Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees
Wednesday, 12 December 2012
Joint Oireachtas Committee on Education and Social Protection
Reform of Third Level Education: Discussion
3:35 pm
Mr. Lewis Purser:
The numbers are available for many courses and determined by State agencies and quotas in many of the professional areas where there is funding available. Other numbers are not readily available because adjustments are always being made to them up to and following the beginning of term depending, particularly at present, on staff because, as has been pointed out, of the way the employment control framework is hitting contract staff and the ability to replace retiring staff. The availability of places in any given term is not always clear long in advance. In general, that information will be made available informally to students on an historical basis in order that when the universities and other institutions have their open days, information sessions with the CAO and outreach days, they can provide that information orally but committing to it in a prospectus two years in advance is difficult for most of them to do.