Ireland: Students shun key subjects

Irish government agencies are concerned about the decline in applications for computing and engineering courses in recent years. Awareness campaigns have done little to reverse the trend although enrolment in science programmes is just about holding its own. The trend is worrying because of the importance of graduates from these disciplines in one of the world's most open economies, which has attracted much foreign direct investment into the computing and pharmaceutical industries.

Surveys carried out by Dublin City University have shown large numbers of vacancies in computing related jobs. DCU professor of computing Michael Ryan says the dot.com collapse in the early 1990s is still influencing public perceptions of jobs in the industry although the reality is much different. A government-appointed expert group on future skills needs has predicted serious shortages unless more young people are attracted to computing and engineering, especially electronics engineering.

In 2000, almost one in three students in honours degree courses was pursuing what might broadly be termed a technology type programme - engineering, construction, computing or science (non healthcare). Now one in four enrols in these disciplines, with the most dramatic change in computing courses where enrolment has halved.

While computing courses are in decline, media courses are proliferating with graduates flooding an already overcrowded and increasingly casualised market. In fact, arts and humanities programmes still attract the biggest intake of students and some 30% of those enrolling in honours primary degree programmes are in the arts/humanities area.

Business courses have dipped slightly in popularity to around 20% of intake while a succession of high-profile tribunals into planning corruption has made law a very attractive sounding option for many young people. Teaching still attracts the top quartile of school leavers but it is becoming such a feminised profession that the previous Minister for Education Mary Hanafin launched a MATE campaign - Males as Teachers and Educators.

It is not just in teaching, however, that females are in the majority. On present trends, more than half the future doctors, lawyers, dentists, vets and most other professionals will be women. Report after report has shown that Irish females are staying in education longer, getting better grades and enrolling in far greater numbers in higher education than males. The ratio is of the order of 60:40 in honours degree programmes while in ordinary degree or national certificate programmes males have a slight majority.

One of the few areas where men are in the clear majority is in the construction-related sector. But that may no longer be of any great advantage to men as the collapse of the housing market in the past 12 months has slowed the Celtic Tiger economy which had been bounding ahead of the rest of Europe for years.

john.walshe@uw-news.com