My daughter wants to study nursing but I worry that CAO points are too high. Are there other options?

My daughter in sixth year is fixated on becoming a nurse, but I worry that she won’t get the CAO points based on her test results to date. Is there any other options outside the points race?

Entry into nursing has been a challenge for many Leaving Certificate students since it became a four-year level eight degree programme just more than 20 years ago. CAO points have climbed, partly due to spending cuts during the recession which resulted in hundreds of fewer places.

Minister for Higher and Further Education Simon Harris has since restored these nursing places and added more. In a new arrangement with university providers in Northern Ireland, the State is funding 250 additional places (200 in nursing, 20 in occupational therapy, 20 in physiotherapy and 10 in speech and language therapy) for students in the Republic. Mr Harris has renewed this initiative for 2024. Students who wish to secure any of these places must submit a standard UCAS application by the mid-January 2024 entry deadline.

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In addition, there is a new third-level option outside the CAO application process which does not require points. It has the potential to be a game-changer for many locked out of courses such as nursing due to high points requirements.

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In these courses, students spend their first year in further education or a post-Leaving Cert course (PLC) and, having successfully completed the exams, transfer to the local technological university to complete the degree, without having to submit any further applications to the CAO. (PLCs have always offered one-year level five pre-nursing programmes – the problem was the lack of certainty about whether it would lead to a place in a nursing degree programme. This has been addressed in the new pathway.) Mr Harris has now established a National Tertiary Office (nto.ie) which oversees this new pathway for nursing and a range of other programmes. Check out the website for more details.

To add further to the options open to your daughter, Hibernia College, the online provider of both primary and post-primary teacher training, has recently launched a level eight honours degree general nursing programme. They have regular webinars on all their degree offerings, including one this evening (October 24th) at 5pm on their general nursing degree option (hiberniacollege.com).

The cumulative effect of all of the above developments is that nursing is now well within reach for the average student.

Admittedly, CAO points this year were still very high in some courses such as University College Cork (520) and University College Dublin (499). However, there were lower requirements in other settings such as Letterkenny, Castlebar, Sligo, Athlone and Tralee where they ranged between 350-371 points for the exact same degree. What is certain is that following the initiatives outlined above, the well-motivated average school leaver can now aspire to secure a nursing degree programme on the island of Ireland.