The moment of truth arrives on Friday for the 61,610 candidates entered with the State Examinations Commission (SEC) to sit the Leaving Cert this year. As they nervously log on to their account on the State Examinations portal, they can reflect on the most extraordinary second-level journey to this point.
Most of them entered the second-level system at the beginning of September 2019, anticipating the traditional pathway, trod by parents and older brothers and sisters before them.
Little did they realise that on March 12th they would be sent home and would not darken the door of their school until they commenced their second-year studies the following September.
When they did return in September, they were probably the least of their schools’ concerns. The incoming sixth-year class, who had missed a third of the previous year’s tuition time and the new children entering second-level education who had missed Confirmation and the entire departure rituals from primary education, were the immediate priority.
RM Block
During the 2020-2021 academic year, Covid-19 cast a huge shadow over their second year school life, with minimal movement around their campus and highly restricted nonacademic activities.
In June 2022 they became the first students in three years to sit Junior Cycle exams, indicating a return to pre-Covid-19 norms.
In June this year, they completed their written Leaving Cert exams, which were corrected in the traditional manner as they have been since 2022.
The State Exams Commission has taken those results and applied several enhancement formulae to them to reach a profile of overall results on average 5.9 per cent ahead of those achieved by the class of 2019 pre-Covid. This contrasts with the 7 per cent enhancement process applied to the results in recent years.
These are the results that the class of 2025 will be reflecting on this morning.
When they get the opportunity in the coming days to examine their corrected scripts online, they will see that the enhancement process has awarded them one grade higher than the correcting teacher had originally awarded them on several of their papers. This will enhance their CAO points score by on average of 12 per subject paper enhanced.
This enhancement cannot occur where the correcting teacher had already awarded them a H1 on a higher-level paper or an O1 on the ordinary level one. This is the reason why the level of enhancement over the 2022-2025 period varies from 12 per cent at the lower levels of performance to less than 5 per cent at the top end and why the overall percentage of grades enhanced in 2023 was 70 per cent – and, in 2024, 68 per cent.
The percentage of grades enhanced this year is lower than those awarded in 2022-2024 because Minister for Education Helen McEntee has mandated that the enhancement average will drop from 7 per cent to 5.9 in the results released this morning. The plan is that this process will continue for the next three to four years on a glide path to the pre-Covid pattern.
If you are sitting looking at those results and have questions relating to their accuracy, or the fairness of the marking on any subject, there are detailed instructions on the process laid out in the guidelines provided to every student by the SEC through the online portal. Elsewhere in our coverage are detailed instructions relating to reviews of scripts, appeals and so on.
Your school principal will be able to assist you if you receive a manifestly incorrect result, a grade at the incorrect level, a grade missing for a subject you sat the examination in, or where you are awarded a grade for a subject you did not sit. Such errors are very rare and are easily corrected when brought to the attention of the SEC.
If you are among the 51,350 Leaving Cert 2025 students who have sought a CAO college place, you may immediately jump to conclusions relating to your chances of securing an offer next Wednesday. Nobody yet knows what CAO points will be required for any course until the data released this morning is processed through the CAO computer system over the coming days.
There are many variables at play in determining who secures the final place on offer in each course. The overall number of applicants is up 5,299 from 84,009 to 89,308. The number of Level 8 programmes is up five to 1,110, but those at Level 6/7 are down again from 380 to 351. Minister for Further and Higher Education James Lawless has approved funding increases that will see 274 additional places added to medical and paramedical courses throughout the State.
Many applicants may have secured accommodation in a specific university campus or privately nearby and are now wondering whether they need to change those arrangements. No two situations are ever the same, but if you are certain now that you won’t be attending a university you have made accommodation arrangements relating to, the sooner you act the better.
Others may or may not have applied for grant support through SUSI (Student Universal Support Ireland).
Susi advises that:
- If you are attending a PLC or higher-education course, you may be eligible for funding from Susi. Applications can still be made online. You can find out more about the eligibility criteria and complete a quick and simple eligibility indicator on susi.ie.
- If you applied to Susi for student funding and will, next Wednesday, be accepting a different course to the one on your application, you must inform Susi. If you accept your course through the CAO and consented to your information being shared with Susi, the CAO will confirm your new course with Susi. If not, you can simply login to your Susi student portal and update the course details through the My Courses section. As grants can only be awarded in respect of an approved course, Susi will then review your application based on the updated course details.
- Finally, if you applied to Susi and decide not to attend your course or defer your place, you must cancel your grant application. You can do this through the My Requests section of your Susi student portal.
If you are holding a further education, Post-Leaving Cert (PLC) course and are now clear that you will not be taking it up, as you have secured Leaving Cert results that secures you a place in a CAO programme of your choice, have the good grace to communicate this to the college in question by email or by phone so that the place can be offered to other prospective students who may wish to now apply for such a programme. All PLC places are applied for online on the individual college’s own website.
Whatever Leaving Cert results you have just received are a mark of your resilience over six uniquely challenging years. Celebrate it with family and friends. But do so respectfully to yourself and to others.
It’s now time to move on from second level to the next phase of your life. Enjoy.
