come out, whether they have a place in the course the applied for, just like in Ireland. I don't know what proportion of applicants end up on a course for which they received a conditional offer, and what proportion end up on a course for which they did not, but the latter proportion is not trivial.
Secondly, we're not talking about a huge time-gap here. In 2024 the Leaving Cert results came out on 23 August; the first round of CAO offers came out on 28 August. Given that months elapse between sitting the Leaving Cert and starting at college, a five-day improvement (for some students only) in knowing what offer they have, while not unwelcome, is also not terribly significant.
What the points tables tell you is the lowest scoring applicant who was accepted onto the course scored 426 points. It doesn't tell anyone anything other than that, and it certainly doesn't tell the students filling in their CAO forms anything useful.A kind of percentile system would definitely help. I can’t make sense of today’s points as it’s changed so much since my day.
Something like “The top 42% of Leaving Certs would have received an offer to Course X” is much easier to make sense of than 426 points.