The total number of registered first year undergraduate entrants to Irish universities and institutes of technology at the end of the offer season in mid-October 2014 was 47,017, an increase of 868 or 2 per cent on the 2013 acceptances.
The number who secured entry to a level 8 honours degree was 35,253, an increase of 1,290 or 4 per cent on last year. The final number who accepted a level 7/6 ordinary degree or higher certificate programme was 11,764 a decrease of 422 on the 2013 numbers.
Colleges are therefore offering 2 per cent more places overall this year. They are also gradually reducing the numbers of level 6/7 courses and increasing those offered at honours degree level.
Some 77,977 people applied for a place in one of Ireland’s 45 third level institutions in 2014. Eighty-five per cent of those presented a Leaving Cert sat at some point since 1985. A wide range of other qualifications acquired either in Ireland or abroad make up the balance of applicants’ qualifications. Given that 8.5 per cent of successful applicants live outside the Republic of Ireland, it is not surprising that more than 11,000 applicants present other second level or further education awards.
Apart from those living in the Republic, 1,015 first year undergraduate students live in either Northern Ireland or Britain, 1,837 in the rest of the EU and 1,133 outside the EU.
Non-current school-leavers
Of the 46,169 successful applicants in 2013, 6,262 or 13.6 per cent were over 23 years old on entry. A further 2,991 were 20 years old or more in their year of entry, which shows they cannot be current Leaving Cert students. A total of 3,653 students were aged 19 on entry to college. About half of those would be current year Leaving Cert students in the year of entry.
In total therefore a little more than 11,000 of the 46,169 students who secured a first year undergraduate place did not do so in the year they sat their final school exam. Of the remaining 35,090 students who did sit a final school exam in the year of college entry about 92 per cent of them are based in the Republic of Ireland and thus sat the Leaving Cert in their second level schools.
This leaves us with 32,282 current year Leaving Certs out of a total of 46,169 in 2013 and 47,017 in 2014. This means that 70 per cent of the overall successful cohort of incoming first year students in 2014 sat their Leaving Cert this year.
Returning to college
Another interesting statistic is that 7,511 of this year’s 77,977 applicants (about 10 per cent) were previously in higher education. A total of 5,458 of them received an offer this year.
After allowing for those who don’t take up a place, we see 10 per cent of each year’s incoming first years are returning to college to start again having left their original course for some reason. It is possible that a tiny percentage of the cohort returning to college finished an undergraduate degree and are now starting a second one.
Who then are the incoming undergraduate class of 2014? Seventy per cent of them sat the Leaving Cert in the schools listed in the tables here. Ten per cent are returning to college, 8 to 9 per cent are from outside of Republic of Ireland. Twenty per cent are over 19 (with 13 to 14 per cent of them mature students over 23 years of age).
What is the relationship between this data and today’s charts detailing each school in Ireland whose students were offered third-level places through the CAO?
Ireland’s universities and institutes of technology do not indicate the year incoming students took the Leaving Cert or how many times they took it. All they tell us is which school they attended and sat the Leaving Cert in, even if only in one subject.
As we don’t know the year the applicants sat the Leaving Cert in that school we can only estimate, as above, how many of the published number of successful students sat the Leaving Cert for the first time in their school in 2014.
This analysis shows the overall national percentage is 70. Incoming first years living outside the Republic of Ireland are not included in figures for Irish schools, so we estimate the total percentage of this year’s college entrants who sat the Leaving Cert before 2014 to be about 24-25 per cent.
Furthermore, when a candidate sat the exam twice, that candidate appears as a statistic for both schools and is doubly entered in the data. The double counting occurs even where the candidate repeated the exam in the same school as the first time.
These tables give the total number of former students of any school or institution who started college this year and the total number of students registered with the State Examinations Commission who sat the Leaving Cert in that school this year. The first number is presented as a percentage of the second to give an estimate of progression to third level. But as 25 per cent didn't sit the Leaving Cert in 2014, the progression numbers are inflated by about 25 per cent.
If, for example, 100 students from a given school got a third level place in 2014 and 90 students sat the Leaving Cert there in 2014, it would appear that 111 per cent of this year’s Leaving Cert class got a college place, which is of course a statistical absurdity.
If, on the other hand, we adjust the 100 attendees by 25 per cent to take account of earlier Leaving Certs, we see that about 75 of this year’s class group of 90 students got a college place via the CAO, which represents 83 per cent of this year’s Leaving Cert class.
This doesn’t mean that 17 per cent of that particular school’s Leaving Cert class did not proceed educationally. Some 30,000 students take post-Leaving Cert programmes each year. More than 2,000 Republic of Ireland residents – half of them school-leavers – start university in Britain and Northern Ireland each year, and a growing number of students study through English in continental European universities, while others study outside Europe.
Third level place
s Irish
school-leavers enjoy some of the highest OECD progression rates to third level at just short of 70 per cent. Germany, which has one of the strongest economies in Europe, has a 44 per cent progression rate.
This raises questions as to whether we should be measuring the success of our education system on third-level progression rates. If, for instance, the proposed expansion of apprenticeships includes ones in the high-tech sector, the exclusive focus on securing a third level place in Ireland may wane.
With a 50 per cent increase in students going through primary schools, such a development cannot come fast enough.
