Of fers in STEM courses drop 8%
... despite tech firms bemoaning lack of skilled staff
Competition intensified
THE number of students being offered places in science, technology, engineering or maths courses is continuing to fall, according to the latest figures from the Central Applications Office.
The number of students who applied for those courses, commonly known as STEM, increased slightly by 3.5%. However, the number of offers made to students in the first round dropped by almost 8% – as students failed to reach the required points.
Results in Leaving Cert maths were particularly poor this year, with 3,700 students failing the subject. The majority of failures came at ordinary level, with almost 10% of students failing to reach the pass mark. Just under 2% failed the higher level equivalent.
In total, 50,746 students who sat the Leaving Certificate in June will receive online offers for third-level courses from the Central Applications Office (CAO) from 6am this morning.
Some 26,679 students will have a nervous wait until later offer rounds to see if they can successfully secure a college place.
The competition for places intensified this year as the number of students scoring high points continues to increase – 11.9% scored between 500-599 points, compared to 9.6% in 2016.
Just over half (52%) of those who applied for Level 8 honours degrees courses through the CAO will receive their first-choice offer, with 80% receiving either their first, second or third choice. Social and behavioural sciences saw the biggest increase in demand, with a 28% increase in the numbers opting for it as a first preference.
Ireland has become a magnet for technology companies in recent decades; however, despite finding our corporate tax rate appealing, many firms have bemoaned the lack of adequately skilled staff. This is something that doesn’t look likely to change anytime soon based on the latest CAO figures.
Computer Science and Language at Trinity College plummeted by 93 points – the second biggest drop of any course – to a modest 350 points, while the Computer Science course without a language on offer at Trinity dropped by 23 points to 444.
There were some STEM courses that went against the trend, however, with Industrial Physics at UCC increasing by 66 points to have an entry mark of 511 points.
Some courses saw a large fluctuation in the points needed to gain entry into them. Computer Science at Dublin’s Griffith College soared by 147 points, although students still only require a relatively modest 390 points to gain entry.
On the other end of the scale, Ancient and Medieval History and Culture at Trinity suffered the biggest slip in points of any course in the country, going from 450 to 355, a significant 95-point slide.
The number of mature students applying to the CAO dropped by 11% this year, with 9,689 people over the age of 23 seeking a thirdlevel place. There was also a 9.6% drop in the number of students applying from Northern Ireland and Great Britain for places in Irish third-level institutions.
NUI Galway will take in 3,000 new first-year students next month, and demand for places in the university continues to rise.
The university’s academic secretary, Caroline Loughnane, believes that students seem to be acutely aware of the potentially effects of Brexit given the popularity of language and international business courses.
Ms Loughnane said: ‘International business programmes continue to be a popular choice for students with a global outlook, and the strong performance of the Commerce (Global Experience) programme, at 509 points, confirms this.’ She added: The impact of Brexit and the growing employment opportunities for graduates with European foreign languages is evident in the demand for two new programmes in global languages and an international arts degree.’
This trend isn’t unique to NUI Galway; Languages and English Studies at the Dublin Institute of Technology jumped by 96 points to 388, while Law and French at University College Cork rose by 32 points to a lofty 542.
Demand for teaching courses saw a modest increase of 7% as competition continues to grow. Comment – Page 12
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