The Clare Champion Clare news, sport, entertainment and local notes
A COLLECTIVE sigh of relief was breathed throughout the county on Wednesday, as the Junior Cert results were released.
A total of 1,442 Clare students sat the State examination in June and there were big smiles as they received mostly positive results on Wednesday.
On a nationwide level, there was an upward trend in maths results, while home economics was the most successful, with a pass rate of 95%.
There were high failure rates in languages, however with French having the lowest honours rate with 69%. Almost 12% of ordinary level French students failed and more than 9% of Spanish students failed.
Some Clare schools, however, bucked the languages trend. “For us, they have been particularly strong this year,” St Joseph’s Secondary School Spanish Point principal, Mary Crawford, said.
“The results would have been up on previous years. I couldn’t say there were any problems with languages this year.”
Principal of St Caimin’s, John Cleary said there was an “overriding sense of relief” throughout the school, following the “exceptionally high level” of grades.
“We went against the national trend in terms of languages,” he said. “I was talking to the French teacher and she said they all did well. I’m really proud of our students and they should be proud of themselves.”
Minister for Education and Skills, Ruairí Quinn, issued his congratulations to all the Junior Cert students, whilst also warning against getting carried away in the celebrations.
