This article is from page 10 of the 2006-06-13 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 10 JPG
AS EXAM tension grinds on, it has emerged that Clare students perform better than average in the Leaving Cert, according to an important new study.
Clare came fifth in the nationwide study of Leaving Cert results for 36,000 students in 2004.
Using figures compiled for the Higher Education Authority, the analysis looked at the number of students who entered higher eduction with five higher-level C grades, or better. The national average came back at 39.7 per cent, but Clare’s average was 45.1 per cent.
The results come as thousands of the county’s students prepare this week to face papers on history, business studies, science, German and home economics. Last week, students were generally pleased with the papers. There were no surprises in the English paper, while the Irish paper was being described as fair, with maths a little tricky.
The Banner county came in behind Cork, which scored 52.3 per cent, Dublin, which had 46.3 per cent, Limerick which returned 45.6 per cent and Kilkenny, which had 45.4 per cent. The figures were published as part of a HEA/ESRI survey.
Students in large urban areas outperformed those in rural areas. The high performing counties were also those with a large number of fee-paying schools.