Education in Belfast

Education standards in the city's grammar and secondary schools are among the highest in the UK.

The city has the lowest primary, secondary and grammar school pupil-to-teacher ratio in Northern Ireland.
The city's education authority, Belfast Education and Library Board (BELB), is responsible for 57,969 pupils (17.56% of the Northern Ireland total).

GCSE and GCE results

In 2008-09 in Northern Ireland:

There was an increase in the numbers receiving the top A* grade - 9.1% compared to 8.9% in 2007-08.
75.1% of young people achieved grades A* to C at GCSE level (compared to 67.1% in the rest of the UK).
There was an increase of 4.5% in the numbers doing A Levels to 31,374.
98.4% of students achieved grades A to E at GCE A Level
34.5% of students achieved ‘A’ grades at GCE A Level.

Grammar schools

Education standards in the city's grammar schools are amongst the highest in the UK. There are two top universities in Northern Ireland: Queen's University, Belfast and the University of Ulster.

In 2006 - 07 in Northern Ireland, there were a total of 47,970 undergraduate and 7,080 postgraduate students.
Students achieving first class or upper second class honours degrees have increased by 29% over the last decade from 4,012 to 5,165.

Research excellence

Queen's University of Belfast

Queen's University is one of the top universities in the UK in terms of the quality of teaching and the excellence of research. It has a five star rating in the Research Assessment Exercise (RAE) for Mechanical, Aeronautical and Manufacturing Engineering.

Queen's is part of the UK's Russell Group, an acknowledgment of its status as a world class centre of excellence in research and education.

Its five faculties offer a wide range of courses across the pure and applied sciences, arts and social sciences.

University of Ulster

The university offers the largest number of courses in Ireland covering Arts, Business and Management, Engineering, Information Technology, Life and Health Sciences and Social Sciences.

It is a major contributor to the region's research and development capacity in support of local business and industry. It has a five star rating in the RAE in Biomedical Sciences and Celtic Studies.

Belfast Metropolitan College

The college is the largest provider of further education in Northern Ireland with over 53,000 students with a huge range of vocational and academic courses offered at all levels up to degree and degree equivalent.

More information

More information on education can be found on the following websites:

Belfast Education and Library Board at www.belb.org.uk
Queen's University of Belfast at www.qub.ac.uk
University of Ulster at www.ulster.ac.uk
Belfast Metropolitan college at www.belfastinstitute.ac.uk