A higher proportion of children in care enrolled at primary school in the academic year 2022/23 were enrolled in a special school or in a special class attached to a mainstream primary school (14%) compared with all children (3%).
Utilising available and relevant enrolment records, 6% of children in care enrolled at school repeated one or more school years in primary or post-primary education, compared with under 2% of all children.
In the academic year 2022/2023 a higher proportion of children in care were absent from primary or post-primary school for 20 or more days (17%) compared with all children (15%).
Of the children in care who started post-primary education between 2013 and 2016, 28% left school early without completing the Leaving Certificate. The percentage for all children was lower at 8%.
Approximately nine in ten of both children who left care and of all children (aged 18-23 years by January 2024 for both groups) were in substantial employment, enrolled in school, or in further or higher education for each of the years 2019, 2020, 2021 and 2022.
Of children who left care and were aged 18-23 years by January 2024, 36% were enrolled in further education and 16% in higher education in 2022. These proportions have increased since 2021 when 32% were in further education and 12% were in higher education.
Of all children that were aged 18-23 years by January 2024, 10% were enrolled in further education and 39% in higher education in 2022. The proportions for this group in 2021 were 10% in further education and 30% in higher education.
Children who left care and were aged 18-23 years in January 2024, were more likely to be enrolled in Post-Leaving Certificate (PLC) courses (16%) and Youthreach courses (6%) in 2022 than all children in the same age group, at 6% and 1% respectively.
In this release, of the 10,437 children in care during January 2024 or children who left care since April 2018, 81% (or 8,435) were successfully linked to other pseudonymised administrative data sources including datasets from the Revenue Commissioners, Department of Education and the Department of Social Protection among others. This release presents a statistical educational thematic overview of the linked children in care only. The percentage successfully linked (81%) is an increase on the 77% linked in last year's release.
As well as the strict legal protections set out in the Statistics Act,1993, and other existing regulations, the CSO is committed to protecting individual privacy and all identifiable information from each of the data sources used in our analysis. Names, date of birth and addresses, are removed before use and only anonymised statistical aggregates are produced. For further information on the data sources, matching procedures and definitions of this release, see Background Notes.
Note that rounding is used throughout this report so percentages may not add up to 100.
Learn about our data and confidentiality safeguards, and the steps we take to produce statistics that can be trusted by all.
Statistician's Comment
The Central Statistics Office (CSO) has today (19 November 2024) published Educational Attendance and Attainment of Children in Care, 2018-2024.
This release looks at educational attendance and attainment of children in care in January 2024 and children who left care since April 2018. This is a CSO Frontier Series which means particular care must be taken when interpreting the data. This is the second release in the series, the first release was published on 02 August 2023.
This release is based on administrative data provided to the CSO from Tusla, the Department of Education, the Department for Social Protection, SOLAS, Quality and Qualifications Ireland, the Higher Education Authority, Pobal, Student Universal Support Ireland and the Revenue Commissioners.
It contains data divided over four chapters, detailing general characteristics, educational attendance, educational attainment, and further outcomes of children in care and all children in the same age group. In this release the term ‘all children’ includes children in care as well as children not in care (see Background Notes for the definition of 'all children').
Commenting on the release, Aideen Sheehan, Statistician in the Statistical Systems Coordination Unit, said:
"This Frontier Series release provides insights into educational attendance and attainment of children in care in January 2024 and children who left care since April 2018 and compares them with all children in the same age group by analysing school, further/higher education and employment outcomes for both groups.
Children can enter care with the voluntary agreement of their parents or under a court order. When a child is in the care of Tusla, the child can be placed in foster care, including relative foster care, in residential care or in special care.
Primary and Post-Primary Education
Looking at the results, we can see that overall, a higher proportion of children in care enrolled at primary school in the academic year 2022/23 were enrolled in a special school or in a special class attached to a mainstream primary school. This was 14% of children in care compared with 3% of all children. These percentages were similar to the findings for 2021/22 in last year's release.
Utilising available and relevant enrolment records, 6% of children in care enrolled in school repeated one or more school years in primary or post-primary education, compared with under 2% of all children. Similar findings were reported in last year's release.
In the academic year 2022/23, a higher proportion of children in care were absent from primary or post-primary school for 20 or more days, at 17% compared with 15% of all children.
Of the children in care who started post-primary education between 2013 and 2016, 28% left school early without completing the Leaving Certificate. The percentage for all children was lower at 8%. These percentages were similar to the findings in last year's release.
Leaving Certificate and Beyond
Approximately nine in ten of both children who left care and all children (and aged 18-23 years by January 2024 for either group) were in substantial employment, enrolled in school, or in further or higher education for each of the years 2019, 2020, 2021 and 2022.
More specifically, for children that left care since April 2018 and were aged 18-23 years by January 2024, 36% were enrolled in further education and 16% in higher education in 2022. These proportions have increased since 2021 when 32% were enrolled in further education and 12% in higher education.
Of all children in the same age group (18-23 years in January 2024), 10% were enrolled in further education and 39% in higher education in 2022. The proportion of this group in further education in 2021 was 10% while the proportion in further education that year was 30%.
Amongst children who left care since April 2018, those who left school without completing the Leaving Certificate were less likely to be in either substantial employment, education, or a combination of both in 2022 at 64%, compared with 91% of those who did not leave school early."