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Meeting 8

Education Statistics Liaison Group (ESLG) Meeting 8

Central Statistics Office, Ardee Road / Microsoft Teams

15^th May 2026

Attendance:

28 people attended the 8th ESLG meeting in the CSO Rathmines office and remotely via Microsoft Teams, representing ten organisations. A full list of those in attendance can be found at the end of this page.

Agenda

Item 1: Welcome and Updates:
                Francesca Kay / Rob Kelly – Central Statistics Office (CSO)
                Paul Alexander – Department of Education and Youth (DEY)
                John Heslin – Department of Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science (DFHERIS)

Organisational Updates from CSO

Francesca Kay introduced herself as the new Assistant Director General over the renamed CSO directorate National Data and Statistical Services.
She mentioned the successful NDAN conference held the day previous and noted plans for an upcoming event for statisticians working on secondment and for a review of the National Statistical Service.
Rob Kelly advised that SSCU is working on an updated release in the Further Education Outcomes series and a new pathfinder release on the Socio-Economic Profile of School Pupils.

Organisational Updates from DEY

Statistical Matters

The Department held a consultation event in December on Teaching Workforce data and has published several related reports:

i) Unmet Demand in Post-Primary: measuring out-of-field teaching and subjects not offered due to subject shortages.
ii) Survey of Substitute Teachers: measuring hours available versus hours worked, including location information to identify pressure areas, as well as modules on attitudes and barriers.
iii) Teaching Council Register Analysis: examining the proportion of registered teachers who are in or outside Ireland and, among those in Ireland, how many are working in schools.
iv) Teaching Workforce Bulletin: the first report, based on November/December 2025 data for the 2025/26 school year.

All reports can be accessed here:

https://www.gov.ie/en/department-of-education/collections/other-statistical-reports/#teacher-demand-and-supply

The Department is in the process of obtaining ISSCOP certification for the teacher statistics. Teaching Workforce data are already flowing to PXStat, including EDA100 and EDA82, and are documented on the National Data Methodology Hub:
https://www.nationaldata.ie/Standards/NationalDataMethodologyHub/DepartmentofEducationandYouth
The next Substitute Teacher Survey is currently live, and the Department plans to run the next Unmet Demand collection later this year, likely in Q4.
The National Preference Survey has now closed. Of the 485,000 targeted households, valid responses were received from approximately 200,000, giving a response rate of 41.2%. Initial analysis of response bias has not identified any significant concerns to date, but this work will continue as results are disseminated.
The Central Application System Pilot ("Apply to School") ran successfully, 2.5k applications processed through the system. Statistics section developed the "front end" data capture instrument and assisted with the back end processing of data.

Data Matters

The ICT Data Office continues to progress implementation of the Department’s data strategy. Good progress has been made on the establishment of the centralised data reporting and analytics platform, underpinned by a data catalogue, with an anticipated completion date at the end of Q2 2026 (leveraging Microsoft’s Fabric and Purview tooling). The onboarding of the first use case (Annual Census Enrolment data) onto the platform and catalogue has happened concurrently and lessons learnt from this process will inform the onboarding of subsequent use cases over the coming months and years.
The onboarding of the data is an important first step and proof of concept for the new platform and catalogue and, as a consequence, there will be enhanced access to a full time series of school-level enrolment data for department staff. As part of this proof of concept work, small but significant progress has also been made in relation to understanding the potential implementation of a “natural language” querying approach to support our non-technical colleagues in accessing enrolment data and insights.
The Department is sharing data with Tusla as part of the Wellbeing Check project, which is progressing well.
The Department has established a Data Sharing Agreement with DCDE for early years data. Data are pseudonymised using the same methodology, enabling data linkage while continuing to protect individual privacy.
Department participated in ETINED workshop which gathered education stakeholders from across Europe at the Council of Europe premises in Strasbourg for a Workshop on Open School Data (OSD). Organised in partnership with UNESCO’s International Institute for Educational Planning (IIEP-UNESCO), the event focused on practical approaches, capacity building, and exchange, while exploring key innovations and policy challenges in education systems. more information here https://www.iiep.unesco.org/en/articles/open-school-data-greater-trust-and-transparency-across-europe

Other updates

The UOE returns have been completed. Collaboration with DFHERIS and DCDE is becoming increasingly important for these returns, particularly to ensure alignment on definitions.
The Department has been asked by the OECD to consider participation in TALIS, covering both Primary and Post-Primary modules. The commitment period would be 2027–2032, with an indicative cost of approximately €300,000. The Department has already engaged with the CSO on this and will continue to consider the request.
For AES 2028, consultation is underway on the proposed list of variables, with a national response due by 27 May 2026. This has been forwarded to the CSO via education@cso.ie for response. The Department may be able to assist with some of the new variables, although these may already be covered through the Education Longitudinal Database.
The group may wish to note the continued need for coordination on:

-alignment of definitions across UOE returns;

-CSO input on AES 2028 variables;

-consideration of TALIS participation and related cost/commitment implications.

Francesca Kay asked about previous participation in TALIS and Paul Alexander noted that Ireland has not participated since 2008, so non-participation now would not represent a significant break in an ongoing series.

