St Jarlath's shocked by wrong college league tables

By FIONA McGARRY THERE is widespread confusion over the position of St Jarlath's College in two lists of the county's top â€Ëœfeeder schools', and the college President has called on the newspapers which published them to check their facts. Both The Irish Times and The Irish Independent published their annual reports last Thursday, detailing the schools with the largest numbers of pupils progressing to third-level education. St Jarlath's was absent altogether from the list produced by the Independent â€â€ which profiled 43 Galway schools. It appeared bottom of 45 Galway schools in the list produced by the Times. President of St Jarlath's College Fr Brendan Kilcoyne said the lists misrepresent the performance of the school and called on the newspapers to implement better policies in terms of checking their data. He noted that the Times does not record any intake into NUIG from St Jarlath's in 2010, when, in fact, two pupils registered to study there. In a statement issued to The Tuam Herald, Fr Kilcoyne said: 'We were shocked to see in the league tables published by The Irish Times that our school was very badly misrepresented. The large number of students who went to NUIG last year, of whom two, ironically, were recently honoured by the university for their Leaving Certificate achievements, was entirely absent. 'This is not the only error present and we are informed that several other schools have been bewildered by mistakes in their details. The Irish Independent did not even list us. While there have always been misgivings about the worth of this kind of exercise, it seems essential that once you publish such a survey the details would have been properly checked.' Because each of the newspapers uses slightly different criteria to compile their top feeder schools, there is no agreement between them on Galway's best performers. While the Jesus and Mary Secondary School in Salthill tops the Galway list in the Times, Gairme Scoil Einne on Inis Mór tops the list in the Independent. The North Galway schools to feature in the Times list rank as follows: The Holy Rosary, Mountbellew (ninth); Presentation College, Tuam (13th); Presentation College, Athenry (16th); Dunmore Community School (21st); Glenamaddy Community School (24th); Presentation College, Headford (27th), Athenry Vocational School (30th); the Mercy Convent, Tuam (32nd); McHale College, Tuam (42nd) and St Jarlath's College, Tuam (45th). Meanwhile, the Independent ranks the Galway schools as follows: the Holy Rosary College, Mountbellew (eighth); Presentation College, Tuam (11th); Presentation College, Athenry (14th); Dunmore Community School (19th); Glenamaddy Community School (22nd); Presentation College, Headford (25th); Athenry Vocational School (27th); the Mercy Convent, Tuam (30th); and McHale College (41st). In their reports on the feeder schools, both broadsheets issue â€Ëœhealth warnings' about interpreting the data. They point out that their figures offer an indication of some of the third level institutions to which Leaving Cert 2010 students from different schools progressed. The figures do not account for school-leavers who availed of post-Leaving Cert options including PLC courses and apprenticeships. Neither do they reflect â€Ëœmature' college entrants â€â€ i.e. those over 23 years of age. Both the Independent and the  Times use student intake information provided by colleges in Ireland's seven universities, the Royal College of Surgeons (RSCI), 14 institutes of technology, the National College of Art and Design (NCAD), the National College of Ireland (NCI), the colleges of education and the Tipperary Institute. Universities in Northern Ireland, England, Scotland and Wales also provide their intake data. Data from colleges including the Dublin Business School (DBS), Griffith College and Independent Colleges are not included. In addition, it must be remembered that the colleges which do provide information also use slightly different methods to account for the origin of their students. Where pupils sat the Leaving Cert more than once, different colleges apply different counting schemes. Trinity College Dublin (TCD) only takes account of the last school where the pupil sat the exam. This is particularly relevant where a pupil repeats their Leaving Cert at a so-called â€Ëœgrind' school. However, University College Dublin (UCD), the University of Limerick (UL) and NUI Maynooth list every school at which the pupil sat the exam. This means that a repeat pupil is counted more than once. Such double-counting means that some schools can show a higher percentage of pupils entering college than is actually the case. Likewise, when a pupil takes a year out after leaving school, or defers their college entry, they are not credited to their school.