17% of Leaving Cert grades are to be reduced

According to initial data from the Department of Education, just under 17% of students will come out with lower Leaving Certificate grades this year.

While the Calculated Grades process has not yet been fully completed, trends show that the national standardisation marking scheme has resulted in a lower number of grades being reduced, many of which only went down by one grade.

The Department have said that while some teacher estimates had been overly-optimistic, others had underestimated their students abilities, and this would have led to unfairness for many students had national standardisation not been applied.

According to the Department of Education, "uncontrolled growth in scores was not credible in one school year". However, there seems to be a first for everything, as this year's scores will be significantly higher than those of previous years. The repercussions of this though, such as a rise in points required for third-level courses, are yet to be known.

The statistics released today represent the 57,695 students who had applied to sit the traditional Leaving Certificate programme, not including the Leaving Certificate Applied (LCA).