A third of students get at least 400 points

THIS year’s Leaving Certificate results are the best on record as an all-time high of close to one-in-three students got at least 400 CAO points.

The number with the maximum 600 points are down slightly as a proportion of all 54,480 students whose exam results were notified by the State Examinations Commission to the Central Applications Office (CAO) ahead of this morning’s first round of offers to school-leavers. But the proportion with 500 or more points and over 450 have never been higher, except in 2007, when points in the highest range were scored by more Leaving Certificate students than any other year.

However, the 16,672 students with at least 400 points – an average of four C2s and two C1s at higher level – is 439 more than last year and the biggest proportion since the CAO points system started counting sub-divided grades in the early 1990s. Previously, students were simply awarded A, B, C grades, and so on.

This figure represents 30.6% of students who sat last June’s exams and reflects annual improvements in exam scores over the last decade.

In 2000, less than 25% of school-leavers got 400 points, but the proportion reached almost 29% by 2005.

The statistics from the CAO also reveal that a record low 24.9% of this year’s students got less than 200 points, the first time less than one-in-four have scored below that level.

This may be partly due to a drop in candidates not sitting exams through mainstream second-level schools this year, who are more likely not to take the full six subjects from which CAO points are calculated. But it compares to a much higher proportion in 2005 of 26.6%, and more than 29% of the Leaving Certificate class of 2000.

The figures reflect an increase in the numbers with top grades in higher level subjects last week, with 1,310 students awarded at least three A1s (worth 300 points) last week, up from 1,258 in 2009. They were among 6,086 students with one or more A1s, an 5.5% increase on last year.

Although the proportion getting honours grades (A, B or C) in higher level subjects including maths, Irish, home economics, history and chemistry fell this year, more students got honours in higher level English, biology, French, geography, business and physics.

The figures may increase concerns about grade inflation in the Leaving Certificate, which was the subject of a report to former education minister Batt O’Keeffe earlier this year.

The improvements in grade patterns of recent years have led to accusations of the exams being dumbed down, but increased teacher training and the availability of exam marking schemes have been put forward as factors in rising student performance.