Paul Crone

The National Association of Principals and Deputy Principals is accusing Irish higher education institutions of manipulating the CAO points system.

It's calling for an urgent overhaul of the points race to ensure the fairer allocation of college places in the country.

The NAPD is not the first to raise this issue.

Minister for Higher Education James Lawless has said universities were gaming the system.

To get a better understanding of the issue, I'm joined by the director...

of the National Association of Principals and Deputy Principals, Paul Crone.

Morning, Paul.

Good morning, David.

Manipulation, that's a fairly serious charge to make.

What's your belief about what's going on?

Okay, well, I'm sure they'd dispute that characterisation of it.

But I mean, the universities want to fill as many places as they can to get as many students as they can in, presumably.

OK, so what do you think the solution is?

Sorry, just explain what that is to us both.

OK, so you apply for an arts course or, as you say, an engineering course or a science course, and then you specialise after that.

And you think that would lower the points?

Is the counter-argument to that not that if you are applying for an academic course where you're going to have to perform well in exams and all the rest of it, is that not a good indicator, a strong leaving cert, an indicator that you might be able to take on that university course?

Okay, there's an argument, and you hear it frequently as well, that too many people are going to university now anyway.

Okay.

I mean, looking at the CAO in comparison to across the water, where the very strange system where you get an offer of a university place conditional on what results you get, like at least the CAO, I would have thought was relatively straightforward for people to understand.