Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 19 October 2023
141. Deputy Peadar Tóibín asked the Minister for Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science if his Department has undertaken any research to determine what students in what faculties or courses are most and least likely to emigrate; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [44816/23]
View answerThe tertiary education and training system is designed to ensure that learners and graduates are enabled to flourish, both here in Ireland and abroad. Quality and Qualifications Ireland (QQI) not only works to ensure the quality and integrity of national awards but also that those awards are, and remain, recognised internationally.
The existing International Education Strategy highlights the importance and value in today’s global market of the movement of learners and graduates, both into and out of the state. Movement may happen for career advancement, professional development, engagement with international research opportunities among other reasons. Work is well advanced on a successor strategy and I plan to publish this by year end.
Although my Department has not undertaken or commissioned any comparative research into the likelihood of emigration of learners and how this might vary by faculty or by course studied, a range of information sources are utilised to monitor the outcomes of graduates from the tertiary system, including outcomes relating to international mobility.
Collaboration between the Central Statistics Office (CSO) and the Higher Education Authority (HEA) has resulted in the release of a series of longitudinal graduate outcomes reports, with data available for graduate destination one and five years after study, broken down by broad field of study and also by institution. These reports are publicly available on the CSO website at www.cso.ie.
A more immediate outcomes report is published annually by the HEA and capturing the position of graduates nine months following graduation. The Graduate Outcomes Survey asks respondents whether they are engaged in employment or pursuing further study and, critically, whether this is in Ireland (including Northern Ireland) or overseas. As with much of the HEA’s statistics, detailed information is published online on their website www.hea.ie, both in the form of interactive dashboards, and as reports, in the form of ongoing ‘info-byte’ publications.
The Central Statistics Office (CSO) also publish migration estimates which indicate overall net inward migration.
