Student Support Schemes

Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 21 July 2016

Thursday, 21 July 2016

Questions (226)

Thomas Byrne

Question:

226. Deputy Thomas Byrne asked the Minister for Education and Skills if he will commission the HEA to carry out a more comprehensive graduate earnings survey, given that there is very little data available on graduate earning profiles here, beyond the first year post-graduation, an indiction of which is that a group (details supplied) had to use graduate earning survey data from 2006 to model repayments for the income contingent loan system in their report. [24210/16]

Written answers

Minister for Education and Skills

The Higher Education Authority produce an annual Graduate Destination Survey, which as the question suggests only tracks destinations 9 months post course completion, and also only covers universities and colleges. The plan for next year is to extend this to the Institutes of Technology, and there are also plans to move towards a more longitudinal approach which will look at destinations further out from graduation. The 2006 survey refers to the last National Employment Earnings Survey prepared by the Central Statistics Office, which was used by the Expert Group as this was the last source with a sufficient survey base to model graduate earnings to the detail required.