It will affect students who have previously completed their Leaving Cert as well as students doing it next year.

A new system, due to be announced later this week, will award CAO points to students who achieve an ‘E’ grade in a higher level Leaving Certificate exam. According to a report in the Irish Times, the system, which is aimed at easing pressure on Leaving Cert students, will come into effect next year. Furthermore, higher education institutions have agreed that the same criteria regarding entry requirements will apply to college applicants presenting results from 2016 and previous years. Under the new system, an ‘E’ grade in a higher level Leaving Certificate subject will be awarded with 37 points, while the traditional A-F grading system will be replaced with a H1-H8 system for Higher Level and O1-O8 for Ordinary Level. Under the system, points will be awarded as follows:

Higher Level

H1 (90-100 marks): 100 points H2 (80-89 marks): 88 points H3 (70-79 marks): 77 points H4 (60-69 marks): 66 points H5 (50-59 marks): 56 points H6 (40-49 marks): 46 points H7 (30-39 marks): 37 points H8 (0-29 marks): 0 points

Ordinary Level

O1 (90-100 marks): 56 points O2 (80-89 marks): 46 points O3 (70-79 marks): 37 points O4 (60-69 marks): 28 points O5 (50-59 marks): 20 points O6 (40-49 marks): 12 points O7 (30-39 marks): 0 points O8 (0-29 marks): 0 points The introduction of the new system, according to the Irish Times report, will have implications for students considering repeating maths in next year’s Leaving Certificate. Students who achieved an ‘E’ grade at higher level, for example, will not have to resit the maths exam to meet the entry requirements for a number of CAO courses. In other CAO courses, however, such as a number of engineering courses, the maths requirement will increase from a C3 this year (55-60 per cent) to a H4 in 2017 (60-69 per cent). More information on the proposed changes to the CAO system is available in the Irish Times report here, while the situation will become clearer when the new system is officially announced later this week.