Maths, science and technical courses have the highest dropout rates at third level with serious problems at every college, a leading researcher has said.
Mr Mark Morgan, who has co-authored a report on the problem for the Higher Education Authority, said poor completion rates on these courses applied equally to females and males, universities and institutes of technology.
"Given the importance of these areas of learning to the economy, in the context of future skills needs, this pattern of results needs very serious examination," he said.
Mr Morgan is a researcher at St Patrick's College, Drumcondra, Dublin. He was speaking at a HEA conference in Dublin on course completion in higher-level education.
Many students were surprised to find maths or science subjects on their course, and they experienced difficulties. He added that students knew a lot about their first college choice, but often little about courses further down their list. He said the dropout rates could not be explained by lack of academic ability as many of the courses had high CAO points requirements.
He said another problem was the transition from post-primary to higher level. "Many third-level teachers have expressed the opinion that the content and experiences of learning mathematics in second level are quite inappropriate on students' arrival in higher education," he said.
Mr Morgan said the impact of examinations was also important. "In the case of the universities, examination failure is the main factor, while in the ITs, many students leave their courses without taking their examinations." Dr Barry McGaw, the deputy director of education at the OECD, said there was often a "mismatch" between what students coming into college from second level knew and what academics thought they should know.