Higher Education Outcomes - Health Graduates 2020 Destination Outcomes

Destination Outcomes Definition

There are five classifications that describe graduate activities within each calendar year. 

• 'Substantial Employment only'. This refers to graduates who meet minimum criteria for employment or self-employment and are not enrolled in higher education within the same calendar year.
• 'Substantial Employment and Education'. This refers to graduates that meet the criteria for substantial employment or self-employment and are also enrolled in higher education at some point within the same year. 
• 'Education only'. This refers to graduates that are enrolled in higher education but are not in substantial employment.
• 'Neither Employment nor Education'. This refers to graduates who do not meet the criteria above but have some activity in administrative records for that year. These graduates may have some record of (non-substantial) employment or claimed some benefit in that year.
• The remaining individuals are categorised as 'Not Captured'. This means that they have no activity in the administrative data sources for that year. Most of this group are assumed to have emigrated, but there is no definitive indicator of emigration available in the administrative data.

For further details, see the accompanying ELD methodology documentation.

Graduation Cohort Definition

This release uses the HEA’s Student Records System for data on annual graduations. This contains details on the courses studied and NFQ level. It also contains information about the learners themselves, such as gender, age and nationality. Health care graduates were identified using course name, course code and CAO code. Undergraduate programmes at NFQ Level 8 were identified that enables graduates to register with the Irish Medical Council or Nursing and Midwifery Board of Ireland. The full list of courses included in this release are below.

PPSN Validity

A number of graduation records have a missing or invalid PPSN, and therefore cannot be matched to other administrative data sources. These graduates are excluded from the outcomes in the Key Findings. Graduates from RCSI were missing PPSN for graduation cohorts 2013, 2014 and 2016. Furthermore, all medicine graduates were removed for the 2012 graduation cohort due to data quality issues. Graduation records by PPSN validity are shown in Table 3.1 to give a complete picture of the number of health graduates in Ireland.  

Nationality

Graduates’ nationality is primarily taken from the HEA’s Student Records System. However, in instances where PPSN was valid and could be matched to the Central Records System from the Department of Social Protection, Irish nationality was also taken from this source. PPSN is valid at much higher rates for Irish graduates, as shown in Table 3.1. Therefore, outcomes in this release are only calculated for Irish graduates with a valid PPSN.