This year’s students have faced a tough preparation for Leaving Cert

THIS year’s Leaving Cert exams begin on Wednesday, June 9, with the first exam being English Paper 1 at 9.30am. So in that respect it is a case of business as usual this year for the hundreds of students in Sligo saying farewell to post primary school as many thousands have done before them over the years. But of course the preparation for this final big exam before heading onto third level education or out to work has been far from usual for these students and has been far from ideal.

The bulk of their two years preparing for this exam has been on the midst of a global pandemic and the huge difficulties created by Covid-19.

Students taking the Leaving Cert this year can choose between sitting the exams, receiving calculated grades, which are now called “accredited grades”, or they can avail of both.

The option that gives the student the best outcome will be recorded on their results.

In any subject where a candidate sits the examination and opts to receive Accredited Grades, they will be credited with the better of the two results. Oral exams and coursework are not included in the accredited grades.

The portal where students could indicate their choice was open between March 10 and March 16.

The majority of students this year have opted for a combination of sitting exams and receiving accredited grades across their subjects. 88% of Leaving Certificate students want to sit exams and receive accredited grades in one or more subjects, according to provisional figures from the State Examinations Commission. Almost no students opted exclusively for exams – just 2%.

Of all subjects, Irish has the highest proportion of students choosing not to sit the exam.

38% – 19,185 of 50,708 – have chosen not to sit the Irish exam and only receive an accredited grade, while 58% will both sit the exam and receive an accredited grade.

946 students, or 2%, will take the Irish exam and have turned down the option of an accredited grade.

65% of Leaving Certificate Applied students opted to sit exams and receive accredited grades, while 24% have chosen accredited grades only. 1% want to only sit exams and 10% did not complete the process.

In total, 95% of candidates – 60,089 of 63,172 – made selections on the portal.

Around 2,000 students registered on the portal but did not finish the process of selecting their choice and another 1,000 did not register.

The SEC believes some of the students who did not register may have already withdrawn from the Leaving Certificate.

Other languages, including German, French, and Spanish, saw 27%, 26%, and 21% of their students respectively choosing to only receive an accredited grade.

In contrast, Chemistry, Physics, Accounting and Biology each saw over 85% of students choose both options, positioning them as the subjects with the highest relative uptake of students opting for both exams and accredited grades.

In English, 78% of students are taking both options, 3% are only sitting the exam, and 16% will just receive an accredited grade.

80% of Mathematics students have indicated a preference for both, while 3% will sit the exam and 14% receive accredited grades exclusively.

The remaining students in each subject did not select their choice.