John Lahart (Dublin South West, Fianna Fail)
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334. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills the proportion of third level students who opted for apprenticeship programmes in the academic year 2016-17. [35993/17]

John Halligan (Waterford, Independent)
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In the 2016/2017 academic year there were over 218,000 students enrolled on both part-time and full-time Higher Education programmes, over 43,500 of which were new entrants.  Also in 2016 there were over 11,000 apprentices in training on various phases of their apprenticeship, 3,821 of which were new registrations. The Action Plan to Expand Apprenticeship and Traineeship 2016-2020 sets out how the apprenticeship population will double in the coming years, with annual registrations rising to 9,000 by 2020.

It is important to note that the Education and Training Boards, funded by SOLAS, also offer a broad range of flexible high quality programmes to meet the needs of learners to enable them to develop skills. They are providing over 270,000 places, to meet the needs of over 320,000 beneficiaries, with an annual investment of over €800 million.