Dublin schools tops for college entry

ONLY three schools outside Dublin feature in a list of 25 schools which sent most students to college, but which took social and other factors into account for the first time.

The researchers based a school’s performance on the proportion of students who went on to third level and the colleges they attended.

But higher points were given to schools whose students went to Trinity College Dublin and University College Dublin, as both were ranked in the world’s 100 top universities last year by The Times Higher Education Supplement.

Using college entry data compiled last year by The Irish Times, three points were awarded for each student who went to TCD or UCD, two points awarded for attending other universities and one point for any other third-level college.

But the research team gave extra credits to schools in areas with high local unemployment rates and higher immigration populations; lower levels of home and computer ownership along with lower levels of educational attainment among adults.

Based on the combined factors, just 10 of the 25 schools which had the highest scores were fee-paying schools — compared to 20 when social factors were not examined.

The highest-ranked school in the newer analysis is the non fee-paying High and Diocesan School in Rathgar, Dublin 6. Second-placed was the fee-paying St Andrew’s College in Blackrock, Co Dublin, and third was Coláiste Fhlannain in Ennis, Co Clare, also non fee-paying.

The other schools from outside the capital to feature were Gorey Community School in Co Wexford and Castletroy Community College in Co Limerick, ranked 18 and 22, respectively. All others are in south Dublin city and county but the high proportion of Dublin schools can be partially explained by the awarding of higher marks for students attending TCD or UCD.

The report’s author was Professor Vani Borroah of University of Ulster’s school of economics, assisted by Prof Donal Dineen and phd student Nicola Lynch, both at UL.

They concluded that private fee-paying schools and all-Irish schools had the best performances based solely on assessment of third-level entry rates. But, they wrote, those performances would suffer if they were constrained to responding to their circumstances in the same manner as state-funded schools.