The long awaited Junior Cert examination results will finally be issued to students today after a delay of over two months.
More than 67,000 students from the class of 2022 will receive their results on Wednesday, November 23.
The State Examinations Commission (SEC) has posted the results to schools and candidates can also access their results online from 4pm.
The Junior Cert results are normally released in September but "very significant examiner shortages" affected marking for both sets of state exams - with Leaving Cert results also affected.
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Junior Cert grades are now awarded under a new grading system, rather than A's, B's and C's. Students who achieve 90-100% in the exam will be awarded with 'distinction', 'higher merit' will be awarded to those who achieve 75-90%, 'merit' for 55-75%, 'achieved' for 40-55%, 'partially achieved' for 20-40%, and 'not graded' for 0-20%.
This year, 3.6% of students who took the higher level Maths exam achieved the highest grade possible, a 'distinction', along with 2.1% of students who sat higher-level English and 2.6% of students in higher level Irish exam.
Minister for Education Norma Foley congratulated students who are receiving their results today on reaching the "major milestone".
She said: "Throughout your school life, each of you will have learned so much and will have developed a myriad of talents, skills and ambitions that will pave the way as you embark on the next stage of your education journey.
"I want to congratulate each and every one of you again on reaching this major milestone in your life and best wishes for your next steps."
A statement from the SEC in October said that the delay in issuing the Junior Cert results to was due to "a combination of factors" especially the shortage of teachers to mark the examinations over the summer marking period. As schools reopened after the summer, the SEC explained that teachers were now "only available to mark at evenings and weekends".
SEC figures show that there were only 1,270 examiners to mark Junior Cycle papers this year, down from 1,756 examiners in 2019.
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