Madam, - Your Editorial of December 18th decries student choices in higher education.
You note that students "are drifting in record numbers towards areas like health, business and the humanities, and are moving away from science and technology." You argue that this should "prompt an urgent response from the Minister for Education" and that "from an economic perspective alone, the issue could scarcely be more important".
The Irish labour market is the most successful in the OECD over the past two decades. Employment has increased from 1 million to 2.1 million and the unemployment rate has declined from over 17 per cent to 4 per cent and is currently half the eurozone average. Irish students have made the right subject choices. This is confirmed both by earnings data and by sustained growth rates of more than double the OECD average.
Ireland produces more science and engineering graduates than the EU average, as noted in the Government report Building Ireland's Knowledge Economy (July 2004). The claims that too few students choose science and engineering and that this places Irish economic growth at risk are without foundation. No urgent intervention by the Minister is required. The 60 per cent of Irish undergraduates and 70 per cent of postgraduates who choose arts, social sciences and humanities are making sound career choices.
The "solutions" for this non-problem, such as bonus points and compulsion, would lead to real problems such as lower academic standards, higher education costs and increased graduate unemployment.
Economics has played a major role in the transformation of Ireland over the past two decades. Even when matters were most grim we never sought to make economics compulsory or to award its students bonus points. We were right not to do so. - Yours, etc,
Dr SEAN BARRETT, Department of Economics, Trinity College, Dublin 2.