Colleges struggle to fill degree places
A STAGGERING 194 third-level courses are struggling to fill places because they did not attract enough suitably qualified applicants.
The number has reached unprecedented levels this year -- and failure to achieve sufficiently high grades in Leaving Certificate Maths is part of the problem.
According to CAO figures, 81 of the 723 honours degree courses -- or 11pc -- have vacancies and five of the seven universities are among the higher education institutions actively seeking students.
The situation is even worse in the ordinary degree/higher certificate division, where there are concerns about filling desks in 113 -- 29pc -- of 386 courses. Science, engineering and technology courses dominate the list of CAO vacant places, accounting for at least half of the 81 honours degree courses posted on the site yesterday.
Those sectors accounted for almost half of the 113 courses with vacant places at ordinary degree/higher certificate level, while a lot of business courses are also advertised.
Entry to these courses would have been hard-fought in previous years and while they continue to attract high-achieving students, they are not doing so in sufficient numbers.
University College Dublin (UCD) has advertised vacant places on four honours degree engineering/science courses, in two of which the maths requirement is regarded as a factor in not filling places to date. Mathematical Science requires a minimum B1 in Maths Higher Level, while Theoretical Physics requires a B2.
NUI Galway and NUI Maynooth, which have advertised four courses each, try to address the maths issue by running special maths entrance exams for students whose Leaving Certificate grade falls short. Dublin City University has vacancies on all its nine engineering courses, while University College Cork has advertised one, along with two Commerce degree programmes. Dublin Institute of Technology has advertised nine engineering or science courses.
Disappointing results in Leaving Certificate Maths have exacerbated a downturn in school-leaver interest in science, engineering and technology as a career in recent years. College admissions officers would have foreseen difficulties in light of the drop in applications to the CAO for science courses this year and the ongoing lull in demand for engineering/technology.
But the reality of the Leaving Certificate results compounded the situation, as many students were excluded from a swathe of courses. Honours degree courses in the science, engineering and technology areas tend to have a minimum requirement for a C3, or, perhaps, higher, in Maths Higher Level, while there are also minimum maths requirements in these disciplines at ordinary degree/higher certificate level.
The real problem starts with the low number of candidates who take maths at higher level. Fails at higher level rose to 3.9pc this year, while at ordinary level the failure rate rose to 11.6pc.
