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Almost 57,000 mainly young people have received their Leaving Certificate results today. The results show that more than 5,000 students have failed ordinary and foundation-level maths making many ineligible for third-level courses, as maths is a basic requirement in subjects such as science and engineering.

The results overall highlight the shallow pool of high achievers in maths. While over 55,000 sat the Leaving Cert, only 6,600 gained an "honour" (Grade C3 or better) in higher-level maths meaning that tens of thousands of students will be disqualified from enrolling on third-level courses in courses which are seen to be essential to a knowledge economy.