This year’s leaving certificate results will be issued to candidates through the Candidate Self Service Portal on September 3rd, Minister for Education Norma Foley announced today.
This year’s leaving certificate exams are due to begin on June 9th and will finish on June 29th, with students having the option to either sit regular exams or to avail of SEC-Accredited Grades – a predicted grades option offered in light of the disruptions experienced by students due to the coronavirus pandemic. The highest will be the student’s official result.
In a press statement, Foley said: “I am pleased to be able to announce that the State Examinations Commission expects that Leaving Certificate results will be provided to students on Friday 3 September.”
“The usual helplines and supports will be in place for students on results day and beyond”, she said. “I will be in contact with schools asking them to ensure that guidance support is available to students at this time.”
“I would like to take this opportunity once again to stress how important it is that students taking the examinations continue to follow the public health advice and limit their contacts as the examinations approach and during the examination period.
“I wish all Leaving Certificate students taking the written examinations well, in their final preparations this week.”
Earlier this year, the Oireachtas passed legislation, proposed by Foley, to place accredited grades on a statutory footing and to ban activities such as the canvassing of teachers who would be giving students their predicted grades.
In May 2020, the government announced that the 2020 leaving certificate exams would not take place and that students would be given the option to receive calculated grades or sit their exams at a later date.
The calculated grades were awarded to students on the basis of a number of factors – such as class rankings, students’ performance in previous assessments and other indicators.
Leaving certificate results shot up as a result under the new calculated grades system compared to the previous year.
Compulsory subjects all saw bumps in the number of highest grades awarded. In Irish, the number of H1s this year went up from 6.1 per cent last year to 9.1 per cent. H1s in English increased from 3 per cent to 4.3 per cent, and H1s awarded in mathematics increased 2 per cent from 6.4 per cent to 8.4 per cent.
Due to a coding error, however, thousands of students were awarded incorrect grades, leading the government to offer students a place in a course they originally missed out on, if their new grades met the requirements for that course.
