Group seeking €100m to plug skills gap

The Expert Group on Future Skills is lobbying Government for more than €100 million (£78.7 million) to address skills shortages in the technology sector.

The group is asking Government to create an additional 1,000 places on conversion programmes for computer science students, and hundreds of extra places for part-time education and company up-skilling.

Details of the proposals will be announced shortly in the group's third report, which is expected to show an annual shortfall of 3,332 technology graduates between 2001-2005.

The new funds would be in addition to previous allocations of €413 million in public money to tackle various elements of the skills shortage.

A survey conducted by the group for the report, which has been seen by The Irish Times, shows an annual deficit of almost 2,500 engineering and computer science professionals and more than 800 technicians.

The report will also highlight the potential for a worsening skills shortage as the number of 17 to 18-year-olds falls by 15 per cent between 1999 and 2005. Already some institutes of technology cannot fill certain courses, it says.

The report says there will need to be increased participation rates and enrolment by mature students and marginalised and disadvantaged groups to offset the demographic decline.

This will require more part-time education, distance learning, e-learning and more flexible modes of delivery, it says.

The Expert Group is recommending a number of initiatives including:

provision of 1,000 extra places per year on conversion courses designed to provide a quick and efficient response to computer science needs;

funding for a series of initiatives to improve course completion rates in colleges;

provision of 500 places per year on part-time education courses to provide access to mature students, marginalised and disadvantaged groups; and

provision of 300 places per year for a series of company upskilling projects.

The report shows staff shortages will continue despite a fourfold increase in the number of computer science graduates - from 407 in 1997 to 1,639 in 2004.

It also highlights the need to increase the number of primary degree graduates progressing immediately to research study, following a slump in numbers to 4.9 per cent in 1999, from 7.9 per cent in 1993.

The national research policy should aim to maximise the output of doctorates, particularly in science, engineering and technology, through a number of specified means, says the report.

There will also be a major shortfall in the number of skilled workers in the construction sector, which will be required to deliver the infrastructure elements of the National Development Plan.

The number of skilled workers qualifying during this period will be 24,500, leaving a shortfall of 26,500, it says.