Ruairi Quinn (Dublin South East, Labour) | Oireachtas source

My Department recognises a number of postgraduate qualifications offered by universities as acceptable for school guidance work.

The Higher Education Authority does not allocate funding for specific courses. It is a matter for each university to determine which courses are run and the number of places they wish to offer. As such decisions are usually determined by reference to overall resourcing levels and the likely demand from students. Variations from year to year are not unusual.

I am informed that the HEA does not yet have the relevant information for the current academic year to allow comparison with 2012 enrolments. I understand that there was a slight drop in enrolments in 2011-12 from the previous year. However, there has been a 58% increase in enrolments on these programmes since 2008-09.

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