Students

There were 96,497 non-Irish national students and pupils aged 5 years and over resident in Ireland in 2016 accounting for 18 per cent of all non-Irish nationals.  The largest group were Poles (22,450 persons) followed by UK nationals (11,704), Lithuanian (7,133) and Brazilian (4,632).

European continentals accounted for two in three non-Irish national students aged 5 years and over in 2016. Asian (14.3%) and American (10.1%) students were next while students with African nationality (6.5%) had the lowest share.

Interactive table: StatBank Link E7033

Students: language spoken in the home

Figure 4.2 presents ability to speak English among students aged 5 to 18 classified by language spoken at home.

Speakers of Yoruba (spoken mainly by Nigerians) had the highest percentage with very good ability, followed by Italian speakers. Speakers of Tagalog and Filipino also had high rates of good ability to speak English.

At the other end of the scale students who spoke Chinese were most likely to have poorer ability to speak English with French speaking students also noticeable in this category. 

Interactive table: StatBank Link E7061

The skill set of non-Irish nationals

The question on the main field of study was first introduced in 2011. Of the total non-Irish nationals aged 15 and over who had completed their education 204,817 persons answered the question in 2016. This represented a response rate of 60.1 per cent compared to 61.1 in 2011.

Similar to Irish nationals, the most popular field of study was Social Sciences, Business and Law with 59,706 persons holding a qualification in this area representing 29.2 per cent of all respondents. Engineering, Manufacturing and Construction was the next most popular category with 42,550 persons representing 20.8 per cent of all non-Irish respondents. This was higher than the same rate for Irish nationals (16.9%).

There were 22,112 non-Irish nationals with a qualification in mathematics and computer science, accounting for 10.8 per cent of those who answered the question. 

Participation rates

The student participation rate of non-Irish 18-24 year olds was 41.9 per cent compared with a rate of 51.4 per cent for Irish nationals. However, within the individual nationalities, this rate varied greatly. The highest rate (among countries with 200 or more persons aged 18-24) was for Kuwaiti nationals (96.9%) albeit with a relatively small number of students (309). This was followed by Omani nationals at 91.6 per cent (208 students) and Malaysian nationals at 91.5 per cent (1,065 students). Saudi Arabian (88.5%, 422 students), Chinese (81.8%, 1,302 students), South Korean (72%, 198 students) and Canadian (70.3%, 372 students) nationals also had high education participation rates.

Amongst the largest European nationalities in Ireland, the education participation rate of 18-24 year olds was lowest among Romanian nationals (16.4%) and Latvian nationals (27.5%). This reflects the correspondingly high rates of labour force participation amongst these nationalities in 2016.

Non-Irish more highly educated than Irish

Of the 535,475 non-Irish nationals in 2016, 469,834 were aged 15 or over and of these 340,940 had completed their education.

The age profile of non-Irish nationals differs from the general population, with proportionally fewer younger and older persons, and this impacts on the overall level of education. Looking at the entire population 29.5 per cent of Irish nationals (who had completed their education) were educated to lower secondary level at most (Junior Certificate or equivalent), while the rate for non-Irish nationals was 12 per cent. At third level, the proportion of non-Irish nationals with a degree or higher was 33.1 per cent, compared with 28 per cent of Irish nationals. However, when the analysis is restricted to those aged 22 to 49, the results show that 39.7 per cent of Irish nationals had third level qualifications compared to 36.6 per cent of non-Irish nationals.

Interactive table: StatBank Link E7008

Indian nationals highly educated

Figure 4.6 shows the level of education completed for the top 12 nationalities living in Ireland in 2016. Of these, Indian nationals had the highest percentage of persons with a third level degree or higher (76.3%), followed by Spanish (66.4%) and French (65.2%) nationals. Nationals from Latvia (13.1%), Lithuania (18.3%) and Romania (21.9%) had among the lowest rates.

German nationals had the highest proportion of persons with an advanced certificate/completed apprenticeship in 2016 at 14.1 per cent, noticeably higher than the average for all non-Irish nationals (6.6%).

Poles (27.8%) and Latvian (24.5%) had the highest proportions of persons with a technical or vocational qualification.