Student Absence Reports are submitted by schools twice a year to Tusla for those students absent from school for a cumulative total of 20 days or more. Student Absence Reports are mandatory for children over the age of 6 years and children who have not reached the age of 16 years, or have not completed 3 years of post-primary education, whichever occurs later.
This analysis relates only to Student Absence Reports that were returned by schools for the school/academic year 2022/23 for children that could be successfully linked to other pseudonymised administrative data sources using Protected Identifier Keys or PIKs (see Background Notes for more details on PIKs). This means these records can be analysed in relation to the 81% of children in care in January 2024 or who left care since April 2018 that were also successfully linked to other administrative data sources.
Student Absence Reports were linked for a total of 128,740 pupils for the academic year 2022/23, of which 807 pupils were children in care. Note these figures relate only to those children aged 7-17 years in January 2024 (children aged 7-17 years in January 2024 were aged 6-16 years in January 2023 of the academic year 2022/23).
In order to compare the relative rate of school absence of children in care with the rate of school absence amongst all children in the same age cohort, the proportions of children absent 20 days or more amongst all those aged 7-17 years in January 2024 was calculated for both groups.
The data shows that the proportion of children absent from school for 20 days or more in 2022/23 was higher for children in care than for all children. Of the children in care in the specified age cohort, 17% were absent from school for 20 days or more for the academic year 2022/23, while the equivalent figure for all children was 15% (see Figure 3.1 and Table 3.1).
However it should be noted that the school response rates may also have an impact on the relative absence rates as not all schools returned Student Absence Reports, so the proportion of absences for 20 days or more may be underestimated. The school response rate for individual absence reporting in 2022/23 was not yet available at the time of publication but the response rate for the previous year 2021/22 was 85% of primary schools and 79% of post-primary schools (see Tess Student Absence Reports 2019-2022).
| X-axis label | Children absent from school more than 20 days |
|---|---|
| Children in care | 17 |
| All children | 15 |
The mean number of days children in care with an absence record were absent in the school year 2022/23 was 43, while this was 35 days for all children, as shown in Table 3.1.
Looking at the distribution of days missed, the most common reasons for absence for children in care were 'unexplained' and 'illness' at 52% and 23% respectively (see Figure 3.2 and Table 3.2). For all children, 'illness' and 'unexplained' were the most common reasons for absence at 38% and 37% respectively.
| X-axis label | Illness | Urgent | Holiday | Suspended | Other | Unexplained |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Children in care | 23 | 2 | 3 | 2 | 19 | 52 |
| All children | 38 | 3 | 8 | 0 | 13 | 37 |
Table 3.3 shows factors such as sex, type of care placement and repeating a school year by school absence for children in care. While male and female children in care have the same proportion of absence for 20 days or more (17%), children who had a foster care placement (in January 2024 or at time of leaving care) had lower levels of school absence (15%) compared with children in other placement types (27%).
A total of 553,415 children could be linked to a primary school enrolment in the academic year 2022/23, and 4% of those (or 21,394 children) were recorded as having entered a mainstream primary school from another national school in the State, and hence changed school compared to the previous academic year (see Figure 3.3 and Table 3.4). By contrast, 9% or 290 of children in care had changed primary school in the same year.
| X-axis label | % of enrolments |
|---|---|
| Children in care | 9 |
| All children | 4 |
Using all available annual primary school enrolment records available to the CSO from the 2015/16 academic year until 2022/23, of the children in care enrolled at primary school, 32% were enrolled at more than one primary national school in Ireland, while this figure was 14% for all children. Furthermore, 20% of children in care were enrolled at more than one post-primary school in the period 2012/13 to 2022/23, and this compared with 6% for all children (see Figure 3.4 and Table 3.5).
| X-axis label | More than one post-primary school | More than one primary school |
|---|---|---|
| Children in care | 20 | 32 |
| All children | 6 | 14 |
The Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE) Scheme provides free state-funded childcare and education for children of pre-school age. Children can start ECCE when they are aged two years and eight months and continue until they transfer to primary school, provided they are not older than five years and six months at the end of the pre-school year (see Background Notes).
Data on ECCE enrolments was available to the CSO for the pre-school years 2020/21 to 2023/24. Enrolments for children in care and all children aged between three and seven years in January 2024 were examined, as these children would have been within the ECCE age thresholds for at least one year between 2020/21 and 2023/24. The data showed that 88% of children in care in January 2024 could be linked to an ECCE enrolment in the relevant period compared with 83% of all children (see Table 3.6). The proportion of linked enrolments for children who left care since April 2018 was slightly lower at 80%.
The analysis also showed that children in care and children who had left care were more likely to have been enrolled with two or more pre-school services in a year at 12% and 13% respectively, compared with 4% of all children (see Table 3.6).
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