Leaving Cert 2025: Record numbers to sit State exams
A record-breaking 140,000 students will begin their
Leaving Certificate
and
Junior Cycle
exams today.
It means the delivery of this year's State exams is an even bigger logistical exercise than ever before, involving the secure distribution of about four million exam papers to hundreds of second-level schools and other settings across the State.
A combination of factors is behind the record numbers, including a demographic bubble of young people at second level and greater numbers staying on in school to complete their exams.
The number entered to take the 2025 exams is up by 3 per cent (+4,297) on last year's entry figure of 136,160 candidates. The most significant increases are in the numbers entered for the Leaving Cert (+5 per cent) and Leaving Cert Applied programme (+11 per cent).
READ MORE
The volume of students in receipt of additional supports has also climbed to a new high.
[
Classroom to college: our essential Leaving Cert guide for parents, guardians and students
]
While exams will take place in more than 5,800 sports halls and other large settings, there are almost 10,000 smaller settings this year, known as 'special examination centres'. These are aimed at students with additional needs or who may suffer from anxiety.
Most education experts put the bulk of these increases down to greater awareness of learning difficulties, more access to expert advice and a broader definition of some developmental conditions.
This year's exams will run until Tuesday, June 24th for Leaving Cert and Monday, June 16th for Junior Cycle exams.
Once the Leaving Cert exams are marked, the
State Examination Commission
(SEC) will apply a 'postmarking adjustment' to students' papers.
This follows a direction from the
Department of Education
to implement a 'gradual return to normal Leaving Cert outcomes', beginning this year.
Grades soared during the pandemic when teacher-predicted grades were introduced and marks have been artificially inflated since 2021 to keep them at 7 per cent, on aggregate, in advance of pre-Covid grades.
This year, the SEC will apply a postmarking adjustment to bring overall Leaving Cert results in the aggregate to a point broadly midway between the 2020 and 2021 levels, or about 5.5 per cent above pre-Covid grades.
The move has sparked some controversy on the basis that it means the class of 2025 will be competing against an estimated 10,000-15,000 students from previous years with bumper grades for college places.
Minister for Education Helen McEntee
has defended the move on the basis that a very gradual pace of returning to normal will minimise the impact on students as far as possible.
Universities have also complained that inflated grades risk undermining the integrity of results and make it difficult to differentiate between top candidates for high-points courses.
The SEC, meanwhile, intends to issue this year's Leaving Cert exam results to candidates on Friday, August 22nd, which is in line with the date of issue of the results last year, but later than pre-Covid times.
The SEC said developing and applying the postmarking adjustment adds time to the results process in comparison to normal years.
'The results issue date of Friday, 22 August, takes account of the time needed for this additional step. The timeline for results must also allow sufficient time for an extensive range of quality assurance checks to be undertaken,' it said.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Irish Times
4 hours ago
- Irish Times
The 500-year-old treaty that made Irish people citizens of Spain
Just four more years now to the 500th anniversary of when we Irish became citizens of Spain . You didn't know? You never heard of the Treaty of Dingle in 1529, when Don Gonzalez Fernandez, ambassador of King Charles V of Spain, stepped ashore in that noble town to be greeted by ceremonial drummers? Okay. Neither had I until recently. Yes, the treaty concluded there between James FitzGerald, 10th earl of Desmond, and Fernandez gave a formal legal and constitutional foundation to the rights of citizenship and other privileges that Irish exiles enjoyed in Habsburg Spain, Habsburg Austria and Habsburg Netherlands from the 16th to the early 20th centuries. Remarkable. READ MORE A copy of the Treaty of Dingle is in the Royal Library in Brussels and fragments of the earl of Desmond's copy are in the British Library in London. In 2009 the then Spanish Ambassador to Ireland, Dona Mercedes Rico, was greeted by the Dingle Fife and Drum Band when she arrived to commemorate that remarkable event 480 years before. She had been invited by the Dingle Historical Society to unveil a commemorative plaque on the wall of the Temperance Hall, marking the signing of the treaty. The ambassador noted how 'in April 1529 your ancestors welcomed the first official diplomatic envoy from Spain to Ireland' and how the treaty 'gave the Irish people the unique privilege of full equal rights and equality with Spaniards in Spain.' Bless my sceptical soul but you learn something new every day. And the Dingle Fife and Drum Band played O'Neill's March, which, as a local man observed at the time, was 'very relevant because thanks to the Treaty of Dingle the Wild Geese [who fled Ireland in the early 1600s] fared well on the Continent.' It seems the myth of the Iberian origin of the inhabitants of Ireland (the Milesian myth) plus a sense of solidarity based on Catholicism and the services rendered by the Irish in the armies of Spain, convinced kings of Spain they should protect and defend the Irish. In time a strong Irish community flourished in the territories of the Spanish monarchy, mainly Castile, Portugal and the so-called Spanish Netherlands, not to mention all those Irish priests trained at Irish Colleges in Madrid, Salamanca, Alcala, Saville and Valencia in Penal times. Spain , from Latin Hispania inaword@
Irish Times
8 hours ago
- Irish Times
The Irish Times view on trade and tax: the rules-based system is breaking down
