Leaving Certificate results have fallen this year as grade deflation takes hold after five years of artificially high outcomes.
The class of 2025 has been awarded fewer top grades, with the proportion of H1s down by 2.6 percentage points compared to last year, and O1s down by 2.1 percentage points.
Last year H1s accounted for 14.3% of grades, while this year they account for 11.7% - a drop of almost a fifth.
Scores achieved by students in the exams have been artificially boosted in a post-marking adjustment for the past four years.
In the first step in a promised gradual return to pre-pandemic levels, 2025's outcomes have also been hiked but to a lesser extent. This has contributed to results this year that are lower in aggregate than any of the past five years.
This year’s adjustment, which was once again applied to students’ initial raw scores, has led to a sharp drop in the proportion of grades that have risen as a result of the intervention.
This year’s post-marking adjustment increased 52.4% of all grades, compared to 68% of grades last year and 71% in 2023.
The State Examinations Commission has said it believes this year’s outcome is in keeping with the commitment by former minister for education Norma Foley to a "modest gradual reduction" that would minimise the impact on students.
The long-term goal is to bring results back to 2019 levels, when no artificial intervention of this kind was made.
Minister for Education Helen McEntee wished those receiving their Leaving Cert results well and advised them that there are "so many ways" to get the course they want.
Speaking on RTÉ's Morning Ireland programme, Ms McEntee said: "The end goal is that students get to where they want to be and I think it's really important for students to know that there are so many ways and so many routes in which you can achieve the pathway that you want to get on."
"Today is an important day, celebrate it," she said.
Impact on college places
Students competing for college places through the CAO will be concerned about the impact their reduced results may have.
Every year, thousands of students, along with Leaving Certificate students from previous years, apply to the CAO and this year’s deflation will give students from the past four years an advantage.
Ms McEntee said it is the case every year that a certain amount of students from previous years will apply to courses this year.
The information she has from the CAO is that the number is slightly lower this year, she said, adding that it is important to start to readjust and bring things back to pre-Covid levels.
The State Examinations Commission has pointed to other factors that may also have contributed to this year’s changed results profile, and may contribute to additional pressure for college places this year.
It points to a grade 'drift' over the past number of years which has seen larger numbers of students opting to sit higher level papers.
In 2019, 68% of students took higher-level papers, while it now stands at 72%. When larger numbers sit higher-level papers, a fall in the proportion of higher grades is to be expected.
Almost record numbers sitting exams
Numbers sitting the Leaving Certificate have also grown substantially and suddenly, increasing by 7.4% compared to last year.
This brings the total number of candidates this year to 65,444, which is an increase of more than 4,000 and a record of a kind.
While one previous year, 1995, recorded a slightly higher number of candidates, 7,000 of them were repeating the exam.
Repeating is no longer much of a feature of the Leaving Certificate, with fewer than 1,000 repeat candidates this year.
The increase is due to population growth and it is also reflected in a strong increase in numbers applying to the CAO. It means more students are competing for college places this year.
For the first time, students had the option of sitting Ukrainian as a non-curricular exam subject.
This was introduced in recognition of the large number of Ukrainian students in the Irish school system, with 549 candidates sitting the exam.
How was the post-marking adjustment applied?
While this year’s post-marking adjustment was 6.8% on average, the boost was applied to marks on a sliding linear scale.
This is because the gap in attainment between pre- and post-pandemic outcomes has been more pronounced every year at the lower levels of achievement.
So marks at the bottom end of the scale were given a greater hike. This year, the highest boost was 10.3% and that tapered off to just 3.1% close to the very top.
This compared to a sliding scale of between 12.1% and 4.8% last year.
This sliding scale adjustment was applied in exactly the same way across all subjects and levels.
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No cliff-edge
Students were promised a gradual reduction in results, a 'glide' as opposed to a sudden 'cliff-edge' drop.
The aim this year was to bring results back to a point broadly between the outcomes of 2020 and 2021.
2020 was the year that the Leaving Certificate was cancelled. Results that year rose by around 4% compared to 2019 as marks based on teacher estimates and national standardisation were issued.
The gap grew to 7% in 2021, when a combination of estimated grades and exams were used and students were awarded whichever result was higher.
This morning's results remain 5.9% higher than those of 2019, so there is more to be done in the coming years to close that gap.
Minister for Education Helen McEntee wished those receiving their results this morning well and advised them that there are "so many ways" to get the course they want.
"The end goal is that students get to where they want to be and I think it's really important for students to know that there are so many ways and so many routes in which you can achieve the pathway that you want to get on," she said.
"Today is an important day, celebrate it."
Speaking on RTÉ's Morning Ireland, the minister said it is the case every year that a certain amount of students from previous years will apply to courses this year.
The information she has from the CAO is that the number is slightly lower this year, she said, adding that it is important to start to readjust and bring things back to pre-Covid levels.
"You have even more students that are in a lottery. Because we've seen an inflation, we've seen more higher grades, and it's actually pushed up the points. You have students who've worked so hard, they've gotten points, they've actually not gotten the course then because there are too many people competing for it," she said.
"There have been more courses put on... but today's the first day. We won't know until next week really, taking into account what the results are, how many students, who is applying for different courses."
Watch: 'You can breathe now' - Tipperary LC students react to results
