Transition year pupils more likely to sit Leaving Cert

Students who complete a transition year are more likely to complete their Leaving Certificate exams, a study shows.

The latest annual report on retention rates in Irish schools shows there is a significant gap in numbers sitting their final exams between those who follow the Transition Year programme and those who don’t have a ‘gap year’.

The study of students who entered post-primary school in 2009 found over 95% of transition year students sat the Leaving Certificate compared to just under 84% for those who went straight from Junior Certificate to fifth year studies. Among the 2009 cohort, 57% of students had a transition year.

The survey shows that almost one in 10 of all students in the 2009 cohort failed to sit Leaving Certificate exams, It reveals that 90.2% of students took their final exams — down slightly on the record high of 90.6% achieved by the previous year’s cohort.

The retention rate rose above 90% for the first time in 2006 and has stayed above that level ever since. All but 3.3% of the 2009 group sat their Junior Cert exams between 2012 and 2013.

The study by the Department of Education also shows that the gender gap is widening among the 2009 cohort compared to the previous year. Among the latest group, 88.7% of boys completed their Leaving Certificate compared to 89.3% from the 2008 cohort – a rate 3.1% below that for girls at 91.8%.

The survey is based on the detailed analysis of records on post-primary pupils held by the Department of Education for students who entered the first year of the junior cycle in 2009.

It monitors those who sat Leaving Certificate exams in either 2014 or 2015 with more than 58,000 students assessed. The report acknowledged that the gender gap has narrowed significantly - down from more than 11% which occurred in the 1995 cohort.

As in previous years, the highest retention rate for the Leaving Certificate is found in voluntary secondary schools with 91.8% compared to almost 87% for vocational schools.

The retention rate for community and comprehensive schools was 89.4%. The retention rate for DEIS schools has continued to improve and reached 82.7% for the 2009 cohort – up 0.6% over the previous year. The figure in 2001 was just 68.2%.

Report author, Nicola Tickner, said the majority of dropouts in secondary schools occur between 5th and 6th year. Almost 3.3% of the entire year’s cohort — around 1,900 pupils — left school at that stage.

Some 800 students — a further 1.4% of the year — quit schools after sitting their Junior Cert.

For the third year in a row, Carlow had the lowest completion rate of any county in Ireland with a level of 84.6% in the Leaving Certificate Other counties with below-average retention rates were Dublin City (87%), South Dublin (87.5%) and Offaly (88.8%).

The highest retention rate for the Leaving Cert was in Tipperary North with 93.8% followed by Cork County (92.4%) and Waterford County (92.3%). In general, students in non-urban areas are more likely to complete their Leaving Cert exams than those living in cities.

The Department of Education stressed that the report does not take account of other important educational pathways outside the schooling system such as Youthreach and apprenticeship training. It acknowledged that pupils who left schools to follow such studies were treated as “early school leavers” in the report.

Internationally, Ireland has comparatively high levels of people aged 20-24 who have completed upper secondary level education — 92.7% compared to the EU average of 82.7%