Junior Cert’s fail rate ‘due to lack of primary school help’

HIGH failure rates at Junior Certificate maths could be reversed if children with numeracy difficulties had more help at primary school, teachers have claimed.

More than 1,900 of this year’s students failed ordinary level maths - a rate of one in 14 - and 1,479 (6.4%) of those who took the higher level paper last June failed.

In this year’s Leaving Certificate more than 10% of ordinary level maths students did not pass the exam.