With the frenzy of results day having thankfully subsided we can now survey, in all its pomp, the full wasteland that is the entirety of the Leaving Cert results' statistics. With there often being a vast disparity between pass, honours and failure rates between courses we've assessed which Higher and Ordinary level subjects had the highest failure rates.
Looking at the detailed breakdown made available on the State Examinations Commission's website, which shows grade percentiles in every subject through Higher, Ordinary and Foundation levels. Each of these five subjects aren't that the largest number of students have failed, they are rather the subjects that the highest percentage of those who sat the exams failed.
The five Higher level subjects with the highest failure rates are as follows:
- Portuguese - 10.7%
- Physics & Chemistry - 10.1%
- Physics - 7.8%
- Biology - 7.1%
- Bulgarian - 6.7%
Whereas the five Ordinary level subjects with the highest failure rates are:
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- Arabic - 33.3%
- Physics & Chemistry - 33%
- Classical Studies - 27.7%
- Agricultural Science - 26.9%
- Religious Education - 25.9%
With Physics & Chemistry being the only subject to appear in both the Higher and Ordinary level lists, I'm sure students going into 6th year who've taken it as a subject will be hoping it was just a particularly difficult year.
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