Despite the widespread use of mobile phones among young people, the only university offering a degree in telecommunications has been unable to fill its quota of places this year.
The telecommunications engineering degree at Dublin City University (DCU) has 25 places available, but only 20 school-leavers have accepted one.
Dr John Murphy, of DCU's electronic engineering department, said the small number coming forward for the course was surprising when demand for telecommunications graduates was at an all-time high. He said engineering courses at other colleges were suffering similar difficulties.
There had been plans to expand the number of places from 25 to 100, he said, but these had been cancelled because of the small number of school-leavers coming forward.
DCU has set up a website to stimulate interest in the area. It is sponsored by Ericsson, and school-leavers can win cash prizes and mobile phones. Contestants have to answer telecommunications-related questions, and the winner will be invited to DCU for a prize-giving ceremony in mid-December.
Dr Murphy said one of the major problems was the shrinking pool of suitable school-leavers. He said that to be eligible for his and other engineering courses, a C3 or higher in honours Leaving Certificate maths was required.
"Statistics show that the number of pupils obtaining an honours grade in higher mathematics has fallen by 12 per cent, or over 1,000 pupils, since 1998," he said.
The DCU competition website is at: http://telecoms.eeng.dcu.ie