Rowena Dwyer asked about the frequency of the Adult Education Survey and noted it is the source for indicators that DFHERIS monitors. Paul Alexander and Rob Kelly confirmed it is run every five years; Rob Kelly noted a useful initial contact point within the CSO would be Helen McGrath (Helen.McGrath@cso.ie).

Organisational Updates from DFHERIS

Projections of enrolments in further education and higher education are both due for publication soon. The further education projections will represent the first time projections for the sector have been published by the Department.
The annual Research and Development (R&D) survey is currently live for data collection. The survey is being deployed in conjunction with the CSO.
There are plans to similarly transition the Higher Education Research & Development (HERD) survey to an electronic survey in collaboration with CSO.
The results for the R&D survey for 2024/25 were published in April: https://www.gov.ie/en/department-of-further-and-higher-education-research-innovation-and-science/publications/the-research-and-development-budget-2024-2025/
DFHERIS finalised its latest contribution to the OECD’s Research and Innovation Career Observatory (ReICO). This was achieved by analysing RMFs of the Labour Force Survey (LFS) and DFHERIS expects to participate similarly in the upcoming data collection round.
DFHERIS is holding a conference to showcase and highlight policy-relevant research from academia as well as from public sector bodies/state agencies. This will be held in late-June and Rowena Dwyer thanked CSO colleagues who will be involved in this event.

Other Organisational Updates

Selen Guerin – SOLAS

SOLAS has been involved in the FET projections mentioned by DFHERIS and these are feeding into work around FET College of the Future.
SOLAS has also been collaborating with TUSLA as part of wellbeing steering group and with the Department of Housing on dashboarding.
Several publications may be of interest:
FET in Focus report on Youthreach
Upcoming statistical reports on progression and on PLC outcomes

Nora Condon – SOLAS (SLMRU)

Two recent publications from SLMRU relevant to the group:
Lifelong Learning (based on analysis of the LFS)
Monitoring Ireland’s Skill Supply

Item 2: Projections of demand for enrolment at tertiary level - John Heslin & Ailsa O’Connor (DFHERIS)

John Heslin presented on updated projections of enrolments in higher education that are due to be published shortly. These represent an update to previously conducted projections.

Francesa Kay queried why CSO population projections were used for mature enrolments but not for the younger cohort. John Heslin clarified that the secondary-level projections produced by DEY that are incorporated would themselves make use of the CSO population projections but are adjusted based on the additional data DEY would have on school-age cohorts.

Francesca Kay also asked about the domicile status of Ukrainians. John Heslin and Rowena Dwyer confirmed that they would be considered non-EU domiciled.

Paul Alexander asked whether distance learning was being taken into account, highlighting that there was increasing interest in this at international level. John Heslin explained the projections related to full-time enrolments based in Ireland only but that future development of the projections may further investigate mode of learning and other variables.

Paul Alexander also asked how often the projections are likely to be updated. John Heslin noted that an update will likely be published in two to three years’ time, but that internally they may be reviewed more frequently to assess their ongoing accuracy.

Francesca Kay asked whether DFHERIS had examined alternative population projections in addition to those produced by CSO. Paul Alexander mentioned projections work by the ESRI and Oliver Ratcliffe noted that the Department of Finance published demographic projections as part of Future Forty.

Ailsa O’Connor then presented on a similar exercise conducted to project enrolments in further education and training, the results of which are due to be published.

Arancha Oviedo noted the possibility that QQI data could enrich the model and expressed that it would be especially valuable to break down the results by NFQ level.

Rob Kelly asked regarding the intention to examine and model the impact of prior educational attainment in future whether the required information would be available. Ailsa O’Connor confirmed that this variable is included in SOLAS’ PLSS.

Rob Kelly also noted the variety of projections-related work going on across the sector and suggested there may be an advantage to closer collaboration within the group on these in future.

Paul Alexander asked about the number of scenarios and whether there was one recommended. Ailsa O’Connor confirmed that there is a baseline scenario which is recommended as the default.

Olwyn Byrne asked for clarification regarding how regional enrolments were distributed to ETB level. Ailsa O’Connor clarified this was based on the relative rates in 2024 and these rates were assumed to remain static into projected years.

Paul Alexander asked whether the projections could be used to inform FET staffing projections. Rowena Dwyer agreed that might be a useful exercise to explore in future.

Selen Guerin concurred that there may be synergies possible by working closer within the group, citing the CSO Further Education Outcomes release as an example, but also stressed the importance of making clear the different definitions and the types of provision included (and not included) in different analyses. For example, the projections presented include only SOLAS funded courses and would include non-certified courses.

Nora Condon mentioned that apprenticeship take-up may respond more to labour market trends rather than be driven by demographic factors. Ailsa O’Connor confirmed that apprenticeship registrations are being forecast as a separate piece of work within DFHERIS. Nora also noted that an upcoming publication by the SLMRU on Sectoral Employment forecasts may be useful to consider.

Rob Kelly referenced a relevant CSO release regarding apprenticeship outcomes previously produced by Anais Colibaba.

Michelle Foley mentioned engagement with SOLAS and QQI and the NAO’s intention to publish more public data via PxStat.