A total of 1,122 students, or 2 per cent of candidates, secured maximum points in this year’s Leaving Cert exams, according to detailed statistics compiled by the CAO.
This is a more than fourfold increase since 2019 — the last set of Leaving Cert exams before the pandemic — when a total of 207 students, or 0.4 per cent of candidates, achieved maximum points.
The increase reflects the sharp increase in grade inflation during Covid-19 on foot of changes in assessment which included more generous teachers’ predicted grades.
Despite securing top grades this year, some students with 625 points missed out on their first preference college course due to the use of random selection, or a lottery, to award places.
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These courses include dentistry at UCC, and dental science and management science & information systems — both at Trinity College Dublin, which had an entry requirement of 625 points with random selection.
Universities said they were forced to use a lottery due to the “bunching” of students with top grades, which made it difficult to differentiate between the top candidates for courses.
The use of random selection in about 50 college courses in total this year has prompted a number of academics and university leaders to call for a return to normal grades as soon as possible.
Minister for Education Norma Foley has said there will not be a “cliff edge” drop in the profile of students’ Leaving Cert grades next year.
Instead, grade inflation is set to reduce in “stages” over the coming years in order not to disadvantage Leaving Cert students competing for college places against candidates with results from previous years, she said.
While the aggregate grade profile of this year’s Leaving Cert results is in line with last year’s — on foot of a commitment from Minister Foley — there has been a slight decrease in the proportion of students securing high points in 2022 compared to 2021.
For example, a record-breaking total of 1,342 students achieved 625 points in 2021 compared to 1,122 this year.
Education analysts say this drop may be due to the way grades were artificially inflated this year to match the aggregate grades of 2021.
While students’ marks were adjusted upwards by about 5.6 per cent on average, the scale of the increase was greater for lower grades and smaller for higher grades.
Officials say this was because the gap between last year’s results and this year’s was wider among lower grades and narrower among higher grades.
Meanwhile, CAO data indicates that the number of students achieving higher points has been a trend since at least 1995, albeit at a much slower rate until the pandemic struck.
For example, just 35 students (0.05 per cent) secured maximum points in 1995, rising to 165 students in 2012 (0.3 per cent) and 1,342 (2 per cent) last year.
Some of the increase is linked to the addition of bonus points for higher level maths, which was introduced from 2012 onwards.
An upwards grade inflation trend is evident among students generally.
For example, a total of 14,558 (25 per cent) of student achieved 500 points or more this year.
This compares to 2,625 (4 per cent) in 1995, 5,191 (10 per cent) in 2012, 7,465 (13 per cent) in 2019 and 15,463 (27 per cent) in 2021.
