Significant falls in history and maths grades but marked improvements in science subjects, foreign languages and Irish are shown in a breakdown of this year's Leaving Certificate examination results issued by the Department of Education.
Some 62,000 students will be receiving their results today.
While there are more third-level places available than ever this year (54,000 in all) many students continue to have serious problems in the exam.
Almost 9 per cent failed English and 12.8 per cent failed ordinary level maths, up from 12.2 per cent last year.
Almost 25 per cent of students failed ordinary level history, compared to about 20 per cent last year.
The performance in history surprised many teachers because candidates were given an extra 20 minutes to complete their scripts.
The Teachers Union of Ireland last night called on the Department to investigate the falling marks.
The union said history needed the level of Government promotion which had gone into physics and chemistry. While the ordinary level marks were poor, grades at higher level held up well.
Grades in honours maths dropped after gains in recent years. Last year almost 82 per cent of candidates achieved an honour, but this fell to 74.1 per cent this year. The failure rate was up from 2.8 per cent to 5.10 per cent.
Science subjects showed signs of stabilising. The number of A1 grades in chemistry rose from 8.4 per cent to 10.4 per cent. The failure rates in chemistry and physics were down.
French remained unchanged with 68.6 per cent of higher-level candidates getting an honour, while 80.7 per cent got an honour in higher-level German compared to 76 per cent last year.
This is the first year students will be able to ring a Department of Education phone service for results.
Those at home can ring 1530 719808 and those abroad can ring 353 1 2144 303. To hear their results students will have to key in their exam and PIN numbers.
Emmet Oliver can be reached at eoliver@irish-times.ie