Background

Essential Skills courses aim to improve adult literacy, numeracy and Information and Communication Technology (ICT) in Northern Ireland. Essential Skills (ES) courses, which are funded by DfE, are free to participants. This publication will analyse enrolments and performance rates for Essential Skills completed in Further Education Colleges over the most recent five years. Courses delivered by private training providers and community organisations are excluded from this analysis.

Analysis

Enrolments and Participants

There were 15,230 FE Sector enrolments on Essential Skills courses in 2024/25, an increase of 16% on the previous academic year (2023/24). In addition, the number of ES students rose by 12%, from 9,100 to 10,205. This marks the largest year-on-year increase within the last five academic years. (Table 1 and Figure 1)

Enrolments and participants on Essential Skills courses see marked increase

Figure 1: Essential Skills enrolments and participants in FE Colleges by academic year since 2020/21

Level of Study

Since 2020/21, the Level 2 share of ES enrolments has fallen from 53% to 52%, whereas the Level 1 share has increased from 34% to 35%. Entry Level enrolments have consistently had the lowest share of enrolments. (Table 2 and Figure 2)

Share of enrolments between level of study remains stable

Figure 2: Number of Essential Skills enrolments in FE Colleges by level and academic year since 2020/21

Age

On average, over the last five years 16- and 17-year-olds have made up over half (55%) of FE Sector ES enrolments, in the most recent academic year (2024/25) this has risen to 60% of enrolments. (Table 3)

Sex

Every year over the last five academic years males have accounted for over half of ES enrolments in FE. (Table 5)

Deprivation analysis

Learners from the two most deprived geographical quintiles in NI make up 48% of ES enrolments in FE (see NIMDM in metadata) over the last five academic years. The third, fourth and fifth quintiles decrease in enrolments as they decrease in relative deprivation. (Table 6 and Figure 3)

Enrolments higher among most deprived geographical quintiles

Figure 3: Essential Skills enrolments by deprivation quintile since 2020/21

Subject

Numeracy is the most common ES course studied in FE, followed by Literacy and finally ICT; this order has not changed in the last five years. (Table 8 and Figure 4)

Subject and Age

Numeracy is the most popular subject for under 45s while those aged 45 and over are more likely to study ICT. (Table 9 and Figure 4)

Subject and Sex

On average, over the last five years males have made up the majority of enrolments in all subject areas. However, in the most recent academic year Numeracy enrolments were 51% female. (Table 10 and Figure 6)

Males make up majority of Essential Skills enrolments

Figure 6: Essential Skills enrolments in FE Colleges by subject and sex since 2020/21

Course Delivery Location

Belfast Metropolitan College hosted the largest number of ES enrolments in FE in 2024/25 (3,170) and North West Regional College hosted the fewest enrolments (1,805). (Table 11 and Figure 7)

Belfast Metropolitan College sees highest number of enrolments

Figure 7: Essential Skills enrolments by FE College in 2024/25

Performance in FE (see notes 7-11)

The retention rate for all ES enrolments in FE over the last five academic years has been 82%, the achievement rate has been 72% and the success rate has been 59%. (Table 11 and Table A)

Performance by subject area

ICT has the highest rates in all three performance measures, followed by Literacy and finally Numeracy. (Table 12 and Table A)

ICT has highest retention, achievement and success rates

Table A: Essential Skills performance indicators by subject since 2020/21
Subject Retention rate (%) Achievement rate (%) Success rate (%)
Literacy 81 73 59
Numeracy 80 57 46
ICT 86 92 79
Total 82 72 59

Performance by sex

Males have higher Retention (by 3 percentage points), Achievement (by 5 percentage points) and Success (by 6 percentage points) rates than females. (Table 13 and Table B)

Males have higher retention, achievement and success rates than females

Table B: Essential Skills performance indicators by sex since 2020/21
Gender Retention rate (%) Achievement rate (%) Success rate (%)
Female 80 69 55
Male 83 74 61
Total 82 72 59

Performance by age band

Retention rates vary narrowly between age groups (lowest is 81% and highest is 83%). Achievement rates tend to be highest among the oldest age groups and lowest among those aged 17-24 (16-year-olds achieve at slightly higher rates). Success rates follow a similar pattern to Achievement rates. (Table 14 and Figure 8)

Essential Skills performance increases with age across both Achievement and Success rates

Figure 8: Essential Skills Performance in FE College by age groups since 2020/21

Notes

  1. Completions are defined as enrolments not classified as ‘Withdrawn’ or ‘Transferred’, namely those with Student Status as ‘Continuing’, ‘Completed’ or ‘Not Known’.
  2. Age is calculated at the first of July prior to the start of the Academic Year.
  3. Enrolment information for FE colleges has been sourced from the Consolidated Data Return (CDR) for 2020/21 to 2024/25.
  4. Enrolment figures are simply a count of the number of Essential Skills enrolment records within the data return.
  5. Individual students are determined using Student ID, College Identifier and Academic Year (Each student will be counted once per academic year they begin an enrolment).
  6. The analysis presented in the publication utilises 5 groups or quintiles of Super Output Areas (SOAs), based on relative level of deprivation using the Northern Ireland Multiple Deprivation Measure (NIMDM). Enrolments are assigned to SOAs using the postcodes provided on enrolment records. This provides a mechanism for ranking the 890 SOAs from the most deprived (rank 1) to the least deprived (rank 890). Accordingly, SOAs ranked 1 to 178 form the most deprived group relative to all other SOAs (Quintile 1), while those ranked 713 to 890 form the least deprived group (Quintile 5). The analysis of deprivation quintiles in these tables excludes all unknown or invalid postcodes, including those relating to Republic of Ireland domiciles; thus the tables refer to enrolments of Northern Ireland domiciles and their relative multiple deprivation quintiles.
  7. Figures provided within this publication and the accompanying tables are rounded to the nearest 0 or 5 and percentages are rounded to the nearest integer.
  8. Performance analysis is determined over academic years 2020/21 to 2024/25. No individual academic year’s retention, achievement or success rates are calculated.
  9. Retention rate is defined as the percentage of enrolments competed by students. Retention rate is calculated by dividing the number of completions by the number of enrolments.
  10. Achievement rate is defined as the percentage of enrolments completed by students who achieve a qualification. Achievement rate is calculated by dividing the number of achievements by the number of completions.
  11. Success rate is recognised as the overall measure of performance, which is the percentage of enrolments of students who complete and achieve a qualification. Success rate is calculated by dividing the number of achievements by the number of enrolments.
  12. Essential Skills qualification statistics that include those courses conducted outside of FE Colleges are published by CCEA and are available on the CCEA website.
  13. All references to lettered tables (e.g. Table A, Table B) refer to tables within this document.
  14. All references to numbered tables (e.g. Table 1, Table 2) refer to the Excel tables that accompany this publication. The tables are available on the Department for the Economy website.

Contact Details

Published by: Statistics and Research Branch (Tertiary Education), Northern Ireland Statistics & Research Agency

Lead Statistician: Jack Dougal

Email: jack.dougal@economy-ni.gov.uk

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