Marks upgraded in 21% of Leaving Certificate result appeals
Scripts Rollingnews Almost Leaving Were Picture: For 122,000 Certificate Viewing Ie Requested
More than one in five (21%) Leaving Certificate grades appealed this year have been upgraded, new figures from the State Examinations Commission (SEC) show.
The results from this year’s Leaving Certificate appeals process will be available to students online on Friday from 11am.
In 2024, appeals were made by 7,268 students against 14,287 individual exam results.
A further 4,048 candidates followed the Leaving Certificate Applied programme, with fewer than five students appealing these results.
In April of this year, Education Minister Norma Foley committed again to keeping overall Leaving Certificate results no lower on average than last year.
In line with this, a post-marking adjustment was made by the SEC to each of the 405,171 grades before they were issued to students this year.
This post-marking adjustment was not open to appeal. However, where an overall mark changed on appeal, the post-marking adjustment was calculated again.
Almost 122,000 scripts were requested for viewing. Almost 13% of students went on to initiate an appeal against one or more results. In 2023, this figure stood at 10.5%.
Before the application of the recalculated post-marking adjustment, there were 814 upgraded grades, 5.6% of the total number of appeals this year.
Following the recalculated post-marking adjustment, the number of upgrades jumped to 3,123.
The final number of upgrades of 3,123 represents less than 1% of all Leaving Certificate results awarded in 2024.
A further 31 students who had not started an appeal also saw a grade jump as a result of random quality assurance checks carried out by the SEC.
Theses changes have been notified to the students’ schools, the CAO, and updated on the Candidate Self-Service Portal.
There are a number of post-appeals processes still available to students.
Students may view their remarked written examination scripts, which will take place online where possible.
Students who remain unhappy may also refer their appeal to the Independent Appeal Scrutineers (IAS), who are tasked with ensuring all of exam appeals processes have been carried out correctly by the SEC.