Leaving Cert grades likely to gradually return to normality from 2023

Leaving Cert grades are likely to gradually return to more normal levels from 2023 onwards.

Minister for Education Norma Foley announced on Tuesday that overall marks for this year's Leaving Cert will be "no lower" than last year's record high results.

Higher education sources, however, have warned that such high grade profiles are unsustainable and will result in “cruel” levels of grade inflation and more use of random selection.

In response to a query, a Department of Education spokesman said planning for the 2023 exams will start immediately after the 2022 exams conclude.

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"The Department will be considering with the State Examinations Commission the issue of the marking and grading arrangements for 2023 at that stage," he said. "It is not expected that there would be a sudden return to the marking and grading levels that applied for the 2019 Leaving Certificate."

Ms Foley also said that that there may well be a “petering off” of high grades over time.

Grades surged in 2020 and 2021 as a result of traditional exams being replaced by a system based on teachers’ estimates and, last year, a hybrid option which offered students a choice between estimates and written exams.

Average grades achieved in the 2021 higher level Leaving Cert exams are estimated to be about 17 per cent ahead of the normal pre-pandemic grades, or an average of about 60 CAO points.

The increase in the proportion of students securing top grades has been particularly dramatic.

For example, the number of Leaving Cert candidates who secured top grades – eight H1s – surged from just seven students in 2019 to 119 last year, an increase of 1,600 per cent.

The number who scored seven H1s jumped from 69 in 2019 to 243 in 2020 and 544 in 2021, while those with six H1s increased from 69 in 2019 to 243 in 2020 and 544 in 2021.

Post-marking intervention

Ms Foley pledged that overall marks for students in the 2022 Leaving Cert exams will be similar to last year will be achieved by allowing the SEC to apply a “post-marking intervention”.

This which will lift all students’ marks, if necessary. Student marks will not be lowered, however, if they are above last year’s high grade profile.

In theory, overall grades could climb higher in 2022 because the written exams will not be marked according to a traditional bell curve, as happens in normal years.

This limits the proportion of students who secure certain grades to ensure there is comparability between different years.

Other jurisdictions are also grappling with how to deal with high grade profiles after replacing traditional exams with teacher assessment over recent years.

Education authorities in England announced last year that students may be put on a "glide path" back to pre-pandemic exam grading levels over the next two years or so.

A return to more normal grade patterns means the class of 2022 and 2021 – and, to a lesser extent, the class of 2020 – will benefit from their high grades and CAO points if they reapply for college courses in future years.

Third-level sources say the biggest losers out of grade inflation in recent years are the thousands of students who reapplied to the CAO based on Leaving Cert results they secured in previous years.

Many found that their points were no longer sufficient to gain their first choice courses due to the scale of grade inflation.