Meeting 6

Education Statistics Liaison Group (ESLG) Meeting 6

Location: Central Statistics Office, Ardee Road / Microsoft Teams

Date: 11^th July 2025

Attendance:

20 people attended the 6^th ESLG meeting in the CSO Rathmines office and remotely via Microsoft Teams, representing 9 Public Services Bodies. A full list of those in attendance can be found at the end of this document.

Agenda

Item 1: Welcome and Updates: Paul Morrin – Central Statistics Office (CSO), Paul Alexander – Department of Education and Youth (DEY), Oliver Ratcliffe – Department of Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science (DFHERIS) 

• Paul Morrin and Anne-Marie Sherkle opened the meeting and welcomed members to the liaison group. The minutes of the last meeting were circulated in advance and were taken as read.  

Organisational Updates from CSO

• Responsibility for managing the Educational Longitudinal Database (ELD) will transfer from Brian Stanley to Tadgh Hegarty.
• Oliver Ratcliffe will be transitioning from DFHERIS to the CSO. John Heslin will assume the statistician role in DEFHERIS.
• Fiona O’Riordan has been appointed to the position of Assistant Director General, Social Statistics. This appointment has enabled the separation of social statistics and Census into separate directorates and will enhance the capacity for the CSO to undertake surveys in the education sector.
• The CSO is finalising a new Data Strategy which will be nested within the broader public sector data strategy. It is scheduled for publication by the end of the year and will outline how the CSO intends to support and deliver data services across the public sector.

Updates from DEY

• Following Government formation, the “Youth” function has been transferred to the Department of Education. Data is already being utilised well within the Youth Affairs Unit, and they will work with Statistics services in the coming months to explore the opportunities for integration with other education data.
• Anne-Marie Sherkle, Chief Information Officer, has assumed responsibility for the Department’s statistical service, bringing it closer to the Department’s data functions including governance and data strategy implementation.
• The Statistics unit still participates in various Reasarch/Evidence for policy working groups.
• Circular 0033/25 has been introduced which brings positive changes to POD and PPOD data. Ethnicity is now a mandatory field, though “no consent” remains a valid category.
• The Statistical Unit has been developing a paper examining Irelands’ expenditure on primary and post-primary sectors and will be consulting with CSO to validate the findings and to publicise more widely.
• A single application system for enrolment to post-primary schools will be introduced this year, standardising data collection processes
• A national preference survey will launch in the new school year which will include preferences for religious ethos and Irish medium instruction in schools. The results will provide valuable insights and may be compared with existing demographic data, such as Census 2022.
• The Department is seeking to obtain more granular attendance data directly from School Information Management Systems (S-IMS). It is intended to obtain the data under the EU Data Act.
• Discussions are ongoing with the Statistical Systems Coordination Unit in the CSO regarding household deprivation data to progress work on tracking outcomes for students from DEIS schools.
• Teacher supply will be examined using the ELD to track graduates’ outcomes over time. A new Statistician post has been sanctioned to support this work.
• Local enrolment projections are being developed to identify likely pressure points in terms of capacity with the overall aim of nesting to regional and national projections that were shared with the ESLG previously
• The Annual Indicators Report has been published in collaboration with DFHERIS and Department of Children Disability and Equality (DCDE). This is the first time DCDE have contributed directly to the publication, adding 22 new indicators to the report. This represents a good example of the National Statistical Service collaborating across Departments.

Updates from DFHERIS

• The statistics function within the Department will be part of the Evidence for the Policy unit, which will have a dedicated Principal Officer for statistics and IGEES staff.
• The Research and Innovation Careers Observatory (ReICO) was launched last month. The beta hub is available here: https://www.oecd.org/en/networks/research-and-innovation-careers-observatory.html
• Work is ongoing with SOLAS on projections for Further Education with consideration of an expert group being given to integrating these with Higher Education projections
• The R&D Budget Report is expected to be published shortly.
• Engagement is underway with the CSO’s data collection team to leverage modernised data collection methods, including the use of the Electronic Questionnaire (EQ).
• The Department is participating in the Eurostat working group on Europe on the Move.
• The Department made a joint submission with DEY to the Census advisory group suggesting minor changes to education questions.

