This afternoon, government has announced an additional 1250 higher education places will be offered on certain high-demand courses for the upcoming academic year, 2020/2021.
Government has also released details of how the results will be graded, with school-by-school previous results being removed from the standardisation model.
This means that the grades received by students will have a “greater emphasis” on estimated marks provided by schools to students.
According to the announcement, 79.3% of grades assigned by teachers will remain unchanged, with 3.9% being increased. 16.8% will be lowered by one grade, with 0.1% of grades being lowered by more than one grade.
The announcement comes as Leaving Certificate results are to be released next Monday, with the “Calculated Grades” being made on the Student Portal at 9am.
Schools have been asked to provide supports to their past pupils, and provide access to guidance counselors in the coming weeks.
Government announced the introduction of the different calculated grade system in May of this year, following the outbreak of Covid-19.
Last week, the Irish Times revealed that a new plan asking universities to increase their capacity in a number of courses was to be presented to Cabinet by Minister for Further and Higher Education Simon Harris.
In this plan, oversubscribed courses including nursing, law and medicine could see an increase of 5%.
Trinity pushed back entry for incoming first years to October 5, following the previous postponement of Leaving Certificate results to three weeks later than the traditional timeline.
Incoming first year students are to start lectures on October 5, with Freshers’ week beginning on September 28. Teaching for continuing students resumes alongside Freshers’ week.
The first round of CAO offers are due to be released on September 11, for acceptance by September 16. Second round offers will be released on September 23, for acceptance by September 26.
Applications for appeals will open on September 14.
Leaving Certificate exams will commence on November 16, for students wishing to opt out of the calculated grades process.
