High demand for graduates in and out of the sector

THERE ARE more electronic engineers employed outside the electronics sector than within it. As Padraic Gallagher, co-operative education manager at the University of Limerick, explains graduates may end up working in a sugar or milk processing plant rather than a computer or microchip manufacturing company.

When Digital closed its hardware operation in Galway, he says, parents around the country were worried that there would be no jobs for electronics graduates.

There was no need to worry. All colleges report a very high demand for graduates. In fact, Gallagher says, the demand for electronic engineers is at its most buoyant ever.

UL, which offers two degrees in the electronics area - electronic engineering and electronic manufacturing - is simply not producing enough qualified people to meet the demand, he adds. Most electronic engineers will end up sitting at a desk, working behind a PC or a control panel, rather than fixing things on a factory line. It is a very clean type of job, Gallagher emphasises.

Despite this, electronics continues to attract substantially more young men than women. In UL, the percentage of women students in the electronics area varies between 8 and 15 per cent, and this is probably fairly typical of most other electronics courses.

Students in UL and a number of other colleges have an opportunity to see exactly what the job entails before they graduate, as the course includes a work placement in a relevant company. In the electronic manufacturing programme in UL, students in third year spend from the end of January to the end of September in placement, while students who have just finished second year of electronic engineering will spend their summer and the first term of third year in placement.

This arrangement, Gallagher notes, means that students spend upwards of eight months in work placement, but they only miss one term at college.

There is a vast array of electronics courses available in the State, from PLC to national certificates and diplomas to degrees - and postgraduate qualifications. The ab initio degrees fall into direct entry, where students opt for electronics from the start, and common-entry programmes, where students enter a general engineering course and specialise later.

Sean Gannon, careers officer with TCD - which offers a common-entry engineering programme - says the obvious advantage of common entry is that it allows students to sample various areas of engineering before they make up their minds to specialise. He also reports very good job prospects and notes that Ireland has been highly successful in attracting hardware manufacturers such as Intel and Hewlett-Packard.