Nervous expectation for thousands of students came to an end yesterday across the country when the Leaving Certificate results were revealed. Like all around the country, students were arriving at schools across county Limerick and North Cork from early morning to pick up the pieces of paper that may well decide their futures.
The general consensus locally was one of satis-faction with the results with some very high results achieved. While the wait for the results is over, another wait will continue until Monday when the first round of C.A.O. offers is pub-lished. Yesterday most students were confident of securing places on their chosen course. One student who will have no such worries is Coláiste Mhuire, Buttevant’s Edmond O’Neill who achieved a whopping eight As in Higher Level subjects, a result that netted him 615 points.
The Minister for Education and Skills, Ruairí Quinn T.D., sent his congratulations to the 55,572 Leaving Certificate students who collected their results.“The waiting is over. I hope the results received reflect the work and the many hours of study that the students have committed to over the last few years,” Minister Quinn said.
This year, 26 per cent of all maths students took the Higher Level paper, the highest figure on record. In 2011 there were 8,235 candidates and this increased to 13,014 in 2013.
The numbers taking Higher Level Irish increased from 14,358 in 2011 to 16,669 in 2013. This reflects the new increase in the proportion of marks for the oral exam – up from 25 per cent to 40 per cent.