Measuring Ireland's Progress 2023

Ireland: Real current public expenditure on education

• Ireland's real current public expenditure on education (at constant 2021 prices) rose from €9.2bn in 2009 to €9.7bn in 2019.  Overall, between 2009 and 2019, real current public expenditure increased by 5.5% (see Table 4.1).
• Ireland's real current expenditure on primary education increased by 2.1% between 2009 and 2019, from €7,280 per student to €7,430 per student (at constant 2021 prices).
• At secondary level, real expenditure per student decreased by 4.3% between 2009 and 2019, from €10,257 per student in 2009 to €9,816 per student in 2019.
• Over the same period, real expenditure per student at third level education decreased from €10,565 in 2009 to €7,486 in 2019, a drop of 29.1%.
• Second level education includes further education which is now primarily funded and overseen by the Department of Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science (DFHERIS). A review of the measurement to include both post-primary school and further education elements in second level education for the years after 2019 is being carried out, and will be updated in next year’s release.

Ireland: Number of students by level

• Primary school enrolment increased by 3.7% between 2013/2014 and 2023/2024, from 536,317 pupils to 556,084 pupils, with the numbers peaking over the period in 2018/2019 at 567,772 (see Table 4.2).
• Secondary school enrolment increased by 13.5% between 2013/2014 and 2023/2024, from 367,178 to 416,575.
• The number of third level students increased by over a quarter (26.2%) between 2013/2014 and 2023/2024, rising from 210,770 to 265,905 students.

By country: Ratio of students to teachers

• Ireland had a student to teacher ratio of 13.4 for primary level education in 2022 (school year 2021/2022). This was the eighth highest ratio in the EU27 and was just above the EU27 average of 13.3 (see Table 4.3).
• The lowest student to teacher ratio for primary education in the EU27 in 2022 was in Greece at 7.9, and the highest was in Romania at 18.5.
• For upper secondary level, Ireland had a student to teacher ratio of 12.3 in 2022, the tenth highest in the EU27 and above the EU27 average of 11.2. For lower secondary the EU27 average was 11.6 students per teacher.
• In 2022, Malta had the lowest student to teacher ratio in upper secondary in the EU27 at 7.1, and Finland had the highest at 17.0. 

By country: Persons aged 25-34 with third level education by sex

• More than six in ten (62.7.%) of persons aged 25-34 in Ireland had a third level qualification in 2023, which was the highest rate in the EU27 and almost 20 percentage points higher than the EU27 average of 43.1% (see Table 4.4).
• Females were more likely to have a third level education compared to males in all EU countries in 2023, with Estonia having the highest percentage point differential of 24.2.
• In Ireland, 59.0% of men aged 25-34 had a third level qualification in 2023, compared to 66.3% of women.
• Ireland had the third lowest gender differential between the proportions of men and women with third level education in the EU at 7.3 percentage points, behind Germany at 4.9 and Romania at 6.3.

View Eurostat educational attainment data

By country: Student performance on the mathematics, reading, and science literacy scales

• The Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) exam is held every three years, with the most recent postponed from 2021 to 2022 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The exam is scored on a scale of 0 to 1,000.
• The average score of 15 year-olds in Ireland on the mathematical literacy scale in 2022 was 491.6, the third highest in the EU27 and above the OECD average score of 472.4. Estonia had the highest score in this category at 509.9 (see Table 4.5).
• In reading literacy, Ireland had a score of 516.0 points, the highest in the EU27 in 2022 and above the OECD average of 475.6.
• The average score for scientific literacy in Ireland was 503.8, the third highest in the EU27 and above the OECD average of 484.6. The EU27 countries with the highest scientific literacy scores were Estonia (525.8) and Finland (511.0).

By country: Young people neither in employment nor in education and training (NEET rate)

• The NEET rate measures the proportion of young people aged 18-24 who are neither in employment nor in education and training.
• In 2023, the NEET rate in Ireland was 8.6%, the sixth lowest in the EU27 and below the EU27 average of 12.1% (see Table 4.6).
• In the EU27 in 2023, the Netherlands had the lowest NEET rate at 4.2%, while Romania had the highest at 21.6% followed by Greece, Italy and Cyprus at 17.1%.
• Seventeen countries in the EU27 had higher NEET rates for men than for women in 2023. This included Ireland where the gender differential was 1.0 percentage points with a 9.1% NEET rate for men and 8.1% for women.
• Ten countries had a higher NEET rate for women, and of these the largest gender differential was in Romania at 9.2 percentage points.

By country: Science, technology, engineering and mathematics graduates by sex

• In 2022, Ireland had the highest rate of STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) graduates, at 40.1 per 1,000 persons aged 20-29, compared with an EU27 average of 23.0 (see Table 4.7).
• Ireland also had the largest gender differential in the EU27 at 21.9, with 50.9 male STEM graduates per 1,000 persons aged 20-29 compared with 29.0 females.
• Ireland had the second highest female STEM graduate rate in the EU27, and it was over 12 percentage points higher than the EU average of 16.7 per 1,000 persons aged 20-29. France had the highest female STEM graduate rate in the EU27 at 30.3
• Ireland's male STEM graduate rate of 50.9 per 1,000 persons aged 20-29 was also much higher than the EU27 average of 28.9.
• Luxembourg had the lowest rate of STEM graduates in the EU27 in 2022 at 5.6 per 1,000 persons aged 20-29, and the lowest gender differential at 4.0.