The Irish Times today published its annual league table which shows the number of leavers from schools who have joined Irish universities this year. The progression rate shown for St. Kilian’s is 79%. However, this does not represent the actual figure of students who progressed to third level education as the table does not reflect the following:
- 7% of students have been offered and have accepted places at German universities but due to the release date of Leaving Certificate results in August, they can not take up their places in September.
- 8% of our students went to study in the UK (including Oxford university)
Factually, the progression of St. Kilian’s students who gained university entrance from the class of 2015 is, therefore, not the 79% indicated in the Irish Times, but 94%. The remaining students progressed to study at Colleges of Further Education which are equally not represented on the Irish Times list; these courses include portfolio preparation courses for entry into IADT and NCAD which are only available through Colleges of Further Education.
We believe that St. Kilian’s is not fairly represented in the Irish Times league table; we believe that the only fair means of measuring academic standards is by calculating the Leaving Certificate points achieved by our students. Over the last three years our students have scored an average of 458 points.
St. Kilian’s prides itself on being able to offer its students a choice of universities inside and outside of Ireland and most especially the opportunity to study through German at the best universities in Germany, Austria and Switzerland, as well as universities in the UK.
