The arrival of the first round of CAO offers today supersedes even the Leaving Certificate results in the minds of many students and their parents. Today's envelopes may herald the beginning of many years of undergraduate education in institutes of technology, art colleges, universities, colleges of education and private colleges.
The good news is that 76 per cent of applicants will receive a college offer in today's post. In all, 49,888 of the 65,288 applicants will get an offer. This is an increase of 3,468 on last year's first-round offers and more than balances the additional 2,011 applications received by the CAO this year. There are now more third-level places available in the Republic than ever before. In 1992, there were 26,762 first-year places. This year, it is expected that 36,000 places will be available in the State-funded sector.
The hype which surrounds the increases or decreases in cut-off points is not in accordance with the facts. Not only has the third-level sector expanded rapidly in recent years, but there has been a concomitant growth in the Post Leaving Certificate sector, with more than 22,000 places sanctioned for this year. About 19,000 of these are first-year places. There are opportunities for further education and training in FAS apprenticeships, nursing, in agriculture and horticulture with Teagasc, hotel and catering with CERT. Jobs are also available this year for school-leavers.
For the 64,000 students who sat the Leaving Certificate this year the opportunities are tremendous. It is the insistence of students, and their parents, that the only possible professions are the traditional staples of law, medicine, veterinary medicine and dentistry that causes the so-called points race. In fact, this year it was possible to secure a college offer with 25 points; that is five D3s in ordinary-level Leaving Certificate papers.
The cut-off points are a function of supply and demand. Courses such as medicine, with a small number of places and a high demand, will retain high cut-off levels, year in, year out, regardless of the general expansion of the third-level sector. On the other hand, it is within the ambit of most school-leavers to secure a place in the under-appreciated options in the Institutes of Technology.
Despite the falling number of students taking physics and chemistry in the Leaving Certificate, today's cut-off points show some indication of an increased awareness among students of the value of a technical education in an increasingly technologically-driven economy. At certificate and diploma level, there are dramatic points increases in a number of the engineering, hard sciences and computing courses. And, at degree level, engineering, computers, maths and applied physics are all represented among the courses where points rose by 30 or more. It would seem that the Minister for Education and Science's continued campaign to address skills shortages in the technological sector is bearing some fruit as students realise the extent of the job opportunities which exist.