20% of Leaving Cert appeals result in upgrade

About one-in-five of those who appealed their Leaving Cert results secured an upgrade, according to figures released last night.

The State Exams Commission said over 2,000 upgrades were given in just over 10,000 appeals. The upgrades were given in 30 different subjects. Only five students had their results down-graded.

The highest number of upgrades (399) was in higher level English. Over 240 students who sat higher level Irish also received upgrades.

The Exams Commission also said that the work of four examiners was reviewed in Gaeilge, English and Geography. This review led to 358 upgrades for candidates who had not appealed.

In addition, there were upgrades in French for 10 candidates who had not appealed. This followed a quality assurance review of the aural test in two examination centres.

In the processing of appeals, the work of each candidate is fully remarked question by question. A feature of the appeal process is that the remarking is performed by a different examiner to the one who originally marked the work.

For the first time this year, all oral tests in language subjects were recorded. In previous years, only the written and aural components of results in Gaeilge, French, German, Spanish and Italian could be remarked on appeal. Recording the oral test has facilitated a full remarking.

In all, 95,000 oral recordings were made. There were 1,974 appeals in these subjects this year.