Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 10 December 2020
332. Deputy Bernard J. Durkan asked the Minister for Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science his plans for the advancement of educational programmes to meet the scientific needs of the economy in the future; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [42835/20]
View answerThe tertiary education system has a number of key strategies in place at all levels to ensure we meet existing and future skills demands. These include policies designed to ensure a pipeline of suitably qualified science and technical graduates, and initiatives to equip young people and the working population more generally with the skills and capacity to meet these demands.
These strategies and initiatives include: the National Skills Strategy 2025; Technology Skills 2022; Springboard+; the Human Capital Initiative and the July Stimulus package.
Future Jobs Ireland, which was launched in March 2019 is a new whole-of Government plan to secure Ireland’s economic success. A key element of Future Jobs Ireland is to support business, invest in the development of people and to enhance skills and develop and attract talent to ensure our education and training system is responsive to enterprise needs. We must ensure that we have accessible upskilling options and that our education and training providers offer relevant and up-to-date courses which meet the needs of enterprises and workers.
Springboard+ runs an annual call in order to be in a position to provide the most up to date skills needs courses responding to advances in technology that are impacting the future world of work. For instance, the 2020 offering of Springboard courses included, Robotics, Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Data Governance.
The Human Capital Initiative Pillar 3 which aims to promote innovative methods of teaching and delivery, so that learners will benefit from improved quality and more engaging ways of learning on enterprise focused courses. It also aims to increase institutions’ ongoing capacity to anticipate, understand and respond rapidly to emerging skill needs of enterprise. The impact of these 5 year programmes will have a longer term impact on the quality of graduates emerging from the HE system.
In general HE institutions are constantly reviewing and updating their course curriculum in collaboration with enterprise to ensure that undergraduate and taught postgraduate course content is reflecting emerging trends in the future world of work and Industry 5.0.
My Department will continue to align our further and higher education policies with what is required in the workplace. We will do this by working with industry to address current needs and, looking beyond the current world of work, by equipping individuals with the skills they need to succeed in the changing labour market.
I am satisfied that these and other important elements of my Department’s strategies, developed in collaboration with key stakeholders, will help ensure that we are well prepared to meet our skills needs including the scientific needs of the economy.
