Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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338. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills the extent to which reform of the CAO system is contemplated with a view to ensuring increased interest by students in courses in which an increase in the number of graduates is required; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [42841/20]

Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael)
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The current position is the CAO process applications for undergraduate, and some postgraduate, courses on behalf of higher education institutions, which are autonomous.   Decisions on admissions are made by the HEIs who then instruct the CAO to make offers to successful candidates. 

It is my intention that an important part of the work of my new Department will be to expand and streamline life-long and life-wide pathways between and within further and higher education and training. This will involve a comprehensive review of the current further and higher education pathways.

There are 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 science and technical graduates, and initiatives to equip young people and the working population more generally with the skills and capacity to meet these demands. .

These strategies and initiatives include: the National Skills Strategy 2025; Technology Skills 2022; Springboard+; the Human Capital Initiative and the July Stimulus package.

Under Pillar 2 of the Human Capital Initiative  3,000 undergraduate places are being created in Key Skills areas such as Science, Engineering, ICT and Professional Construction. 1,415 of these places were brought on stream for the 2020 academic year, with the remainder to follow in 2021.

Future Jobs Ireland, which was launched in March 2019 is a new whole-of Government plan to secure Ireland’s economic success. A key element of Future Jobs Ireland is to support business, invest in the development of people and to enhance skills and develop and attract talent to ensure our education and training system is responsive to enterprise needs. We must ensure that we have accessible upskilling options and that our education and training providers offer relevant and up-to-date courses which meet the needs of enterprises and workers.

Springboard+ runs an annual call in order to be in a position to provide the most up to date skills needs courses responding to advances in technology that are impacting the future world of work.  For instance, the 2020 offering of Springboard courses included, Robotics, Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Data Governance.

In general HE institutions are constantly reviewing and updating their course curriculum in collaboration with enterprise to ensure that undergraduate and taught postgraduate course content is reflecting emerging trends in the future world of work and Industry 5.0.

My Department will continue to align our further and higher education policies with what is required in the workplace. We will do this by working with industry to address current needs and, looking beyond the current world of work, by equipping individuals with the skills they need to succeed in the changing labour market.

I am satisfied that these and other important elements of my Department’s strategies, developed in collaboration with key stakeholders, will help ensure that we are well prepared to meet our skills needs including the scientific needs of the economy.