Northern Ireland has a distinctive two-phase upper secondary education system that differs from the structure in most OECD systems. Key Stage 4 (ages 14-16) represents the first phase of upper secondary, when students typically work towards General Certificates of Secondary Education (GCSEs) and other qualifications at school. The second phase of upper secondary covers 16-18+ when students are typically enrolled in school sixth forms or further education institutions and work towards A Levels (the main general qualification) or other, mostly vocational, qualifications. In contrast, in many other OECD countries, the entirety of upper secondary is typically a single phase, with student selection to different programmes occurring before upper secondary begins (Figure 1). Only in a few countries – Chile, Poland, and other United Kingdom systems (England and Wales) – is there selection mid-way through upper secondary.
Building core literacy, numeracy and digital skills in the first phase of upper secondary education in Northern Ireland
2.1.1. The structure of upper secondary education in Northern Ireland is unique
Notes: It is assumed that age references refer to 1 January of the reference year.
Ending age of compulsory education might refer to the age that each individual student reaches depending on the birth date, meaning that students can leave school during the school year whenever they turn such age, or it can refer to the age that students have during the school year, meaning that students must complete the school year during which they reached the compulsory ending age.
Compulsory ending age refers to education and not training. For example, in France, the ending age of compulsory education is 16 but training is compulsory up to 18.
Countries are ranked in alphabetical order.
Sources: OECD (2022[3]), Education at a Glance 2022: OECD Indicators, https://doi.org/10.1787/3197152b-en; OECD (2019[4]) PISA 2018 Database, https://www.oecd.org/pisa/data/2018database/ (accessed January 2022).
2.1.2. Participation remains high for most of upper secondary education
Participation in education at ages 14-16 is universal in Northern Ireland, with almost 100% of young people enrolled in education (Figure 2). The end of the first phase of upper secondary – Key Stage 4 (ages 14‑16) – represents a critical juncture when students face a high-stakes transition point. It is at this stage that participation in education begins to drop slightly and, at ages 17 and 18, enrolment in education drops to 94% and 87% respectively, across the different forms of education. Progression at age 16 to the next stage of qualifications is typically shaped by GCSE performance. For example, to access most A Levels (the main general post-16 qualification), students typically need five GCSEs at Grades A*-C. For those who do not remain in school beyond Year 12, they may enrol at a further education institution or do other training, such as an apprenticeship.
Note: Data for schools are based on pupils enrolled on Census day i.e. the Friday of the first full week in October (in 2022/23 this was 7 October 2022).
For all Northern Ireland data, age is as at 30 June at the end of the academic year.
Mid-year population estimates are taken on the 30 June, at the end of the academic year.
Data do not include the small number of Northern Ireland domiciled students studying Higher Education in Ireland. Information on Northern Ireland domiciled students studying in Great Britain Further Education Colleges has also not been included.
Data may exclude several groups, including some young people taking up training positions in the armed services.
In the legend, the acronym GB is used for Great Britan and NI for Northern Ireland.
Source: Data for Northern Ireland provided by Northern Ireland, using school census data, participation in education and vocational training data and Northern Ireland population estimates; OECD (2023[5]), Enrolment rate by age, (dataset), OECD Data Explorer, https://data-explorer.oecd.org/s/5ew.
2.1.3. The Curriculum sets high-level expectations for learning
The Northern Ireland Curriculum, introduced in 2007, provides the statutory foundation for learning from the Foundation Stage (ages 4-6) through to Key Stage 4 (14-16). The Curriculum requires schools to offer students access to eight Areas of Learning: The Arts, Language and Literacy, Environment and Society, Learning for Life and Work, Mathematics, Modern Languages, Physical Education, and Science and Technology (NI Statutory Rules, 2007[6]).1 The content of the Areas of Learning is relatively high-level, affording schools considerable flexibility and scope to provide learning opportunities adapted to their own context and their students’ needs (CCEA, n.d.[7]).
