Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 1 December 2022
132. Deputy Peadar Tóibín asked the Minister for Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science if his Department collates data on the number of students who drop out of third level education each year; and if so, if the data will be provided in tabular form. [58973/22]
Amharc ar fhreagraThe key source of statistics on students in higher education is the HEA's student records system (SRS) which records enrolments as at March of every academic year, giving a single point of reference. Therefore, data is not available on a national level on students who leave their programme during the course of the academic year.
The HEA publish data on the non-progression of students, specifically the non-progression of first-year new entrants. The most recent report is available on-line at www.hea.ie and presents the non-progression of entrants to Level 6, Level 7 and Level 8 fulltime courses commencing in the academic years 2017/18, 2018/19 and 2019/20.
link: Progression | Statistics | Higher Education Authority (hea.ie)
Please note the definition employed in this analysis: Non-progression refers to the student not been present in the HEA data in the following academic year. This data does not exclude the small number of students who transfer to different HEIs in year 2 or who leave and return to study in a subsequent academic year. Also, data is only available for first-year new entrants.
The following table gives the overall non-progression rates by NFQ level.
|
NFQ Level |
2017/18 |
2018/19 |
2019/20 |
|
Level 6 |
22% |
22% |
16% |
|
Level 7 |
26% |
24% |
18% |
|
Level 8 |
11% |
10% |
8% |
|
All Levels |
13% |
12% |
9% |
