Early Learning Care Graduate Outcomes 2013-2017

Executive Summary

This report examines the outcomes of graduates from courses on Early Learning Care (ELC). The report addresses the activities of graduates including employment, re-enrolment in education, the sectors that graduates work in and their earnings over time. The courses which are included in this study are those which lead to a qualification which is recognized as meeting the requirements of the Child Care Act (1991) and related regulations. These qualifications resulting from these courses are at levels 5 to 9 on the National Framework of Qualifications (NFQ).

This chapter includes an overview on the number of graduates in this report by sex, institute type, NFQ level and age group. The data below includes those graduations with missing or invalid identifiers which could not be matched to the public-sector datasets used in this report. Unmatched records are excluded from subsequent chapters. To protect against statistical disclosure, graduate numbers are rounded to the nearest 10 throughout this report.

A key commitment of First 5, the Whole-of-Government Strategy for Babies, Young Children and their Families 2019-2028, is development of a Workforce Development Plan, to ensure the appropriate number of early learning and care and school-age childcare staff at all levels in the sector, to raise the profile of careers in the sector, to establish a career framework, and to work towards building a more gender-balanced and diverse workforce. Work on developing the Workforce Development Plan began in 2019 and is expected to be completed in 2021. Following discussions with the Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth, the CSO has agreed to expand its analysis on higher and further education graduate outcomes to examine the field of study associated with qualifications for the ELC sector in greater detail. Administrative data from the Higher Education Authority (HEA) and Quality and Qualifications Ireland (QQI) were used to compile course lists and learner details. Other administrative data sources including employment data from the Revenue Commissioners and welfare data from the Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection were used to derive outcome profiles for the graduate cohort. 

This report found that 83.5% of 2017 graduates were in substantial employment in the first year after graduation with median earnings of €340 per week. This compares with 66% of 2013 graduates who had median earnings of €285 per week in their first year after graduation.

The most common industries for new graduates in 2017 was the ELC Sector with 73.2% of graduates in substantial employment in the first year after graduation working in this industry.

Almost four in ten (37.6%) of those graduating in 2017 had re-enrolled in education the following year, down from nearly five in ten (48.9%) for the 2013 graduation class.

Under the auspices of the Statistics Act 1993 and in compliance with all relevant data protection legislation, the CSO is in a unique position to gather and link administrative data sources held by Government Departments and Agencies and evaluate their potential for statistical use.

This analysis was carried out using a statistical framework known as the 'Educational Longitudinal Database' (ELD) developed by the CSO. This framework is produced by integrating datasets from the Education sector with other public sector datasets which describe graduate outcomes in subsequent years. The framework is evolving and developments in public sector datasets such as Revenue's PAYE Modernisation can be incorporated increasing the potential for analysis. See Methodology for further information.

The National Data Infrastructure (NDI) plays an integral part in facilitating the CSO to develop new and improved statistical products for the benefit of the citizen and policymaker. The core concept of the NDI involves the collection, maintenance and storage, on all public sector data holdings, of the associated PPSN, Eircode and Unique Business Identifier (UBI, to be developed) whenever they are relevant to Public Sector Body transactions with customers. This supports the development of the targeted policy interventions. What is needed to achieve this, in most cases, is collection of the PPSN and home Eircode in transactions with people and the UBI and business Eircode in transactions with businesses.

In using the increasingly-varied sources of data available, the CSO must ensure that we continue to protect and secure data. Our aim is to ensure that citizens can live in an informed society while at the same time ensuring adherence to all relevant data protection legislation.

Graduate Numbers

Graduate numbers for each year are broken down by a range of parameters in Table 1.1. Graduate numbers have significantly increased from 4,100 in 2013 to 6,640 in 2017. It can be seen that much of this growth occurred at NFQ level 6, with graduate numbers increasing at this level from 760 in 2013 to 2,710 in 2017. There was also a marked increase in graduations at NFQ level 5. These findings are related to new qualification requirements in the sector, with a minimum level 5 required for working in pre-school and a minimum level 6 for working as a room leader in the (Early Childhood Care and Education) government program.

The vast majority of learners in ELC courses are female. Of the 6,640 graduates in 2017, only 190 were male. This proportion has remained steady since 2013.

After levels 5 and 6, the next most common NFQ level was level 8 (Honours Bachelor's Degree), with 960 graduates in 2017. There were 310 graduates with a level 7 qualification (Ordinary Bachelor's Degree) in the same year, and just 70 graduations at level 9 (Masters or Postgraduate Qualification).

The age profile of graduates has changed substantially over the period studied. For example, the total number of graduates aged 35 and over has almost trebled in the space of four years while the number in the 15-24 category has changed relatively little. Around half of the 2013 graduates were aged 15-24, but less than a third of 2017 graduates were in the same age group.

Table 1.1 also shows the employment sectors in which graduates were working in the year before they graduated. This data relates only to those graduates who could be linked to administrative data. In terms of the employment sectors to which each graduates are assigned, preference is given firstly to employment in the ELC sector, and then to any work in the sectors of Education or Health & Social Work. All remaining sectors are grouped under 'Other Employment Sectors'. Between 2013 and 2017 we see a strong increase in the number of graduates who were already working in the ELC sector. Among those who qualified in 2013 there were 520 who worked in the ELC sector the year before (i.e. in 2012). This represents about a third of the 2013 graduates who were employed in that year. In contrast, we see that 2,210 of the 2017 graduates were working in ELC the year before, which was almost 60% of the number in employment.

In summary, there has been a shift in the profile of learners in this field of study, with a growing number of older learners who already have experience working in the ELC sector taking on courses which lead to level 6 qualifications.

Interactive table: PxStat Link ELA01

Number of graduates by sex, age group and NFQ level (2017 graduates)

Table 1.2 provides a breakdown by NFQ level for the male and female graduates of 2017. Among the relatively small number of male graduates, the majority (67%) graduated at NFQ level 5, whereas among female graduates this level only made up 38% of the total. Women make up around 99% of level 6 graduates and approximately 98% of level 8 graduates.

Graduates aged between 15 and 24 were more likely than older graduates to qualify at NFQ level 8, with around 26% of graduates in this age category receiving a level 8 qualification compared to between 6% and 14% among the older age groups. On the other hand, the three older age categories were much more likely to graduate at level 6, with this level accounting for around half of all graduations among the 25-34, 35-44 and 45 and older age groups. In contrast, only 22% of graduates between the ages of 15 and 24 had studied at NFQ level 6.

From Table 1.1 it can be seen that there were large increases in the 25-34 years old, 35-44 years old and 45+ years old age groups. From Table 1.2 there are large numbers of graduates in the NFQ level 5 and level 6 categories for these age ranges. For graduates aged 25-34 years old, those who graduated from level 5 and level 6 account for 80.1% of graduates. While for graduates who were aged 35-44 years old, level 5 and 6 accounted for 88.8% of these and 86.8% of graduates aged 45+ years old.

Interactive table: PxStat Link ELA01

Go to next chapter: Graduate Outcomes