State Examination Chiefs have apologised for an error in the Leaving Certificate Applied (LCA) grading system.

The error was discovered in the grading process which affected 1,800 LCA students.

All students impacted received higher marks but only 144 received a higher grade.

A spokesperson for the State Examinations Commission (SEC) said the error was confined to one part of the exam - the Personal Reflection Task - which is completed by all students and is worth ten marks out of a total 190.

A spokesperson said the State Examinations Commission (SEC) is "issuing upgraded programme level awards to 144 candidates undertaking the Leaving Certificate Applied programme. This has arisen following the discovery of a mistake relating to the Personal Reflection Task, one of the LCA components which all candidates complete, and which is worth up to 10 credits from the overall total of 190 credits."

"This mistake arose in the SEC’s final grading process and was confined to one task within the LCA programme."

They added: "All 144 candidates affected by this issue have been contacted and notified that they can access the Candidate Portal to access an updated programme level award statement."

For the other 1,668 candidates that undertook the LCA exams but did not receive an altered grade because of the error, an updated statement is available through the Candidate Portal.

The spokesperson said: "They can too access the Candidate Portal to receive an updated statement of their provisional results in which the credits for the Personal Reflection Task have been updated."

The SEC said it apologised to all affected candidates and that is "satisfied" that candidates have received the correct grades.

The spokesperson said: "The SEC has apologised to the candidates and schools affected by this issue and can assure them that the Commission is satisfied that candidates have received their correct results."

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