More than 23,000 students engaged in courses established to address industry skills shortages – report

A midterm review of the Government-backed five-year €300 million Human Capital Initiative (HCI) education programme has found that it is running slightly ahead of projections with more than 23,000 students engaged in over 1,000 specialist courses around the country.

The HCI programme was established in 2020 as part of the National Skills Strategy 2025 with the intention of creating courses intended to fill specific skills shortages in the economy and give students or existing workers the opportunity to reskill or upskill, so as to help them adapt to a rapidly changing jobs market.

The portion of the wider scheme reviewed, Pillar 3, is due to account for some €200 million of the overall spend and deliver a mix of new courses and innovation to existing ones.

The report, carried out by economic consultants Indecon, found more courses than projected had been established with more than 4,000 new places created.

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Under the scheme, collaboration between colleges is encouraged as is engagement with relevant industry employers and overseas partners. Indecon found that, with a couple of years to go, the programme was ahead of schedule in terms of a variety of key measures, with more than 400 enterprise partnerships established involving 84 academic establishments and particularly high levels of engagement from the new technical universities.

Areas covered vary, with courses in cyber security, the use of virtual reality in surveying and master’s programmes in investment fund management among the hundreds offered. Aside from equipping students for roles in sectors where there are known skills shortages, the programme is intended to promote lifelong learning and management skills.

Minister for Further and Higher Education Simon Harris said the findings of the assessment by Indecon, for the Higher Education Authority (HEA), were evidence of the increased levels of innovation and flexibility being introduced into higher-level education in order to better address the country’s skills shortages. He said the success of the scheme so far underlined Ireland’s potential to be a leading innovator in the area of educational innovation.

“It is imperative that we remain agile and open to new solutions as an economy,” he said as the review was launched at an event, Collaboration Nation: Linking Higher Education and Enterprise, at the Convention Centre in Dublin.

“Ireland is uniquely positioned to become a world leader in educational innovation and the collaboration fostered by HCI Pillar 3 between higher education institutions, local SMEs and global multinationals shows we are on the right path.”

Surveys conducted by Indecon with the various stakeholders involved suggested high levels of satisfaction with the types of courses being run, their accessibility to students and their applicability to industry needs.

“We’re very encouraged by the results of this midterm report and expect to see a continuation of these positive trends as the projects mature,” said Dr Alan Wall, chief executive of the HEA. “The collaboration between our higher education institutions and enterprise has been wonderful to see, with both sides flourishing together and providing strong, tangible outputs that will benefit all. The HCI programme funding provided under Pillar 3 is already making a significant impact, with key outputs such as over 4,000 additional places and almost 1,000 new courses being provided.”