The Teacher’s Union of Ireland (TUI) says the new maths bonus point system for Leaving Cert students could do more harm then good.

For the first time this year any student who passed a higher level maths paper in their exam received an extra 25 points.

The scheme was introduced in an effort to incentivise more students to take the higher level maths paper.

But the TUI says this new system may deprive some students of 3rd-level places in disciplines in which they have an interest and expertise and which are not maths based.

The union also says the bonus points may not lead to an increase in the number of graduates in maths based disciplines.

TUI General Secretary is John MacGabhann.

“Bonus points are applied for all students who pass the subject, irrespective of whether the third level course they wish to pursue has any mathematical component” he said.

“We have a real concern that the new incentive will instead unfairly penalise those students whose relative strengths lie in subject areas other than mathematics, squeezing them out of those disciplines of greatest interest to them in which their relative strengths lie” he added.