Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The further and higher education sectors have 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 higher education graduates and apprentices - I am pleased that the Deputy mentioned apprentices - and initiatives to equip young people and the working population more generally with the skills and capacity to meet these demands.

The identification of skills priorities to help to inform and shape planning for graduate output is guided by the national skills strategy. The strategy provided for the establishment of the skills architecture that we have today, which is the National Skills Council and the nine regional skills forums. As I said to Deputy Griffin during a previous question, there is great benefit in talking to the regional skills forums, the industries in the area and the education partners to ascertain what is needed in the region in terms of future skills. Underpinning both the skills agenda and architecture are the skills forecasting and intelligence systems, made up of the contribution of a number of public bodies including, at present, the expert group on future skills needs in the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment, the skills and labour market research unit in SOLAS and the statistical analysis and assessment carried out by the HEA. The detailed research and analyses carried out by these bodies feed into the work of the National Skills Council in defining the priorities and delivering responses in the area of skills needs.

My Department does not currently produce specific projections for the number of higher education graduates because a number of variables can impact graduate output in any year. However, it is interesting that the projections of enrolment at third level predict that full-time student enrolments will rise by approximately 13% over the next decade, and it is to be expected that graduate numbers will increase in a similar manner. The number of students graduating each year has increased from 66,500 in 2014 to 73,300 in 2018, an increase of 10% over that period.

In the programme for Government there is a commitment to a new action plan for apprenticeships. That is nearly ready to go to the Government and will be launched early in the new year. It will set out new ways of structuring, funding and promoting apprenticeships, with a target of 10,000 new apprenticeship registrations per year by 2025. This compares with a 2019 registration figure of 6,177. We are clearly increasing the scale of our ambition in this regard.

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