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Education Policy

Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 24 January 2013

Thursday, 24 January 2013

Questions (82)

Nicky McFadden

Question:

82. Deputy Nicky McFadden asked the Minister for Education and Skills the steps he will take to narrow the skills gap which occurs as a result of oversupply of graduates in some areas of the labour market and undersupply in other areas; if he can identify the areas in which jobs need to be filled; and if the education system can address these labour needs through training. [3586/13]

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Written answers

The Expert Group on Future Skills Needs, which is funded by my Department, plays a key role in advising on the current and future skills needs of enterprise. Its research and reports provide a valuable input to programme development by education and training providers and has also informed the development of new competitive funding models of provision to address areas of emerging skills needs.

The Springboard programme targets funding of free part time higher education courses for unemployed people in areas where there are identified labour market skills shortages, such as ICT, Medical Devices and Pharmachem. More than 10,000 places have been provided under the two rounds of the programme to date. An expansion of the initiative was announced in Budget 2013 and it is expected that a new call for proposals for courses to be run under the programme will issue in February 2013.

The joint Government-Industry Action Plan, which I launched in January 2012, was developed as a direct response to specific ICT skills shortages. The Plan outlines a range of short, medium and long term measures to develop a sustainable domestic supply of high quality ICT graduates, including through the roll out of over 700 places on graduate skills conversion courses during 2012. Due to very positive initial evaluation and strong industry endorsement a tender for a second phase of the conversion programmes was issued by the HEA in November 2012. Details of the courses selected will be available shortly. In addition, 6,500 training places are currently being rolled out for unemployed people under the Momentum programme. The training, which is aligned up to levels 5 and 6 on the National Framework of Qualifications, is targeted at areas of labour market demand and there is a particular focus on the needs of unemployed people under the age of 25.

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