Education

Strong teacher-training colleges’ performance under new social mobility rankings for higher education

St Angela’s College in Sligo tops league table, followed by Letterkenny IT and Mary Immaculate College

Students at St Angela’s College, Lough Gill, Co Sligo, making pasta at the food science lab. Photograph: James Connolly

Carl O'Brien
Fri Jun 10 2022 - 00:01

Teacher-training colleges are among the strongest performers in boosting the prospects of students from low-income backgrounds, according to a new social mobility ranking developed by the Oireachtas Parliamentary Budget Office.

The rankings are based on the proportion of students from low-income backgrounds in individual colleges, dropout rates and graduates’ earnings a year after graduation.

The index puts St Angela’s College in Sligo at the top of the league table, followed by Letterkenny IT and Mary Immaculate College in Limerick.

The study notes that teaching courses have very low dropout rates and those entering the teaching profession do well in earning in the years immediately after graduation.

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There is a mixed performance among universities and institutes of technology, often influenced by relative affluence or deprivation of their catchment areas.

Dublin City University is the highest-ranked university in fourth place, followed by Waterford IT, IT Carlow, University of Limerick and NUI Galway.

Art colleges, by contrast, were among the poorest performers. NCAD ranked last in 22nd place while the Institute of Art, Design and Technology in Dún Laoghaire was fourth last.