2.1.4. The Entitlement Framework requires schools to offer a diversity of qualifications
In Key Stage 4, the delivered curriculum is predominantly driven by the qualifications students take (Crehan, 2025[8]). The Entitlement Framework, introduced in 2006, requires schools to offer at least 21 courses at Key Stage 4, with at least one-third being general (i.e. academic) and one-third applied. General qualifications, typically GCSEs, develop subject knowledge, understanding and skills. Applied qualifications, such as Business and Technology Education Council (BTEC) qualifications, include practical demonstrations and professional contexts for skills and knowledge development (NI Dept of Education, 2011[9]).
Students typically take 8-10 individual qualifications during Key Stage 4. GCSEs are the predominant qualification – accounting for around 80% of entries in a typical year, with the remaining share including vocational qualifications.2 Schools can offer qualifications developed by Northern Ireland’s Council for the Curriculum, Examinations and Assessment (CCEA), the primary awarding organisation for GCSEs, or qualifications from other United Kingdom awarding bodies, creating a highly flexible system with significant institutional autonomy.
Across the OECD, schools in few countries have such significant institutional autonomy over the courses their students can take. Data from the OECD’s Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) shows that Northern Ireland is one of only three systems (with New Zealand and Wales) where course selection is determined entirely by school-based actors (Figure 3). In most systems, responsibility for the courses schools provide is shared between schools and education authorities to balance school-level flexibility with national policies and priorities.
Percentage of students in schools where specific actors have the main responsibility for deciding which courses are offered
Note: Ranked in descending order for principals reporting that responsibilities sit with school-based actors (i.e. with the principal, teachers or members of school management team, or school governing board). Northern Ireland highlighted in pink and OECD average in orange. Names of comparison systems are highlighted in blue.
* Caution is required when interpreting estimates because one or more PISA sampling standards were not met (see PISA 2022 Reader’s Guide, Annexes A2 and A4).
Source: OECD (2023[10]), PISA 2022 Results (Volume II): Learning During – and From – Disruption, Table II.B2.34, Table II.B1.6.1 https://doi.org/10.1787/a97db61c-en.
2.1.5. Schools do not have standardised information about student performance prior to Key Stage 4
Most (32 out of 40) OECD education systems have national assessments at primary or lower secondary education for diagnostic or system monitoring purposes (OECD, 2023[11]). In contrast, Northern Ireland does not currently have any standardised central assessments, though this is soon to change. In the 2010s, Northern Ireland implemented teacher‑based assessment of communication, mathematics and information and communication technology (ICT) skills across primary and lower secondary, with judgements based on expected levels of progression by the end of each Key Stage. Schools moderated these judgements and reported data centrally. However, data reporting response rates were increasingly impacted by industrial action short of strike. The COVID-19 pandemic led to formal suspension of reporting in 2019, which only resumed in 2024/25.
In the absence of central, standardised monitoring of learning in primary and lower secondary, schools in Northern Ireland have been commonly using commercial assessments to provide comparative information on student learning across the year group and predict GCSE achievement. Results from commercialised tests inform ability grouping – used for 93.2% of 15-year-olds in Northern Ireland – and the qualifications students take in Key Stage 4 (OECD, 2023[10]). The commercial tests tend to assess verbal, non-verbal, quantitative and spatial reasoning abilities which are not aligned to the national curriculum. This means that it can be difficult for teachers to use such tools to effectively diagnose learning gaps related to expected central achievement.
Recently, several key developments have taken place in Northern Ireland aiming to provide schools with more reliable assessment data they can use to inform teaching and learning:
Interim measure: From 2025/26, Northern Ireland introduced sample-based standardised assessment at end of Key Stages 1-3 from 2025/26. These were introduced as an interim measure aiming to provide system-level information. Schools participating in the sample can request their own school-level data for internal self-evaluation. As a sample-based assessment, results will only cover a sample of students and schools and cannot provide comprehensive information enabling all schools to identify students who need more support (NI Dept.of Education, 2025[12]).
Planned longer term approach: Going forward, the Department of Education will begin to implement its new Policy Framework for Statutory Assessment. The framework sets out a pathway from Year 1 to Year 10 that includes a Baseline Check (Year 1), a Phonics Check (Year 2), annual reading fluency checks (Years 3–5), literacy and numeracy assessments (Year 4), a multiplication check (Year 5), literacy, numeracy and science assessments (Years 7 and 10) and writing checks, with samples uploaded to a Writing Repository (Years 4, 6 and 8). It also adds a Writing Repository that lets schools benchmark writing standards. The first statutory assessments under the new model are scheduled for March 2030, with the first Year 10 assessment (end of Key Stage 3) following in March 2031. Until then, assessment continues on the current sample-based basis. The new approach prioritises giving teachers clear information about students’ attainment, progress and next steps, and also providing data that can be used for school self-evaluation and system-level monitoring (NI Dept. of Education, 2026[13]).
