Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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284. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills the expected number of fourth-level graduates in both technical and academic sectors in the future in terms of the demand and the ability to meet that demand; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [37121/21]

Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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288. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills the number of places currently taken up by fourth-level education students throughout the country; the extent to which these numbers incorporate the academic and technical sectors; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [37125/21]

Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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289. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills the number of fourth-level graduates expected in each of the next five years covering the technical and academic spheres; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [37126/21]

Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 284, 288 and 289 together.

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, and initiatives to equip young people and the working population more generally with the skills and capacity to meet these demands.

Postgraduate education delivered by higher education institutions is critical to Ireland’s research system and talent pipeline. In addition to contributing to knowledge, postgraduate researcher education drives participants to develop their own research and innovation skills that can be applied in a range of environments, in academia or industry, at home or abroad.

Since 2014, postgraduate enrolments have increased by 23%, from just over 37,000 in 2014 to just over 45,700 in 2019. A table of postgraduate enrolments by subject area between 2014 and 2019 is as follows.

My Department does not currently produce specific projections for the number of higher education graduates, as a number of variables can impact graduate output in any one year. However projections of full-time enrolment at third level predict that full-time post-graduate enrolments will rise by at least a further 10% over the next decade, and work is ongoing to build capacity within the system to accommodate this increase. The number of students graduating from post-graduate courses each year has increased from 19,100 in 2014 to 24,750 in 2019, an increase of almost 30% in five years.

The new Action Plan for Apprenticeship sets out new ways of structuring, funding, and promoting apprenticeships with a target of 10,000 apprenticeship registrations per year by 2025. This compares against a 2019 registration figure of 6,177, and a 2020 registration figure of 5,326 as registrations were impacted by COVID-19.

My Department will continue to align our further and higher education policies with what is required in the workplace to meet the needs of the economy. 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.