Patrick Lavelle | College Affairs Editor
There is “internal consistency” in the awarding of first and upper second-class honours degrees across the past ten years, Trinity College Dublin has said. The comment has been offered as a response to a recent Irish Times report that Trinity students are more likely to graduate with a first or 2.1 degree than students in any of the state’s other universities. It stressed that in each of these years, “the degree award represents the students’ achievements, based on merit”.
In response to a request for comment by The University Times, a College spokesperson said that it is “important to note that the work submitted for a degree award represents the students’ achievements, based on merit.”
“It is also important to note that the work submitted for a degree award (including examinations and continuous assessment) is subject to external scrutiny in the form of external examiners who are discipline experts, serve for a period of three years and are appointed from leading universities”.
Earlier this month, The Irish Times reported that 71.7% of Trinity College Dublin students had graduated with a First or Upper Second-class honours degree over the past 10 years, higher than any other university in the state. In some departments these figures rose significantly further with over 80% of Trinity law graduates received a first or 2.1, and with only eight out of 301 psychology graduates failing to achieve such degrees over this period.
Specifically addressing the reported psychology figure, College said “Psychology in Trinity attracts exceptionally bright cohorts of students, who in the four years of the degree, achieve a very high standard which is vetted by a wide range of external examines. We repeatedly ask these external examiners from a range of respected academic institutions, who read and double-mark exam papers and research projects, to check whether the degree classes awarded are justified. Uniformly and consistently they say they are”.
Responding to the article which she felt “seems [falsely] to imply that these grades are not a genuine reflection of academic ability”, Trinity College Student’s Union (TCDSU) Education Officer Katie Byrne said that to refer to these reported figures “as ‘Grade Inflation’ is rather misleading and pretty insulting to any student who has worked their fingers to the bone for 4 years to achieve their degree”.
She added that “rather than diminishing the hard work of thousands of students each year, perhaps attention should be turned to the employers fuelling the trend, where a potential employee’s competence and worth are apparently the sum of their degree award”.
