The class of 2025 will pay the price of reversing Leaving Cert grade inflation

Irish Times

27-05-2025

We're told Leaving Cert grades have been inflated to record high levels in recent years. Why?
Leaving Cert grades used to kept at broadly the same level year after year. The idea was to make sure the qualification was broadly comparable. Authorities did this by marking scripts according to a 'bell curve', which meant a similar proportion of students achieved H1s, H2s and H3s, etc, each year.
This changed suddenly with the introduction of teachers' predicted grades in 2020 at the start of the Covid pandemic.
These much more generous grades saw results climb up 4.4 percentage points on aggregate from 2019 levels.
A year later they climbed higher still – a further 2.6 percentage points – when students had a choice of predicted grades or written exams.
READ MORE
This raised students' exam results upwards, on aggregate, by about 7 percentage points in 2021 over results achieved by students before Covid in 2019.
Grades have been artificially kept at this high level through what authorities call a 'postmarking adjustment' since 2021.
This has been achieved by marking exam papers as normal and then, when the process is complete, adding further marks to all papers to ensure overall grades match the tally from previous years, on aggregate.
If grades are up 7%, what does this mean for Leaving Cert or CAO points?
Seven per cent might not sound like much, but the effect of these increases has been considerable, especially for those taking higher level subjects.
For example, authorities previously estimated that a student who achieved 512 CAO points in 2019 would have been awarded about 550 points on foot of these upward adjustments over recent years.
[
Will CAO points drop due to efforts to tackle grade inflation this year?
Opens in new window
]
What's wrong with inflated grades? Surely we could just keep the results going at the same level?
Higher-education institutions have complained that it is difficult to differentiate between candidates on high grades for some courses because so many are getting top marks.
This has led to an increase in use of random selection – a lottery – to choose candidates, especially in highly competitive courses such as medicine, dentistry, pharmacy and others.
Inflated grades have also made it much more difficult for students from the North to access university here, as grades in the UK have since returned to normal levels. Yet they are competing against students on higher grades in the South.
In light of these factors, among others, Minister for Education Helen McEntee has pledged to begin what her officials have described as a 'glide path' back to pre-Covid results over the course of a few years.
What impact will this have on my grades this year?
The plan is that a 'postmarking adjustment' applied to students' grades on aggregate this year will reduce from 7 per cent to 5.5 per cent.
In other words, students' grades will be lower, on aggregate, compared with the bumper grades achieved over recent years.
For example, a student who achieved about 550 points on foot of inflated grades last year could expect to receive about 538 points in 2025.
Do these lower grades really matter? Surely all students in sixth year will be in the same boat?
They will be – but about 15,000-plus students with inflated results from previous years will also be in the hunt for the same CAO places as the class of 2025.
In other words about one in four applicants in the CAO round one offers in late August will be students holding results from 2021-2024 who benefitted from higher grades, on aggregate. Their CAO points will give them an advantage over any equivalent 2025 Leaving Cert student.
Helen McEntee says this very gradual pace of returning to normal aims to minimise the impact on students as far as possible.
Arguably, however, this process becomes more problematic for the classes of 2026 and 2027.
They will also be competing against students from previous years on bumper grades from an even lower point. (This, of course, depends on how many of those on inflated grades since 2020-2025 continue to apply to the CAO annually to secure places on high-points courses they failed to secure places on previously).
[
Leaving Cert 2025: How much lower will students' grades be this year amid deflation?
Opens in new window
]
What impact will this have on CAO points overall this year?
It is difficult to say for sure. There are several factors that can influence the entry cut-off point for the CAO's round one offers in late August.
They include the number of places on offer across individual courses, the demand for these places and the points achieved by applicants.
With so many candidates set to achieve lower points this year, it seems likely that CAO entry points should drop overall.
If, for example, 75 per cent of applicants in the CAO round one offers have one grade less than in the past five years and 25 per cent retain their existing bumper grades, then – all things remaining equal – there should be a modest easing of points requirements for courses.
But then again, all things are not equal. Some courses have increased in popularity, putting upward pressure on CAO points, while others will have fallen out of fashion, leading to an easing of points requirements.
Are more students with bumper grades from recent years reapplying this year?
The CAO says there are no indications at this time that the proportion of students applying with pre-2025 Leaving Cert results this year varies significantly from previous years.
It is also worth noting that the percentage of students receiving a CAO offer of one of their top-three choice preferences is consistently high each year, over 80 per cent. This is likely to happen again this year.
Surely there's a fairer way of deflating grades and protecting the class of 2025?
One option, in theory, is that the higher-education institutions – which own and manage the CAO application system – could ringfence a proportion of college places for the class of 2025 only.
To do this fairly, this option would require very detailed data analysis on the part of every college and would entail a huge administrative task.
In any case, my understanding is that there has been a reluctance to change a process that has stood the test of time since its inception in 1976.
Or could the Department of Education adjust the inflated results of students with bumper grades from recent years downwards, so they match the class of 2025?
In theory, it could be possible.
Leaving Cert students from 2022, 2023 and 2024 had their exam papers marked normally, after which, a postmarking adjustment was made to bring them into line with inflated Covid-era grades.
Those original marks and grades are retained by the State Examinations Commission.
These students could, in theory, be allocated CAO points based on their lower pre-adjusted grades. (Their published Leaving Cert would continue to be recognised as their official result; but their unadjusted grades would count for CAO purposes).
Then we could abandon any need for postmarking adjustments for the class of 2025 and subsequent years.
Some, however, may argue that the exam papers are not strictly comparable in recent times, as greater choice and fewer questions featured in some to help compensate for disrupted learning during Covid.
Using this method to amend the results of students who sat the Leaving Cert in 2020 and 2021 is not possible, as their results were based mainly on predicted or 'calculated grades'.
This shouldn't a problem, however. Many of these students are now aged 23 or more and can apply to the CAO as 'mature applicants' where they are considered on the basis of their life experience to date and not on the basis of their Leaving Cert grades.