School Completers and Early Leavers – What Next? Department of Education and Skills CSO Administrative Data Seminar 20 th February Nicola Tickner

Starting point  The Department of Education and Skills took the initiative to explore the potential of data matching to fill current data gaps following the publication of the National Statistics Board report entitled ‘The Irish Statistics System: The Way Forward and Joined Up Government Needs Joined Up Data’ in December 2011  Undertaken an officer of statistics under the stats act, in the CSO  The tracking was carried out using data matching and was also supplemented with estimations for other destinations for which individualised data was not available 2

Overview  Starting Point – Pupils Enrolled on the Post Primary Pupil Database in the 2009/2010 academic year but not in the 2010/2011 academic year  54,824 were School Completers (i.e. were enrolled in final year of LC in 2009/2010)  7,713 were Early Leavers (i.e. left prior to final year of LC)  Explored the potential of data matching to fill current data gaps (as an officer of statistics under the stats act, in the CSO)  Matched against other available data sources (CSOPPSN)  Estimations also used where individualised data not available 3

School Completers - Summary 4

School Completers – Progression to Higher Education  44% direct match with HEA Student Record System  More males (44.5%) than females (43.5%)  Additional Estimates of  0.5% (non PPSN coverage)  2.3% Non HEA Aided Institutions  3.6% Higher Education Abroad (mostly UK)  Overall, 50.4% progressed directly to Higher Ed 5

School Completers Who Progressed Directly to Higher Education  (following information refers to HEA Aided Institutions Only)  48.1% of those who pursued the traditional LC  52.0% of those who repeated LC  43.2% of those who pursued the LCVP  Of those in Higher Ed, 41.6% had employment activity during 2010 (males 45.6%, females 37.5%) 6

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School Completers – Progression to PLC courses  19.8% direct progression rate  Increasing, was 16.4% in 2001/2002  37.3% of School Completers who pursued the LCA  21.9% of School Completers who pursued the LCVP  17.5% of School Completers who pursued the LC 8

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Early Leavers - Summary 10

Early Leavers - Summary (contd/…) 11

Early Leavers – Time Series 12

Early Leavers – Differences in Gender?  Higher proportion of male Early Leavers enrol in PLC courses  Higher proportion of female Early Leavers enrol in FÁS courses  More males than females in Youthreach  More males than females in Education or Training outside the State 13

Early Leavers by Programme  4,414 (57.2% )left before enrolment in year 1 of a LC programme  High proportion of Early Leavers who left after JC year 3 or TY estimated to be in Youthreach but also a sizeable amount who left after enrolment in LC year 1  By programme, the most leavers for whom destination is unknown are for those who leave after first or second year of JC/JCSP (777)  Particularly for females (520) 14

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Links to Reports  l-Completers-What-Next-.pdf l-Completers-What-Next-.pdf  Leavers-What-Next-.pdf Leavers-What-Next-.pdf  Published May 2013  Also some additional tables on website 17

Future plans  Repeat of exercise for following years cohort  Possible expansion of the data depending on data sources available  Exploration of the data presented to show the destinations of the School Completers after two years 18

Current Position on Data Sharing  Putting a National Data Infrastructure in place is central to the Public Service Reform Plan. This would put in place an infrastructure to allow the efficient running of our public administration.  The National Statistics Board has highlighted the importance of developing such an infrastructure (both national and regional) and has suggested that this would compromise of three key pillars, all with a unique identifier 1.people (PPSN), 2.businesses (unique business identifier) 3.and buildings (postcode). 19

 Draft legislation is in place focusing on PPSN but also on the unique Health Identifier.  Focus no longer on business identifier.  Progress has been made on the implementation of postcodes (March 2015).  Data Sharing would be greatly helped if facilitated by legislation. 20

 Comments or Questions? 21