A surge in the detection of suspected cheating in this year's Leaving Cert exams has resulted in 62 students having results permanently withheld by the State Examinations Commission (SEC).
New figures provided by the SEC today show that exam results from 62 pupils who sat the Leaving Cert/Leaving Cert Applied have been permanently withheld this year.
This is more than double the 26 results that were permanently withheld from students who sat the 2021 Leaving Certificate last year.
However, it is down slightly compared to the pre-pandemic exams when 71 students who sat the 2019 Leaving Certificate were not given their results over fears they cheated.
The SEC also confirmed that it has this year provisionally withheld an additional 10 Leaving Cert results, on a without prejudice basis, pending further communication with the schools and candidates concerned.
The 62 exam results "permanently withheld" by the SEC this year "includes full results withheld, or marks withheld, from candidates found to be in breach of the SEC's examinations regulations".
They are open to appeal.
The 26 results permanently with-held from Leaving Cert students last year followed "the conclusion of all review and appeal processes".
On the 62 students to have results withheld this year, a spokesman for the SEC stated "due to the small number of candidates involved, for privacy reasons, we do not provide any regional or gender breakdown".
It is a tiny fraction of the 60,210 candidates who registered for the Leaving Certificate exams this year and the 3,173 candidates who registered for the final year examinations in the Leaving Certificate Applied.
The SEC spokesman explained: "The most common penalty applied is the withholding of the result in the subject in question.
"Where a more serious breach of the regulations occurs such as copying in more than one subject, withholding of all results and/or debarring from repeating the examination may be applied."
Cases of suspected cheating can come to light in a number of ways, according to the SEC.
These include where an examiner may detect similar work from more than one candidate when correcting work from the same centre.
Or an examination superintendent may detect a candidate using prohibited items such as books, mobile phones etc or attempting to contact another candidate in the centre.
