LEAVING CERT Irish is in difficulty as students continue turning away from the subject. This is despite higher-level Irish boasting the highest honours rate of any subject in the examinations this year. Of the more than 14,000 students who sat higher-level Irish this year, 84 per cent received an A, B or C grade this morning.
Nonetheless, the gap between the numbers taking English and Irish has grown by 1,700 in just two years, which would gives some idea of the numbers not taking Irish.
The number of students taking the Irish exam has decreased by more than 1,200 since 2009. Meanwhile, the number of students taking Irish at foundation level increased by 430 this year.
Maths and science are still thorns in the side of the authorities, who are keen to boost standards in these key areas. Business students had a relatively poor year as well.
In better news, engineering has received something of a boost in numbers as well as some good grades, while students of English, geography, art and music managed to achieve relatively high grades overall.
GOOD NEWS IN ENGLISH AND GEOGRAPHY
English is the subject with the largest take-up at higher level and the failure rate is tiny at just over 1 per cent. More than 76 per cent of students received an honour in the subject.
Geography is another popular subject among students. An extra 1,065 students opted for the higher-level paper this year and 76 per cent of those achieved an A, B or C.
BAD FOR BUSINESS
There was quite a large drop in the number of students opting for accounting as a subject this year. Higher-level numbers were down by 10 per cent this year. Teachers will be concerned with the relatively high failure rate in the subject – more than 6 per cent this year.
At the same time, 71 per cent of the 12,000 higher-level business students received an honour in the subject while economics students fared slightly better with 74 per cent receiving an honour.
THE VERDICT ON PROJECT MATHS
In many ways, the jury is still out on Project Maths, the pilot mathematics programme sat by 1,984 students this year. The good news is that Project Maths students were more likely to get an honour at higher and ordinary level than their mainstream counterparts at 9 per cent and 6 per cent respectively.
However, the purpose of Project Maths was to encourage more students to sit the higher level paper. In this, the new curriculum has failed, with 16 per cent of students sitting the higher-level paper – the exact same figure as did so in the mainstream maths exam.
For most students this morning, however, the mainstream maths curriculum was still the measure. Just over 8,000 students sat the higher-level paper in June and 80 per cent of them managed to secure an honours grade.
There was disappointment in store for more than 4,000 students, however, who received a fail grade when they opened their results.
PROBLEMS FOR SCIENCE
High failure rates are a real concern for science teachers and students. While 76 per cent of chemistry students obtained an honour at higher level, almost 9 per cent failed the exam. The story was similar for physics where an honours rate of 73 per cent sat uneasily with a failure rate of 8 per cent.
Agricultural science is experiencing an explosion of popularity at third level, but it has one of the lowest honours rates at higher level with just 66 per cent of students managing to get an A, B or C grade. Meanwhile, the failure rate is almost 9 per cent.
Even the ever-popular biology is experiencing serious problems. Of the more than 22,600 students sitting the paper at higher level, barely 70 per cent of them got an honour. More than 8 per cent failed.
ART AND MUSIC – EASY HONOURS?
Almost 95 per cent of students who took higher-level music in the Leaving Certificate examination achieved an A, B or C grade this morning. It’s a startling success rate, which can be somewhat explained by the fact that many have been students of the subject since childhood.
Art is another subject with a high success rate. Of the 8,215 students sitting it at higher level, more than 80 per cent of those achived an honours grade.
THE COLLAPSE OF CONSTRUCTION STUDIES AND THE RISE OF ENGINEERING
The number of students sitting the higher-level construction studies exam dropped below 7,000 this year, but more than three-quarters of those achieved an honours grade.
Engineering, on the other hand, experienced a boost of 110, seeing its numbers rise to 3,960. Like construction studies, the honours rate in engineering is 76 per cent.
LINGUISTIC ABILITIES
New languages are scoring some of the highest success rates in the Leaving Cert examination this year. Russian, Slovakian, Hungarian, Romanian, Bulgarian, Latvian and Polish all had an honours rate of more than 90 per cent.
Mainstream languages, such as French, German and Spanish, also had a good rate of success with 75 per cent, 81 per cent and 82 per cent of higher-level students achieving honours respectively. Almost 14,000 students take French, making it the most popular language by far, although its honours rate is the lowest of the languages.
IN OTHER NEWS
History and home economics both have a higher-level honours rate of 76 per cent. History received a minor boost to its figures with just over 200 extra students taking the paper this year.
Home economics saw a decrease of a similar number, but such a small fluctuation is unlikely to concern teachers.