THE DEPARTMENT of Education is to consider the establishment of a centralised applications procedure for students of the Higher Diploma in Education (H.Dip), following representations from USI and other organisations.

According to a spokesman for the Department of Education, representations have been received and the Department is consulting with the Higher Education Authority on the matter. It is hoped that the system could be in place for applicants in 1998.

Currently, students seeking a H.Dip must apply to each of the five individual colleges offering H.Dip courses - TCD, UCC, UCG, UCD and St Patrick's College, Maynooth. The result is that some students receive offers from more than one college, while other students receive none at all.

"Most H.Dip applicants don't mind where they go to study as long as they get a place," says USI's educat ion officer, Malcolm Byrne. "All that needs to be done is to establish a system similar to the CAO. It's one of those things that doesn't cost anything yet saves a lot of bureaucracy. It also costs students less, both in time and money."

Professor Aine Hyland, head of education in UCC, says that the university has agreed in principle to be part of such a system, if it emerges, "for the sake of the students, really". It will bring "more coherence" and transparency to the system, she says.

The number of H.Dip places is, capped each year in line with the demand for teachers. These demands are assessed by the HEA, the Department and other interested parties. The demand for H.Dip graduates fell each year from the mid-1970s until the early l990s. In 1994, there were 1,006 H.Dip graduates, an increase of 33 per cent on the previous year and the highest level of H.Dip graduation in recent years.

Numbers have since fallen again to between 800 and 850, but demand far exceeds the number of places available this year, 965 students have applied for the 185 available places in, UCC.

The qualification remains attractive, despite the low levels of permanent employment in the teaching profession. "I don't know whether students who are applying are fully aware of that," Hyland says. "I feel that some of them may not be quite aware of how the scene has changed in the last five to seven years.

The current level of permanent employment is less than half that experienced in 1985. Of those who graduated in 1995, only 6 per cent obtained permanent teaching posts in Ireland.

The picture is considerably better in the temporary, part-time or substitute-teaching sectors, where just under 60 per cent of graduates were employed; but the possibility exists that the HEA may cap the numbers, of H.Dip places even further if the job situation d6es n&t improve. The HEA is currently engaged in an effort to assess how many H.Dip graduates actually end up in permanent employment.

"There are some young people who want to be teachers regardless," Hyland says. "They will continue to apply each year until they eventually get in."