HAYS IRELAND BLOG

THOUGHTS ON THE WORLD OF WORK

Wednesday 22 June 2011

Aligning Students' Course Choices with Future Jobs

By Paul O'Donnell, Director @ Hays

I wrote an article published in this week's Sunday Business Post suggesting that CAO applicants need more information when they are making their decisions about what to study. The key points from the piece are detailed below, leave a comment if you have any views...

Despite the continued success of the multinationals in Ireland, graduates here remain under utilised.

Nearly 20% of the 443,700 people on the Live Registrar are under 25. That’s roughly 80,000 people, a large portion of whom will be university graduates. Considering the latest CSO figures show there to be only 275,700 people in the State between the ages of 20 and 24, that 80,000 figure is proportionally very large.

Rather than finding a home in the ever-expanding multinational sector graduates are either emigrating (in 2007 the CSO shows there to be over 370,000 people between the ages of 20 to 24) or lying idle on the Live Registrar. So why the disconnect between the multinationals requirements and the skill-set that graduates have when they leave university?

In a recent interview on Morning Ireland the Editor of the international blog Tech Crunch pointed to the fact that Dublin was fast been seen in the same light as a Berlin or Helsinki as a digital hub and part of a wider European IT Eco-System. We have some of the most successful IT companies in the world here and half the world’s gaming community – a genuine smart economy. So incredibly exciting stuff but how equipped are our graduates to take up some of these created positions?

The figures would suggest not very. The reason for this may simply be that students are studying the wrong courses. According to the Higher Education Authority 21,906 people entered the Higher Education system for the first time in 2009/2010. Of these 1439 began studying within the sciences category. This includes subjects like maths, computer science, and statistics. This is the bread and butter of an aspiring knowledge economy yet it represents only 7% of new entrants into the higher education system.

Compare that with 5322 or 24% beginning their studies in the humanities and the arts. It is not to imply that there is anything inherently wrong with studying these subjects – but viewed through entirely pragmatic eyes the weighting seems incorrect.

It’s widely acknowledged that education system may need some tweaking if it is to support the strategy of developing a real knowledge economy in Ireland. Is mathematics being thought correctly at second level for example? Are there enough university spaces for subjects that will be directly related to the smart economy? These are extremely important questions.

But an equally important question, and one which perhaps has not received much attention, is what drives the decisions of CAO applicants to choose one course over another? Why are 24% of them choosing the humanities when it doesn’t really fit with where future jobs are being created? We can change the education system to focus more on practical subjects but CAO applicants have to be engaged with those subjects and fully understand their practical application in the real world first.

What’s missing is independent scientifically compiled information from an organisation that stands to gain nothing politically by pointing people in one direction of the other. An independent body that has experience compiling reports like this should be given statutory responsibility to collate this once a year. The ERSI or the HEA would be potential options.
Their reports should contain projections on the number and types of jobs that will be created and what courses are relevant to each individual job category. Given the 3-4 year Degree life span it should not only project immediate skill requirements but also requirements 5-8 years down the line. If that report was released yearly prior to the CAO application process perhaps this would help students opt for courses that will make them extremely marketable in the Ireland of the future.

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