Educational Attendance and Attainment of Children in Care, 2018 - 2023

There are five classifications that describe outcomes for children who left care within each calendar year. These are:

• 'Substantial Employment only'
• 'Substantial Employment and Education'
• 'Education only'
• 'Neither Employment nor Education'
• 'Not Identified'

These classifications are described in detail in the Background and Methodology.

Outcomes by single year of age in 2021

Children who left care were more likely to be in ‘education only’ compared to all children (aged 18 to 22 in January 2023). Note, there were very few records of young people aged 23 within this cohort, so due to statistical disclosure controls this age was excluded from the outcome analysis.

The proportion of children who left care and were in ‘education only’ in 2021 decreased with age from 80% of 18-year-olds to 39% of 22-year-olds (note, age reflects age in January 2023 while outcome is referencing the year 2021). This was also true for all children aged 18 to 22, where the proportion in ‘education only’ decreased with age from 68% to 17% respectively, see Figure 5.2 and Table 5.1.

The proportion of young adults in ‘substantial employment only’ or in ’substantial employment and education’ is lower for children who left care compared to all children, for all ages between 18 and 22 inclusively. For example, 61% of all young adults aged 20 were in ‘substantial employment only’ or ‘substantial employment and education’ in 2021, while this figure was 33% for children who left care, see Figure 5.1 and Table 5.1.

Outcomes by calendar year, 2019-2021

Approximately 90% of both children who left care since April 2018 and all children (and aged 18 to 22 by January 2023 for either group) were in substantial employment, enrolled in school, or in further or higher education for each of the years 2019, 2020 and 2021.

The proportion of young adults in ‘substantial employment only’ and in ‘substantial employment with education’ was lower for children who left care compared with all children over the whole time period 2019-2021. In 2021, 28% of children who left care were in these same two outcome categories, while it was 53% among all children, Figure 5.4 and Table 5.2.

Further and higher education enrolments in the calendar year 2021

Approximately 1 in 3 of children who had left care since April 2018 and all individuals (and aged 18 – 22 by January 2023 for either group) were still enrolled at school in 2021 and had no additional further and higher education enrolment at that time, Figure 5.5 and Table 5.3.

While the proportion of young adults enrolled in further and higher education in 2021 was similar for children who left care (52%) compared with all children (47%) aged 18 to 22, a larger proportion of children who left care attended further education courses (37%), in particular PLC courses (17%), compared with all children (11% and 7% respectively). Some in further education may have subsequently progressed to higher education.

Outcomes for early leavers

In all 27% of both children who left care and all children, who were also early leavers, were in neither employment nor education in 2021. This proportion was much lower for the same outcome category for the children that did not leave school early (but were part of the same 2012-2015 entry cohort that the early leavers are based upon in this report), at 3% for children who left care and 4% for all children, Figure 5.6 and Table 5.4.

While the underlying numbers are small, the proportion of children who left care, were identified as an early leaver and who also repeated a school year was 12%. This is higher than for children who left care and repeated a school year who were not early leavers at 4%.

For all children who repeated a school year who were early leavers the proportion was 5% while for those that completed the Leaving Certificate it was 1%.

The proportion of children who left care and changed primary or post primary school more than once was 40% for early leavers and 23% of children who completed the Leaving Certificate.

Outcomes by sex, care type, legal status, placements and school changes

The 2021 outcomes for the whole group of 1,836 children who left care (and aged 18 – 22 by January 2023) by sex, care type, placement length and number of placements among others is shown in Table 5.5. The percentage distribution of the outcome classifications by sex was relatively consistent for males and females, with ‘substantially employed and education’ five percentage points higher for females (27%)  than males (22%). Young persons whose last placement was not foster care had higher proportions of ‘Neither substantial employment nor education’ (14%) compared to those in foster care (5%). For those that had more than one placement while in care, 21% were in ‘substantial employment with education’ compared with 28% that had a single placement.