Details of how every school in the country fares in the Leaving Cert exam from year to year are still the most closely guarded secrets in Irish education. And it’s all thanks to a piece of legislation enacted when Micheál Martin was education minister two decades ago. You can read details in the newspapers of how many students each school sends to college. But nowhere can you see league tables of how those same schools actually performed in the Leaving Cert over the years. Read More The traditional pattern of exam results was at the centre of the row over calculated grades. Some schools claimed that they suffered badly in comparison with previous years. They knew their individual historical pattern, as did the Department of Education and the State Examination Commission. But the public had no right of access to that data.