Almost 2,000 Leaving Cert results have been upgraded following appeals to the Department of Education. The largest were in higher-level accounting and history.
In total, 9,628 students appealed their grades this year, 1,985 successfully. The results of the appeal process were made available in schools yesterday. Eight unlucky students had their results revised downwards.
Any student who has been upgraded will have gained additional CAO points. These may now be entitled to a higher-preference course at third-level.
The CAO said last night it would be sending out 500 fresh offers to reflect the changes. A spokesman said 301 would be degree offers, 149 would be diploma/certificate offers and the rest would be nursing offers. He said details would be available today on the web at www.cao.ie
A small number of students, whose points have increased, will not be offered a place this year even after the recheck process. This is because the colleges claim there is no room for extra students at this stage in the college year. College sources say this small group should be able to take up their place next year.
The number of upgrades were down this year, mainly due to the reduction in the number of Leaving Cert students. The numbers appealing their original score were up slightly.
The Department of Education also revealed yesterday that five examiners made errors this year which led to 325 upgrades for candidates who had not even lodged an appeal.
The Department said that after a "quality assurance check" the work of the five examiners was noted. After a review, results in subjects as diverse as Irish, English, French, maths, home economics, classical studies and the LCVP modules were changed.
The core principle behind the rechecking process each year is that a different examiner marks the student's work. An upgrade is ordered usually if the original examiner marked too harshly. What also happens regularly is that the original examiner marks the paper correctly, but adds up the total marks incorrectly.
The highest number of appeals were lodged in higher-level English, with 1,659 students unhappy with their result. Because many students regard English as one of the more subjective subjects, it tends to attract a lot of appeals. Of the 1,659 English appeals, there were 356 upgrades.
Meanwhile, despite the reduction in the number of school-leavers in the Republic, third-level colleges have added 56 new degree courses to the CAO list for 2002-2003.
The courses are available at universities and institutes of technology. One source expressed surprise at the number of new courses, saying: "One would expect colleges to be pulling courses, rather than providing new ones, but they are determined to cover all options".
The colleges have also added 16 new certificate/diploma courses. A large number of courses have been dropped from this year's CAO programme, but overall more have been added than dropped.