Competition from the construction industry is set to reduce the number of school-leavers who apply for places in Teagasc colleges in 2017.

An improving economy and competition from apprenticeships mean that Teagasc’s head of education, Tony Pettit, expects that applications to Teagasc courses in six colleges could fall this year.

Around 570 students chose to study agriculture courses in Teagasc’s Kildalton, Ballyhaise and Clonakilty colleges and the three private colleges of Gurteen, Pallaskenry and Mountbellew in 2016.

This was an 8% drop compared with 2015, following five years of relatively steady demand.

“The expectation is that this will drop a bit in 2017,” Pettit told the Irish Farmers Journal.

“We won’t know for sure until September but we would expect some fall.

‘‘As construction goes into overdrive – it’s not there yet but it is rising – it sucks from agriculture and other areas,” Pettit said.

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Student applications to agricultural courses were linked to construction for many years, with applications falling sharply during the Celtic Tiger building boom and rising again when the economy crashed.

However, Pettit maintained that some school-leavers would only be deferring their agricultural training rather than abandoning it entirely.

Many of those on Teagasc’s adult education courses now are those who went into construction and other careers 10 years ago.

Between 2014 and 2016, some 4,500 people have enrolled in its adult education distance-learning courses.

“There is continuing strong demand for that course,” said Pettit,

“We will certainly see between 1,000 and 1,300 take that course in 2017. Some of the demand is driven by schemes such as farm partnerships, the National Reserve and Young Farmers Scheme, as well stamp duty,” he added.

CAO courses

Around 400 students are expected to apply through the CAO for courses run between the six institutes of technology and Teagasc. This would be in line with 2016 applications.

Meanwhile, over 30 Level 5 graduates have applied for the professional diploma in dairy farm management course, similar to previous years.

Friday 26 May is the closing date for applications for agriculture college full-time courses run by Teagasc.