Private fee-paying schools are much less dominant when it comes to providing students for NUI Galway, writes Seán Flynn, Education Editor

Today, The Irish Times publishes the latest figures in the series Third-Level: Who Goes Where? First, a health warning. These figures record the school where a student first took the Leaving Cert. They do not allow for repeat students.

This year's figures for the universities were first published in August when this newspaper reported on the feeder schools providing first-year undergraduate students to UCD, TCD and NUI Maynooth for 2002-2003.

It emerged that the main feeder schools for both UCD and TCD were private fee-paying colleges and grind schools, notably the Institute of Education in Dublin. The student profile for NUI Maynooth was much more disparate, reflecting its success in providing third-level education to all sectors of society.

A similar pattern is evident in NUI Galway. Virtually all of the main feeder schools are in the State sector. Yeats College in Galway is the only private school to feature prominently on the list. As one might expect, most of the main feeder schools are located in Galway, the exceptions being two very well-known schools, Summerhill College, Sligo, and Coláiste Fhiannain in Ennis, Co Clare.

Galway continues to maintain its popularity among CAO applicants. The college has one of the highest staff-student ratios in the third-level sector. But its location, its strong results and its decent research record help it to attract students.

Recently, it received €18 million from Atlantic Philanthropies (the funding vehicle of the Irish-American billionaire Chuck Feeney) for three new projects on campus. This was the largest single gift in the university's history.

Today we also publish the figures on the number of students who completed the Leaving Cert in each of the feeder schools in 2002. This follows legitimate concerns that the failure to do this can distort the success or otherwise of certain schools. Clearly, a school like the Institute of Education in Dublin, where an estimated 400 students sat the Leaving Cert last year, enjoys an advantage when compared with some smaller schools - even those who might send a higher proportion of their students to third-level.

Dublin City University

Today, the top 25 feeder schools for Dublin City University are also published. Earlier this year, The Irish Times published the full list of feeder schools for DCU, but since then figures for the number of students who sat the Leaving Cert in each school last year have become available.

The DCU table shows the Institute as the top feeder school for DCU. Another so-called "grind school", Bruce College, Dublin, also figures prominently in the list.

That said, the DCU table is very different from TCD and UCD as most its main feeder schools are State-run. These include schools such as Skerries Community College and Portmarnock Community School.

Schools located near the campus also do well. These include Ard Scoil Rís, Griffith Avenue, Holy Faith Convent, Glasnevin, St Aidan's, Whitehall, Dominican College, Griffith Avenue, and Maryfield College in Drumcondra.

In recent years, there have been suggestions that the popularity of DCU has begun to slide. The number of students applying to the college reportedly dipped by up to 10 per cent this year - when the new nursing courses at the university are excluded.

It may be that DCU is suffering because it is synonymous in the public mind with technology. The college surged forward at the height of the hi-tech revolution, but the downturn in the sector is not helpful.

However, DCU's very strong results and its reputation in the research area make it likely that the current difficulties are no more than a temporary blip.

Dominican College, Griffith Avenue, Dublin 9

The statistics published on feeder schools for UCD and TCD earlier this year fail to tell the whole story.

Since the name of this school was given by the colleges as Coláiste San Dominic many parents did not recognise it as Dominican in the lists.

The principal of the school, Sr Chanel O'Reilly, said the school had several phone calls from parents of both current and prospective students expressing concern about the "seeming non-transfer of our students to university".

Dominican College points out that 46 per cent of its Leaving Certificate class of 2002 went to the four universities in the Dublin area. Of these 12 students went to TCD, five to UCD, one to NUI Maynooth and 15 to DCU.