Leaving Cert: 2023 grades remain largely unchanged

Students will receive the results of the 2023 Leaving Cert when they log on to their Candidate Self Service Portal (CSSP) on the State Examinations Commission portal from 10am this morning.

The Leaving Certificate CSSP is provided by the SEC for all candidates entered for the 2023 Leaving Certificate. The platform facilitates:

• Access to examination results

• Access to component marks in subjects (such as oral marks; practical marks etc)

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• Applications to view scripts

• View scripts online in subjects being marked online

• Appeal applications

• Accessing appeal results

Following her announcement at the start of the school year of the adjustments to the assessment arrangements for students taking examinations in 2023, Minister for Education Norma Foley gave a commitment that there would be no automatic return to pre-pandemic grade profiles for Leaving Certificate results this year. This commitment to avoid a “cliff-edge” in the profile of results has required an adjustment to the marks awarded to students through the recent marking process.

Unfortunately for some students, the joy at receiving adjusted results may be short-lived given that securing an offer in a desired course requires an applicant to be among the top number of students who sought a place on that programme through the CAO.

Minister Foley is walking a tightrope in seeking to bring Leaving Cert grades back to pre-Covid 2019 levels without negatively affecting current-year Leaving Cert CAO applicants.

If grades had been reduced too quickly this morning (which has not occurred) or in the next year or two, these students would be at a distinct disadvantage. The grade inflation that has become embedded in the system since 2020 is a complex problem to correct. Inflating everybody’s marks by a standardised percentage does not improve a Leaving Cert student’s place in the overall rankings. If an applicant is the 101st on the course list where there are 100 places on offer, they will still miss out.

Why then did the Minister continue to offer inflated grades to students if it was not going to improve their chances from among their fellow Leaving Cert cohort?

She did so because the class of 2023 only makes up on average 60 per cent of the total number of applicants to the CAO this year, or any other year. There are at least 12,000-15,000 applicants in the CAO process this year who secured their Leaving Cert in 2020, 2021 or 2022.

With high Leaving Cert marks baked into the results of the classes of 2020, 2021 and 2022 it would have been grossly unfair to the class of 2023 to have allowed the pattern of results to revert to pre-Covid levels. The dilemma that arises from the Minister’s actions is that in continuing to inflate grades to 2022 and 2021 levels for the class of 2023, she has created the identical problem for the class of 2024 and subsequent years.

Schools have always provided an important role in offering guidance and support to students on results day. School principals will provide support to students today and over the coming days by enabling them to come to the school, if they wish, at a scheduled time to meet members of the student-support team such as guidance counsellors, year heads, tutors and chaplains.

Given that the new academic year is already under way, last year’s Leaving Cert classes who arrange to go to their school to seek support will be required to attend by appointment so that the teachers they wish to meet can be scheduled to be available.

The SEC will also provide the Leaving Certificate results directly to the CAO. This will allow the CAO to process applications for entry to higher education without delay and release the first-round offers at 2pm next Wednesday, August 30th.

At that stage applicants will see whether they have secured the required number of points to receive an offer on one of their top college choices.

Candidates in the Leaving Certificate and Leaving Certificate Applied examinations are afforded an opportunity to view their own marked scripts after the release of results today. Students will have until Thursday, August 31st, to make an application to view their scripts and can then do so at set times on Saturday and Sunday, September 2nd-3rd.

This allows candidates to satisfy themselves that the marking scheme has been applied correctly to their work and, in addition to enhancing transparency, is designed to assist candidates in making an informed decision to appeal a result in one or more subjects.

With the migration to online marking for most subjects, the process will primarily involve viewing marked PDFs of scripts online via the Candidate Self Service Portal. Online access to viewing is for a 24-hour period from 9 am Saturday 2nd September to 9 am Sunday 3rd.

In any subject that is manually marked, viewing hard-copy marked scripts will be facilitated in schools in one of two three-hour sessions on Saturday 2nd 9.30am-12.30 pm or 2-5 pm. Candidates will continue to have access to the published marking schemes, whether the subject was marked on paper or online.

Candidates will also have access to the examinations appeal process. This will follow the SEC appeal procedures and will include an opportunity to view the scripts marked by the examiners. The appeals process will include further recourse to Independent Appeals Scrutineers, whose role is to check to ensure the correct procedures were followed throughout the appeals process.

The SEC has stated: “Every effort will be made to process appeals as quickly as possible but it is not possible at this time to commit to a date for the issue of the appeal results. Candidates will be notified of this date in due course. There will be appeal fees this year.” Students are advised to visit examinations.ie for more information.