Additional funding of €2.25 Million to boost ICT Skills development has been announced, with additional summer camps for second level students being developed, as well as up to 700 additional places on ICT courses. The Higher Education Authority (HEA) will write to higher education institutions to seek proposals for three calls:
- Additional ICT Summer Camps for second level students,
- Additional undergraduate places on core level 8 full-time courses
- A call for full-time level 9 MSc computing courses.
Making the announcement, Minister for Education and Skills, Richard Bruton TD said:
“A goal of the Action Plan for Education is to build stronger bridges between education and the wider community, support learners to make informed career choices and enhance our capacity to meet national and regional skills needs.
“We want to give student’s access to higher education people and spaces to help stimulate their interest and understanding of what computing and ICT is all about. Through summer camps students get hands-on experience of a variety of activities like programming, coding, app design, digital media, web design, gaming and robotics. This can help children develop the computational, and flexible and creative thinking skills that are the basis of computer science and coding.
In 2016, the HEA provided funding to support 29 computing camps for over 1,245 students. Camps typically target transition year students and typically run for a week. Last year, 40% of participants in these ICT summer camps were girls – which is a great achievement.
We also have a target of providing an additional 700 places on computing courses in 2017/18 through the calls issuing today.”
Also speaking about the announcement, Minister for Training, Skills and Innovation, John Halligan TD said:
“Through the implementation of the ICT Skills Action Plan 2014-2018 we are seeking to increase the supply of ICT Professionals to meet the continuing increase in demand for people with these skills.
Data shows that of our 2015 graduates at Honours Bachelor Degree level, Computer Science/ICT graduates are the highest earners, with 57 per cent earning €29,000 or more with 93% in employment or further study 9 months after graduation.
€2.25 million was ring-fenced in Budget 2017 to support these initiatives. The HEA is notifying the higher education institutions and the closing date for receipt of proposals is 18th April 2017.”
– See more at: http://www.education.ie/en/Press-Events/Press-Releases/2017-Press-Releases/PR2017-03-20.html#sthash.6aNJf2v5.dpuf