Seán Sherlock (Cork East, Labour)
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155. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills the number of students who registered for the academic year in 2020-2021 but removed themselves from their course per institution in tabular form. [59546/21]

Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael)
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The information requested by the Deputy is not available. The key source of statistics is the HEA's student records system (SRS) which records enrolments as at March of every academic year, giving a single point of reference. Therefore data is not available on a national level on students who begin a course but leave before March. However representatives have stated that there was no significant difference in the number of deferrals or withdrawals in the 2020/21 academic year in comparison to previous years.

The HEA publishes reports on progression, which track the proportion of students registered in first year who progress to second year. The latest report, which tracks progression from the 2016/17 academic year to the 2017/18 academic year, reports a progression rate of 87%. The report can be found on the HEA's website at the following link: hea.ie/assets/uploads/2020/10/Progression-Report-October-2020-Final-301020.pdf .