Tuesday, August 23, 2005
Carry on Doctor...if you have the points
I note that students around the country have been finding out whether or not they were successful in receiving their first-choice place on third-level courses.Reports this morning said points had fallen for most arts, commerce and law courses but had increased yet again for virtually all medical and nursing courses.
The points needed to study medicine have reached 590 at Dublin's Trinity College - almost the equivalent of six A1s in the Leaving Cert.
This is madness! How can the points requirement for studying medicine be 590? We might as well set about building robots to care for us because at the rate we're going, we're not going to have enough doctors!
I generally think the CAO sytem is sound but how can we discriminate against students by saying that in order to study medicine, they must have exceptional grades in subjects like French, Geography, History, Irish etc? It's ridiculous.
No doubt there are some kids around the country who got great grades in science subjects and English but they miss out on the chance to study medicine because they aren't experts at the French language, nor are they up to speed on levees and drumlins in Geography.
What a disgrace.
# posted by United Irelander @ 12:49 AM 
© 2008 United Irelander.
