AROUND ONE IN five children in Ireland are missing more than four weeks of school per year and it’s been warned the situation “shows little sign of improving”.

In the most deprived primary schools, almost 40% of children are missing more than 20 days of school, researchers from the ESRI have found.

The researchers also warned there is “no evidence” that the passage of time alone since the pandemic will solve Ireland’s school attendance crisis.

It reports that Ireland has seen a “dramatic increase in school absence rates in the wake of the pandemic” and that there have been “long-lasting challenges in attendance” since.

The research also finds school absenteeism is more pronounced in disadvantaged areas.

The report looked into the proportion of students with chronic levels of absenteeism – defined as missing 20 or more days in the school year – during the 2022/23 and 2023/24 school years at both primary and post-primary level.

Deis and special schools

The ESRI said that one of the most “important findings” is that the main marker of chronic absenteeism rates stems from Deis classification and special school status.

It added that the research points to a “clear gradient” whereby the “higher the level of socio-economic affluence, the better the attendance outcomes”.

In the 2023/24 school year, non-Deis primary schools reported the lowest rate of chronic absenteeism at 17%.

Overall, around one in five students were chronically absent from primary school.

However, Deis primary schools showed markedly higher rates, with the most acute levels found in primary Urban Band 1 schools, where more than one in three students were chronically absent – Urban Band 1 schools face the highest level of disadvantage.

Meanwhile, more than three in ten of students in special schools were chronically absent.

At the primary school level, there was no significant difference between single-sex and coeducational primary schools in their levels of absence.

Irish-medium schools also had lower levels of absence than English-medium schools, while small primary schools had better attendance levels on average. 

The ESRI noted that the better attendance at small primary schools could be linked to “social pressure” because teachers and parents are “more likely to know each other” and  “school staff may be able to spot problematic attendance patterns early on”.

In post-primary schools, close to 30% of students in Deis schools were chronically absent, compared to 19% for non-Deis schools.

The ESRI also found that absence levels are much lower in schools in more affluent areas, at 15%, compared with schools in disadvantaged areas, at 26%.

Meanwhile, boys’ schools are found to have lower rates of chronic absence than coeducational schools.

‘Worrying’ increases

Across the two years the data covered, primary and post-primary schools experienced a “moderate” overall reduction in the proportion of chronically absent students.

In primary schools, the average chronic absentee rate fell by around 3% while in post-primary schools, the rate declined by 1%.

However, the ESRI noted that a “worryingly large minority of schools saw an increase”, with three in ten primary schools experiencing a rise in chronic absence.

Among post-primary schools, some 42% saw an increase in chronic absence.

The ESRI also warned that it is important to distinguish between “absolute and relative change”.

“Schools with poorer attendance at baseline may have more room for improvement in absolute terms but this can conceal lower levels of relative change,” said the report’s authors.

The ESRI meanwhile said the report highlighted issues with the available administrative data on attendance and that one of the most important gaps is the lack of student-level data, including sociodemographic indicators.

The report’s authors said such data would allow it to test whether the differences observed are attributable to school characteristics or to the students themselves.

‘Concerning’

Anna Moya, co-author of the report, remarked that the greater absence among schools serving economically disadvantaged children is “concerning as it is likely to contribute to inequality in later life”.

She added that it is “particularly worrying” that attendance in DEIS schools is not recovering as well as non-DEIS schools in the post-COVID period and added that this highlights the need for further support for these schools.

Fellow co-author Emer Smyth meanwhile said that the findings provide an “important evidence base” but bemoaned the “lack of information on the detailed student profile within these schools”.

“Matching data on the background of individual students to the school-level information would yield greater insights into the factors driving absenteeism, thus helping to address these issues,” said Smyth.