Item 2: Development of a Teacher Projection Application for Policy Testing – Sean McCann (DEY)

Sean McCann (DEY) presented on an interactive user tool he developed to model teacher projections under a range of different scenarios. The teacher projections model enables policy areas in the Department to quickly quantify the impact of policy changes on the teaching workforce requirement over time. The model can simulate projections under a range of policies including changing workforce patterns (e.g. career breaks, part-time work) and changing enrolment patterns (e.g. migration and special education).

Questions / comments:

Oliver Ratcliffe (DFHERIS) asked what software the model was developed in. Sean answered that the model was developed in Java.

Valerie Harvey (HEA) queried if the model could differentiate between mainstream and special education – Sean replied that the model can simulate changes to a range of parameters including provision for special education.

Paul Morrin (CSO) asked who the target audience is and if the tool could be made available to the public. Currently the tool is available to the policy units in the Department, but it could also be expanded to external users.

Item 3:  Apprenticeship Outcomes Graduation Year 2020 – Anais Colibaba (CSO) 

Anais Colibaba (CSO) delivered a presentation on the findings of the Apprenticeship Outcomes release of graduates from 2010 to 2020. She outlined that there are two types of apprenticeships – the traditional craft apprenticeships in carpentry, plumbing etc. and more recent consortia-led apprenticeships in accounting technician, laboratory analyst etc. The findings showed that between 2010 and 2020 there was a 40% increase in the number of qualified apprentices going into employment within two years of completion. The weekly earnings of apprentices qualified in 2020 were also shown to have reached a total of €935 two years after completion, representing a €90 increase relative to the previous cohort. 

Questions / comments:

Selen Guerin (SOLAS) commented that these are the first and only outcomes that were available for apprentices and provide extremely informative evidence for the sector.

Nora Condon queried if unemployment could be separated from the outcome category neither employment nor education. Anais clarified that the outcome category neither employment nor education included unemployment benefits, other social benefits and non-substantial employment activity. It is possible to separate unemployment benefits from this category.

Oliver Ratcliffe (DFHERIS) asked if apprentices’ occupations can be obtained and analysed from Census 2022. Anais replied that this data was not available at the time of the release but that it can be considered for future releases.

Slides on Apprenticeship Outcomes – Qualification Year 2020 (PPT 2,508KB)

Item 4: Using Statistical Information to Identify DEIS-Plus Schools – Kieran Lynch (DEY)

Kieran Lynch (DEY) delivered a presentation on the work undertaken to identify DEIS-Plus schools using Pobal’s HP Deprivation Index scores derived from Census 2022 data. DEIS-Plus schools were identified as those with the highest concentrations of extremely disadvantaged children. Kieran explained that the DEIS model has been revised: the previous step-like weighting of HP Deprivation Index bands was replaced with a linear weighting approach. This change allows for more accurate identification of pockets of extreme disadvantage. 

Questions / comments:

Olwyn Byrne (DEY) queried whether rural schools were included in the analysis. Kieran clarified that deprivation was analysed across all schools, but that the most deprived students were in Urban schools.

Paul Morrin (CSO) inquired whether schools currently in the top band would lose out under the new model. Kieran clarified that this would not be the case and that the new model improves the identification of concentrated areas of deprivation.

Item 5: AOB / Open Discussion

Rob Kelly (CSO) gave an update on education projects in the SSCU section

• An update to the release on health graduate outcomes will be published in late Q3 for additional health care professionals and provide information on where graduates work.
• An update to the release on early learning care graduates is being undertaken.
• A project is underway to examine the socio-economic status of children’s households by leveraging using Census 2022 data to derive households and leveraging administrative data such as from the Department of Social Protection to derive deprivation indicators. The project will examine education transitions and outcomes.

Valerie Harvey (HEA) inquired about the timeline for the next release of Higher Education Outcomes data. Rob Kelly (CSO) responded that recent personnel changes within his section have presented some setbacks, but the aim is to publish the updated release before the end of the year.

Action items:

1. Organise next ESLG meeting.
2. Circulate presentations slides from meeting to all ESLG members.
3. Ask for volunteers to present at the next meeting.