Seán Sherlock (Cork East, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I thank Senator Burke for raising this Adjournment matter which I am taking on behalf of my colleague, the Minister for Education and Skills. At the outset, we should clarify that the selection criteria and process for admission to medical schools is a matter for the medical schools and universities in line with their statutory autonomy in respect of academic affairs. I genuinely take the points that have been raised by Senators Burke and Crown in respect of the culture that exists around admissions to medicine. I am not delivering the script entirely in that sense. An international tender process was undertaken by the medical schools and the Australian Council for Educational Research, ACER, was chosen to administer the new entry process to medicine, which we know as HPAT.

The introduction of HPAT in 2009 had regard to the findings of "Medical Education in Ireland: A New Direction. Report of the Working Group on Undergraduate Medical Education and Training" or the Fottrell report. It recommended that leaving certificate results should no longer be the sole selection method for entry to medical education at undergraduate level. It recommended that a two-stage mechanism should be applied consisting of the results obtained in the leaving certificate and a standardised admissions test which would assess non-academic skills and attributes regarded as important for the practice of medicine.

In 2012, the group undertook a comprehensive evaluation of HPAT to determine the educational impact, reliability, validity and stakeholder acceptability of the new entry and selection approach. It made the following recommendations. HPAT-Ireland scores should be valid for a period of one year only instead of two years. A redistribution should be applied to the weighting of HPAT-Ireland sections to reduce the contribution of section 3 scores to the overall score in order to reduce the impact of repeat effects. Further practice material should be made available to all HPAT-Ireland applicants, which also includes some examples of correct responses and the rationales to these to ensure adequate opportunities for all to become familiar with the test format and sample items. It was agreed that due consideration would be given to the need to ensure that students are given adequate notice of the changes proposed by the expert group.

An investigation is currently under way by ACER amid allegations that students who attended a HPAT preparation course had seen and were coached in how to answer certain questions that appeared in this year's HPAT examination. ACER takes very seriously the integrity of candidates' results in HPAT. The reliability and validity of its tests is therefore of paramount importance to ACER. The investigation will first attempt to establish the degree, if any, of similarity between the test questions and those allegedly believed to have been provided by the coaching college in question. I am given to understand that based on the briefings we have received that this process is extremely thorough. Candidates' optical mark recognitions have to be scanned and re-scanned. Data analysis has to be carried out by a minimum of two psychometricians. There are many areas of analysis involved; the detection of anomalies is just one part of the standard analysis process. The results of the investigation may lead to some test units being removed from all candidates' scores obtained in the 2014 examination. The Department has asked that it be kept informed by the Higher Education Authority of progress on addressing this issue.