One in eight students attending Ireland’s second-level schools last year was born overseas, figures for the 2014-2015 school year show.

Almost 45,000 foreign-born students were enrolled at Irish second-level schools last year, with more than half of these hailing from just five countries, according to data released by the Department of Education and Skills.

The highest number of foreign students attending Irish schools were born in the UK.

These account for just under a quarter (22.5 per cent) of the total number of foreign-born students. They are followed by students from Poland (15 per cent), Lithuania (5.7 per cent), the US (5.5 per cent) and Nigeria (5.2 per cent). Spain, the Philippines, Romania, Latvia and Germany were next.

The department lists 140 individual countries with 92 further students listed as being of “other countries of birth”.

Countries with fewer than 10 listed students include Kyrgyzstan, Azerbaijan, Qatar, Swaziland, Iceland, the Bahamas, Tonga and Mozambique.

The list also includes countries which have since been dissolved including the former USSR, Yugoslavia and the Netherlands Antilles. This is because a number of students and their parents or guardians “self-declared” these former nations as their country of birth.

The figures are made up of students who attended secondary, community, comprehensive and schools run by education and training boards in the 2014-15 school year.

For more see nationalities-in-irish-secondary-schools.silk.co