The demand for fee-paying secondary schools in the Republic of Ireland

Abstract

Ireland’s fee-paying schools consistently rank highly in Ireland’s secondary school league tables. Evidence also notes that the alumni of fee-paying schools represent a large proportion of those in leadership positions in business, politics and the legal professions. This paper examines the factors that affect the decision of Irish households to enrol their children in fee-paying secondary schools in Ireland. The paper uses Irish Household Budget Survey data that cover three waves from the period 2004–2016. We examine the head of household’s education, occupation, income, marital status, the location of the household and temporal factors on the school choice decision. The main results indicate that fee-paying students are more likely to come from higher income, better educated and Dublin located households. This research highlights the significant driver that affluence may have in determining secondary school enrolment in Ireland. This self-selected affluent group effect may explain the performance disparities between fee-paying and non-fee-paying schools. The results enlighten any discussion around whether or not the Government should consider a transition to a fee-paying market or eliminate fee-paying schools altogether.

Keywords:

• Education
• demand
• household
• fees

Notes on contributors

Tracy Bradfield completed a Masters thesis in education economics at Cork University Business School, University College Cork. Tracy is currently a PhD candidate researching the economics of agricultural land markets at Cork University Business School and Teagasc.

Dr. Frank Crowley is a lecturer at Cork University Business School, University College Cork. Frank lectures in a range of economics subjects and his primary research focuses on innovation, spatial economics and firm performance

ORCID

Tracy Bradfield http://orcid.org/0000-0001-7203-1509

Frank Crowley http://orcid.org/0000-0003-3626-203X

Notes

1 Figures are exclusive of students in grind schools, which do not report to the Department of Education & Skills.

2 Accessed via the Irish Social Science Data Archive (ISSDA). The ISSDA bears no responsibility for the further analysis or interpretation of the data.

3 Households are requested to maintain a detailed diary of household expenditure over a two-week period.

4 Private households are selected randomly to represent the population.

5 2009/2010 and 2015/2016 monetary figures are adjusted for inflation in these periods, using 2004/2005 as the base year. The adjustments are made using the Consumer Price Index (Cso.ie 2018a) at the mid-point of each period.