Ups and downs of applications give a meaningful measure of the pulse of our nation
THE breakdown of CAO application figures is always a good measure of the pulse of the nation. We can see that traditional careers, such as teaching and nursing, where there are plenty of vacancies waiting to be filled, continue to hold a big attraction.
Meanwhile, the recovery of opportunities in areas such as business, law and construction is mirrored in demand for those courses.
In other words, secondlevel students, and their parents, particularly mothers, who can play a hugely influential role in career choices, keep a keen eye and ear to where the jobs are, and they go after them.
The March data also gives some indicators about possible trends in CAO points, although that is a very inexact science.
We already know that applications to the CAO were down, reversing years of increased competition for college. Those year-onyear increases in demand, reaching record highs, were a direct result of the recession and the reality that if you didn’t go to college, or at least apply, there was very little else to do.
That has changed and there are jobs out there again for school-leavers.
There are also new options such as apprenticeships that offer a hands-on approach to building knowledge and skills that better serves the needs of many students than signing up for a fouryear academic course.
The apprentices should have a bright future ahead, and the hope is in coming years even more schoolleavers will be attracted to these career paths. They are opening up in an array of non-traditional areas as well as enjoying a renaissance in the construction and engineering trades.
However, there would be concern about how many of those not applying for college this year are school-leavers opting out of education after second-level in a world where there is an increasing demand for postschool qualifications.
If this is happening to
some groups more than others, such as boys, or children from families suffering from socioeconomic disadvantage
– and there are indicators suggesting that is the case – it is something policymakers must watch and nip in the bud.
The overall drop in applications will bring an easing of points on some courses, because points are driven by the level of demand there is for the number of places on a course.
But, even where overall demand for a discipline is sluggish, releases issued by a number of universities indicated how applications for individual courses can be well ahead of the national trend in the discipline. The perennial advice to Leaving Cert candidates is not to get caught up on what they think the points might be, and just concentrate on doing the best they can in the exams.
The negative publicity aboutt wo-tier pay scales in teaching seems to have been no deterrent, with significant increases for education courses, which may very well see points rise here. Publicity about teacher shortages clearly won the battle for hearts and minds. Perhaps, for some too, the opportunity to gain not only a top-class degree, but a passport for a stint in tax-free Dubai.