Interesting numbers on education system in Ireland, compared to OECD and EU21: http://ec.europa.eu/ireland/press_office/news_of_the_day/pdf_files/2013/ireland_eag2013-country-note.pdf
Summary tables are very informative.
The full OECD publication is available here: http://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/education/education-at-a-glance_19991487
Here's an interesting chart from the publication (click to enlarge):
Basic point - once we exclude international students, Ireland is basically indistinguishable from the OECD average on terms of tertiary education attainment.
Furthermore, with international students counted in, 1.9% is the Irish graduation rate for Advanced Research Degrees (PhDs) which ranks us 12th in the OECD. Removing international students, the rate is 1.6% or 9th.
Another note: Ireland does not report on the proportion of students who enter the third level education and graduate, so we cannot tell how bad is the propensity of Irish system to graduate students once they are into the system. Ireland also does not report completion rates in third and higher levels of education.
In 2011, Ireland had the fifth highest unemployment rate for those with at least tertiary education completion, the third highest rate for those with Upper secondary or post-secondary non-tertiary education and the sixth highest for those below upper secondary education in the OECD.
Employment rate in Ireland for those with Type A and advanced research programmes tertiary education completion stood at 83%, which ranked as 22nd in the OECD. Put differently, that 'best educated' workforce in Ireland was, apparently, one of the least employed.
A caveat to all reading both documents: there are no corrections in the data for foreign workers employed in the country of residence. Which, of course, means that high salaries in ICT services and International Finance, earned by foreign employees working in Ireland are potentially skewing the data on returns to education
Summary tables are very informative.
The full OECD publication is available here: http://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/education/education-at-a-glance_19991487
Here's an interesting chart from the publication (click to enlarge):
Furthermore, with international students counted in, 1.9% is the Irish graduation rate for Advanced Research Degrees (PhDs) which ranks us 12th in the OECD. Removing international students, the rate is 1.6% or 9th.
Another note: Ireland does not report on the proportion of students who enter the third level education and graduate, so we cannot tell how bad is the propensity of Irish system to graduate students once they are into the system. Ireland also does not report completion rates in third and higher levels of education.
In 2011, Ireland had the fifth highest unemployment rate for those with at least tertiary education completion, the third highest rate for those with Upper secondary or post-secondary non-tertiary education and the sixth highest for those below upper secondary education in the OECD.
Employment rate in Ireland for those with Type A and advanced research programmes tertiary education completion stood at 83%, which ranked as 22nd in the OECD. Put differently, that 'best educated' workforce in Ireland was, apparently, one of the least employed.
A caveat to all reading both documents: there are no corrections in the data for foreign workers employed in the country of residence. Which, of course, means that high salaries in ICT services and International Finance, earned by foreign employees working in Ireland are potentially skewing the data on returns to education