Adaptive Assessments: Since 2024, Northern Ireland’s Council for the Curriculum, Examinations and Assessment’s (CCEA) has begun providing online diagnostic assessments aligned to the Northern Ireland Curriculum free of charge to schools. These are available for literacy and numeracy for students in Years 4-10 (ages 7-14). Outcomes and reports are available for students, enabling teachers to identify strengths and areas for development (CCEA, 2025[14]).
Northern Ireland’s new Policy Framework for Statutory Assessment would bring Northern Ireland in line with international practice and provide teachers, schools and parents with system-level data and information to inform decisions about how best to support each student (NI Dept. of Education, 2026[13]).
2.1.6. Performance measures highlight tensions between standards and student achievement
Northern Ireland’s school accountability system centres on qualifications results, with one of the central measures for education performance being the percentage of students achieving five or more GCSEs at Grades A*-C (or equivalent qualifications) including GCSE English and mathematics. This benchmark has been a key indicator for education performance in Northern Ireland’s cross-sector Programme for Government since 2016 (Northern Ireland Executive, 2016[15]). Data on GCSE results – alongside other performance measures – are reported annually by the Department of Education and are used by the media to create annual school league tables. In 2023/24, 73.3% of Year 12 students met this benchmark, meaning that over a quarter of students did not achieve what is considered a fundamental threshold for educational success and post-16 progression (NI Dept. of Education, 2024[16]).
It is a design feature of GCSEs that roughly the same proportion of candidates will achieve each grade as in the previous year, if everything else remains the same (CCEA, 2012[17]). This approach aims to ensure that outcomes are “comparable”, meaning that a GCSE grade awarded in one year reflects a comparable standard of achievement as in other years (JCQ, n.d.[18]). This approach means that variability in the proportion of students achieving Grades A*-C for each GCSE between years is expected to be limited, given that year on year cohort ability remains largely similar. If the attainment of the cohort were to change significantly, grade outcomes would change to reflect this. Effectively, therefore, in a normal year, it is not possible for all students to achieve at least a Grade C in a subject. Yet the emphasis in performance reporting on the share of students achieving Grades A*-C creates a widespread perception that a Grade C is the barometer of success. This can make Key Stage 4 a demoralising experience for some students, since there will always be a group achieving below Grade C. The reliance on this performance measure for school accountability reveals tensions between maintaining standards, demonstrating improvement, and ensuring that there are assessments and qualifications that meaningfully report the performance of all students.
2.1.7. School-level accountability focusses on reporting qualification results
Qualification results predominate in reporting and discussion of school performance in Northern Ireland. Since 2003, all schools must publish in their prospectuses their share of students achieving GCSE and equivalent qualifications (NI Dept of Education, 2003[19]). In a context of high school choice and a declining demographic trend, schools’ qualification results at the end of Key Stage 4 are scrutinised in the media and by parents. In all systems, direct comparisons of qualifications and examination results across schools can be misleading because they do not account for differences in student background (across all systems, student background is consistently correlated with student performance) (OECD, 2023[10]; OECD, 2013[20]). Moreover, in Northern Ireland, qualifications results are not a fair basis for comparing schools because some public schools select students at age 11 based on academic performance. This means that the profile of students can vary widely across schools.
In other systems, school accountability frameworks might focus on the results from school evaluations, national assessments and value-added measures which account for student achievement upon entry to the school (OECD, 2013[20]). However, in Northern Ireland, school inspections have been impacted by industrial action. Given the absence of a wider range of sources of information in Northern Ireland, the focus on qualifications results tends to predominate.
← 1. At Key Stage 4, there are also statutory requirements for students to engage with religious education, although parents have the right to withdraw their child from part or all of religious education or collective worship.
← 2. Data provided by the Department of Education from the Exams Database.