As a small country, Ireland is best served by a stable international economic backdrop and a rules-based system governing areas such as trade and taxation. Unfortunately, the key institutions overseeing the international economic system are now under heavy pressure, as Donald Trump pursues his nationalistic economic agenda. The most recent demonstration of this came in recent days as the other G7 countries acceded to a US demand to rewrite a part of the global corporate tax deal that took years to put together under the aegis of the Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD). The entire deal is now weakened and may even crumble completely. The issue for the US was a part of the agreement which would have allowed other countries, including Ireland, to collect top-up tax from American multinationals who were judged not to have paid the minimum rate of 15 per cent elsewhere. Washington saw this as an infringement of US tax sovereignty. The same issue lies behind new trade tensions between the US and Canada, What is notable is that the G7 countries agreed to unpick the agreement to meet the US demands, as was announced on social media by US treasury secretary, Scott Bessent. The other 140 plus countries who negotiated and signed the agreement are yet to be consulted. The big players are calling the shots. READ MORE In return, the US administration is asking Congress to withdraw a part of the new budget bill which would have given the US the power to levy punitive taxes on investors and companies from countries who were judged to be treating US firms unfairly. As in the field of trade, US threats are being met by significant concessions. The OECD's status as a mediator of the corporate tax deal has been undermined and the future of the whole agreement is now in serious doubt. In the same way, the World Trade Organisation looks on powerlessly as the rules of international trade are torn up. In this context, the suggestion last week from Ursula von der Leyen, the European Commission president, that the EU investigates a new regime with a group of Asian countries who are part of a trade bloc – which the UK has also joined – was ill-judged to say the least. This new dominance by the big players and the tearing up of existing rules is worrying for Ireland. The previous government had hoped that by signing up to the OECD tax deal the controversy over the Irish system would be put to bed and there would be no further demands for change. Now this is all back in the melting pot. Meanwhile, Ireland has thrived under the rules-based trade system which brings certainty to those exporting from this country, whether multinationals or domestic businesses. Ireland needs to stick close to the EU to make it case and hope that Europe can find its voice on these issues more effectively than it has to date.
Irish Times
9 hours ago
- Irish Times
Alison Healy: On discovering what the rebels ate during the Easter Rising
Birthday cake amid open warfare. Commandeered cattle. Scores of sandwiches. Have you ever wondered what the rebels ate during the Easter Rising? The thought never occurred to me until I read some of the volunteers' personal stories in Michael Kenny's new book Easter Week 1916: Ordinary People, Extraordinary Stories. He trawled through the witness statements held by the Bureau of Military History to see what it was like for the ordinary people who joined the Rising. Volunteer Patrick Kelly told how he was fast asleep when a comrade burst into his house on Easter Monday morning to tell him the Rising was happening. He woke him up by pulling on his big toe. As he hurriedly got dressed, his father attended to his rifle while his mother sent him packing with sandwiches. When apprentice butcher Robert Holland joined the Rising, he hardly expected to be deploying his butchering skills. Stationed at Marrowbone Lane garrison, he was the right man in the right place when three cattle were commandeered nearby. He was asked to slaughter one of them and prepare it for cooking. READ MORE The Tuesday of the Rising marked his 19th birthday. From Inchicore, he was one of four Holland brothers who fought in 1916. He probably thought no one would remember his birthday but his brother Dan popped in from another wing of the building to wish him well. Better still, his 15-year-old brother Walter, who was acting as a messenger boy, slipped through the barricades and went home to Inchicore for a brief visit. He returned with a homemade birthday cake from their mother. Robert must have dreamed of that cake many times when he sat in Knutsford prison near Manchester after the Rising. One of his witness statements in the Bureau of Military History recalled how hunger forced him to eat the lime from the wall. A small piece of bone in his soup would sustain him for hours, sometimes days. He remembered telling a fellow prisoner he would chance eating a picture of the Last Supper, he was that hungry. Matters took a turn for the worse when he was sent to solitary confinement where the food ration was even smaller. 'I spent hours thinking of cakes and parties I had attended. If only I had a little of what was left over from those now, how I would have appreciated it.' Mary Anne Callender might also have had reason to look back ruefully at her life before the Rising. She ran the Lucan Restaurant on Sarsfield Quay and managed to keep it open during the Rising, famously providing Patrick Pearse with his last meal before his execution. She was in the restaurant when she heard news of the executions and she exclaimed 'May the Lord have mercy on their souls'. This was overheard by a British army chauffeur who stormed out. According to her son, the volunteer Ignatius Callender, the restaurant generated 80 per cent of its business from the nearby Royal Barracks. The authorities put the restaurant out of military bounds and it was shuttered the following month. But Mrs Callender was not a woman to scare easily. Early on the Wednesday morning of the Rising she saw Ignatius handling ammunition in his bedroom. He told her he was bringing the ammunition to the Church Street area. This would have placed her son a little too close to the action for her liking, so she declared she would do the job instead. She secured the ammunition inside her blouse and brought a jug and money with her, so that she could pretend she was going to buy milk and food in Stoneybatter. Mission accomplished, she returned to run her restaurant and Ignatius got on with his work of scouting and delivering messages across the city. Heavy gunfire brought him to a standstill at the corner of Parliament Street and Essex Street later that morning. He spotted an old woman, waiting to cross the street. She was bound for 11am Mass and refused to turn back. He took her umbrella, tied his handkerchief to it and waved it into the street to stop the gunfire. It took about five minutes for the firing to stop and he escorted her across the street safely. She promised to pray for him, and perhaps her prayers worked. He was captured on Saturday evening and a British officer ordered a soldier to take him away. After they moved down the street, the soldier admitted that he didn't know what to do with him and advised him to make a run for it. He did so, bracing himself for a bullet that never came. · Easter Week 1916: Ordinary People, Extraordinary Stories is published by the National Museum of Ireland and is on sale at the museum shop in Collins Barracks.
