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Students receive their Leaving Cert results. Sam Boal/RollingNews.ie

Latin, Libya and Leitrim: Leaving Cert results by numbers

Everyone has got their results, so here are the most important statistics from today.

TENS OF THOUSANDS of students received their Leaving Certificate results today. 

To be more precise, 58,787 people took exams in 2019 and will now be awaiting the release of CAO offers later this week. 

It’s the third year of the new grading system, so it should all need no explanation. While as ever the majority of students took the traditional Leaving Cert programme, 22% of students took the Leaving Certificate vocational course and 4.6% took the applied programme. 

One thing that hasn’t changed is the sheer volume of numbers and statistics involved. We’ve broken down the most important data from Leaving Cert 2019. 

Leaving Cert results in numbers

56,071  The total number of students who sat the Leaving Cert this year. 

2,716 – The number of students who sat the Leaving Certificate Applied. 

697  The number of people repeating the exam. 

28,373 The number of female students who took the Leaving Certificate. 

27,698  The number of male students who took the exam. 

1,679  The total number of students taking an exam in a non-curricular EU language. This was a small increase on 2018. 

340 – The number of students who took the Romanian exam – this was the second most popular non-curricular language after Polish.

408 – The number of students who sat the Leaving Cert in Leitrim, the county with the lowest number of people taking the exam.

63 –  The number of students from Libya who sat the exam, where it has been offered at just one school since 1997. 

6 – The percentage of students who sat higher level Maths who got a H1.

5 – The number of students who got 8 H1s.

61 – The number of students who got 7 H1s. 

24.3 – The percentage of students who were awarded an O8 – the lowest grade – in ordinary level Physics and Chemistry. This was the highest proportion of O8s in any paper. 

54 – The number of students who took the Latin exam. Numbers have declined every year since 2017. 

6,605 – Agricultural Science remains popular. The number of students taking the higher-level exam increased slightly this year. 

0  The number of students who got a H1 in Agricultural Economics. But no student got a H7 or a H8 either. 

9.1 – The percentage of students who received an O8 in ordinary-level Japanese – a jump from only 1.7% in 2017. 

168 The number of students took higher level Arabic, an increase of 70% from 2017

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    Mute John Horan
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    Aug 13th 2019, 12:50 PM

    Why are no curricular languages examined? Correct me if I am wrong but this is just a free grade for people who speak these languages natively. Hence I would expect all students to get a high grade without studying much.

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    Mute Bríd Uí Mhaoluala
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    Aug 13th 2019, 12:59 PM

    @John Horan: like in English ?

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    Mute John Horan
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    Aug 13th 2019, 2:17 PM

    @Bríd Uí Mhaoluala: Good point, but English at LC level is more about literature and didn’t include an oral or aural exam when I did it. My LC French didn’t have any literature and focused on grammar, listening speaking and writing all of which you will accomplish (hopefully) as part of being a native speaker.

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    Mute Dave.
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    Aug 13th 2019, 2:21 PM

    @Bríd Uí Mhaoluala: Have a look at the papers. For a start. One paper for most languages. English is two papers. Irish is two papers. They need to standardise the language papers if you ask me. All follow the same formats. Why Irish and English have two over the others is putting people at a loss.

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    Mute George Salter
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    Aug 13th 2019, 2:46 PM

    @John Horan: A school colleague of mine, a native Italian speaker, got higher marks in French. Basically, he spoke fully fluent country Italian, which was not exactly the same as the standardised dialect (presumably Roman).
    If the same sort of thing applied to English, most of Ireland – and the UK- would struggle to replicate the “Queens English/ BBC” accent and phrasing, despite being fluent and perfectly able to communicate, write and read.

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    Mute John Horan
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    Aug 13th 2019, 3:47 PM

    @George Salter: It might explain a few people who are born in Ireland and struggle with the English language, given the local dialect they grew up speaking ;-p

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    Mute GrahamMManning
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    Aug 13th 2019, 2:39 PM

    The numbers doing Latin have declined every year since 2017? Ya mean the last 2 years? Woah there’s an alarming trend.

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    Mute Edmund Murphy
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    Aug 13th 2019, 12:15 PM

    So theirs agricultural science and agricultural economics. Glad to see it’s been modernised. I remember my agri science book in 2005 was a new printing of the 1968 edition.

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    Mute Macavity
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    Aug 13th 2019, 12:28 PM

    How can a student get a H8 in ordinary level Japanese?

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    Mute Shakka1244
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    Aug 13th 2019, 12:38 PM

    @Macavity: Karera wa benkyō shimasendeshita

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    Mute Chonky Racoon
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    Aug 13th 2019, 1:15 PM

    @Macavity: konichawah

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    Mute Bruce Van der Gutschmitzer
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    Aug 13th 2019, 1:25 PM

    @Chonky Racoon: konich ya bleedin wha?

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    Mute Macavity
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    Aug 13th 2019, 3:32 PM

    @Shakka1244: hは高いことを意味します。 oは普通を意味します

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    Mute Marty from Sligo
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    Aug 13th 2019, 2:16 PM

    It will be great to see all the excited students on the evening news jumping up and down and hugging their friends with big smiles after passing the exam, then a headmaster will be interviewed and every year they say dont worry if you didn’t pass because it does not matter to much you can always do it again and you will not be a failure in life.

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    Mute COYBIG
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    Aug 13th 2019, 1:00 PM

    You can’t get a H8 in ordinary level, H stands for Higher, O for Ordinary

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    Mute Shakka1244
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    Aug 13th 2019, 12:38 PM

    彼らは勉強しませんでした

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    Mute Keith ☘️
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    Aug 13th 2019, 1:31 PM

    @Shakka1244: H1 in Google translate for you

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    Mute Fergus O'Connor
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    Aug 13th 2019, 1:49 PM

    @Shakka1244: نعم لقد فعلوا

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    Mute George Salter
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    Aug 13th 2019, 2:47 PM

    @Shakka1244: 1001001011010011101001110

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    Mute Peter Byrne
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    Aug 13th 2019, 11:07 PM

    Did Latin ay school and I must say really enjoyed the course, especially Caesars battles

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