Mr. Lewis Purser:

I thank Senator Craughwell for drawing our attention to this area. I have given it the slightly more positive heading in our background paper of completion rates rather than attrition rates, but it is same thing. From page 20 onwards there is some discussion and data about it. The universities have an attrition rate of 9% from first year to second year and that has been stable over recent years. The Higher Education Authority uses the data submitted annually by every institution and then it does the studies. It can check details through tracking students, use of personal public service numbers, etc., and that shows why national databases are extremely important. It can get the national averages and all the national data. That rate has held firm. A 9% rate compared with the EU or OECD average is very good. From the data I could find from the OECD publication, Education at a Glance, and I referenced this in our paper, the average is 30%. Therefore, a 9% rate in the university sector is not bad and that is across all disciplines. I will not shy away from pointing out that the challenges are in some of the science, technology, engineering and mathematics, STEM, areas. Computer science in particular has always been a challenge. It is linked to the shock some students get on going into first year from the mathematical challenge and challenges in respect of some other subjects that they may not have been fully exposed to in school at second level.