Dáil Éireann díospóireacht -
Tuesday, 27 May 2003

Vol. 567 No. 5

Written Answers. - Higher Education Participation Rates.

Seán Ardagh

Ceist:

259 Mr. Ardagh asked the Minister for Education and Science the proportion of children who commence second level education who go on to commence third level education in each of the categories of higher professionals, farmers, and residents of each of Dublin 1, Dublin 2, Dublin 7, Dublin 8 and Dublin 10. [14622/03]

Minister for Education and Science (Mr. N. Dempsey)

The Higher Education Authority has commissioned Professor Patrick Clancy to undertake national surveys of entrants to higher education. Surveys have been undertaken on the cohort entering full-time higher education in 1980, 1986, 1992 and 1998. The most recent report, entitled College Entry in Focus: A Fourth National Survey of Access to Higher Education, is based on a national survey of all first enrolments of undergraduates in their first year of study as full-time higher education students in 43 colleges in autumn 1998. The study is based primarily on an analysis of personal demographic and educational data, which were abstracted from individual student record forms. Being the fourth in a series of national surveys carried out at six-year intervals, this study facilitates an analysis of changes in the pattern of participation over a period of 18 years.

Following are two tables from the last Clancy report showing the estimated proportion of age cohort entering full-time higher education by fathers' socio-economic group and the rates of admission to higher education in Dublin by postal district. The third table sets out the number of pupils enrolled in post-primary schools in Dublin postal districts 1, 2, 7, 8 and 10 on the 30 September 1994, together with the percentage of those pupils who subsequently sat the junior certificate and leaving certificate examinations.

Socio-Economic Groups

	1998(Revised)	1992	1986	1980
Farmers	.72	.53	.42	.30
Other Agricultural Occupations	.34	.24	.12	.06
Higher Professional	.97*	.85	.72	.59
Lower Professional	.47	.42	.47	.33
Employees and Managers	.81	.67	.45	.42
Salaried Employees	.53	.48	.58	.59
Intermediate Non-Manual Workers	.32	.27	.28	.22
Other Non-Manual Workers	.31	.26	.11	.09
Skilled Manual Workers	.32	.28	.13	.09
Semi-Skilled Manual Workers	.23	.19	.11	.09
Unskilled Manual Workers	.21	.12	.04	.03
Total	.44	.36	.25	.20

*Clancy indicates that this figure is an overestimate but concludes that the higher professional group has reached the saturation level and there is unlikely to be any scope for additional increases in take-up for this group.

PostalDistricts	Higher EducationEntrants	Size of AgeCohort	Rate ofAdmission*
Dublin 1	17	205	.089
Dublin 5	268	752	.383
Dublin 7	110	597	.198
Dublin 2	21	116	.195
Dublin 8	72	366	.212
Dublin 10	25	377	.071

*The total number of entrants in the overall Dublin region included 541 students whose precise address was unknown. In calculating admission rates, these were redistributed between districts on a pro-rata basis.

Second level retention rates for 1994 cohort by reference to Dublin postal districts 1, 2, 7, 8 and 10 is as follows:

PostalDistrict	Cohort	JC Exam‘Sits (%)'	Senior CycleRetention (%)
Dublin 1	443	86.5	67.7
Dublin 2	215	97.2	78.1
Dublin 7	558	89.8	72.8
Dublin 8	422	85.1	57.3
Dublin 10	499	82.2	49.7