High third-level participation, but highest primary class sizes

THE state has one of the highest participation rates in third-level education in the EU, but continues to have the highest class sizes in the primary sector.

Those were among the headline findings contained in the latest CSO’s Measuring Ireland’s Progress 2008 report. The report also revealed that in 2008 Ireland also had the second highest level of third-level graduates in the 25- to 34-year-old bracket in the EU.

Only Cyprus has a higher number of similarly aged students with third-level education. Some 42.3% of the population in that age group in Ireland were in college or third-level courses last year. This was compared with an average 30.3% across the 27 EU countries as a whole.