College applicants are opting in greater numbers for engineering and technology degrees but science courses are waning in popularity, latest figures show.
The Central Applications Office (CAO) has received lists of preferred honours bachelor (level 8) degree choices from 70,006 Leaving Certificate candidates, mature students, and others for the coming academic year — 4% more than this time last year.
Arts and business remain the most popular categories, accounting for the first preferences of 28,600 applicants, or 41% of the total just like in 2014. But engineering and technology are the top choice of 7,741 level 8 applicants, almost 1,000 more than a year ago, and up from less than 10% of the 2014 total to 11%.
At the same time, the proportion of prospective third-level students pinning their hopes on a science degrees is down from nearly 14% to 13% in a year, being the first preference of 9,307 people.
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Students will receive their Leaving Certificate results from the State Examinations Commission in just over a month, on Wednesday August 12. The CAO will issue round one offers for the bulk of places at more than 40 colleges the following Monday, August 17.
But preliminary offers have already been received and accepted by Thursday’s deadline by 5,200 mature applicants or those who deferred places last year. Another round for certain categories of applicants will be made on July 30, when around 2,000 more places are likely to be filled.
The numbers whose first preference is law are up by 250 to nearly 2,500, and the 698 applicants whose top choice is architecture is 93 more than a year ago. Demand has remained steady for level 8 degrees in nursing (5,476 or nearly 8% of first preferences), teaching (5,011, or 7%), and medicine (2,978, or 4.2%).
Meanwhile, a report on the Springboard programme of free courses for jobseekers shows 60% were working or self-employed within two years of completion. More than 21,000 people who lost their jobs as a result of the recession have availed of degree and postgraduate education since 2011.
Places on almost 300 courses at 42 colleges are available in the 2015 scheme and related ICT skills conversion programmes.
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