Grade inflation in the Leaving Certificate

A feature of recent Leaving Certificate result announcements has been the dramatic grade inflation prompted by the pandemic. The current Minister for Education has a announced that there will be a gradual step-down from this starting in 2025 (our neighbours in England are already back to pre-pandemic levels without any apparent fuss).

See a summary from the Irish Times in the graphic below of H1 grades over 6 years.

I am not here going into the debate about the rights and wrongs of this inflation, and the complications caused in third-level institutions. Instead, as an English teacher I am querying the evident outlier in the results, my own subject.

English has always been a hard subject in which to achieve the highest grades, but the recent grade inflation has really stretched the disparity with other subjects. Why?

2019: Art is at 3.2%, and now 15.0%. Music at 4.3% and now 20.0%. Home Economics at 3.3% and now 13.4%. Geography has moved from 3.9% to 11.2%.

Meanwhile English in 2019 was on a similar 3.0% and is now at 6.9% in terms of H1s.

Similar major subjects which large numbers of candidates take are Irish and Mathematics. Have a look below.

Meanwhile English is solitary in the right-hand column like an abandoned orphan, all alone in its single digits.

Image from the Irish Times