With the advent of a modified grading system in Leaving Certificate 2020 and 2021 due to the disruption caused by the pandemic, a doubling of the average number of H1s awarded across all Higher-Level subjects was observed in 2020, compared to the previous nine years, and a tripling of the average number of H1s has been recorded based on this year’s Leaving Certificate results. Briefly, in the years 2011 to 2019, the average percentage of students receiving a H1, averaged across all higher-level subjects*, was 5.4%, with this figure remaining fairly consistent year on year. In 2020, along with the inception of an adapted grading system, this percentage rose to 10.3%. This year saw a further surge, with the average percentage of students attaining a H1 climbing to 15.2%. In concrete terms, in 2019 the number of H1s attained across all Higher-Level subjects was 14,654 compared with 26,098 in 2020 and reaching 41,464 in 2021. This level of grade inflation certainly has implications for the rising bar of CAO entry points for third-level courses, which can still only accept a fixed number of students each year.
Although a striking increase in the number of H1s meted out is apparent across all subjects, a case in point is Higher Level Art. Leaving Certificate Art, historically one of the most difficult subjects in which to achieve a top grade with a meagre average 1.5% of students achieving top marks in the years 2011 to 2019, recorded an increase to 8.5% in 2020 and a further increase to 13.2% this year. Put another way, in 2016, 1.3% of LC Higher-Level Art students received a H1 , or 101 students of the 7,789 students who sat the exam that year. Despite the average number of students sitting Higher-Level Art remaining fairly stable, this year, 1046 students out of the total student cohort of 7,925 received the most exclusive grade.
Similar trends are seen across many different subjects for this year’s Leaving Certificate Higher-Level exams (see graphs below). These data suggest that the modified grading system has led to grade inflation for these subjects at the higher end of the grading scheme, and represents a significant departure from the usual amount of H1’s awarded in previous years.
* Graph includes data for Higher Level subjects with at least 3,500 students sitting the exam in any given year
