As reported in last week’s Irish Farmers Journal, the number of students applying to agricultural courses in Teagasc colleges is expected to fall, as the construction industry picks up. Although the deadline for applications to these courses is 26 May, “we won’t know for sure until September, but we would expect some fall”, says Teagasc’s head of education, Tony Pettit.

Irish Country Living spoke to some Teagasc college principals to find out what’s happening in their colleges.

Pallaskenry

Pallaskenry Agricultural College principal Derek O’Donoghue says he expects enrolment to be back by 10% this year compared to last. Pallaskenry had 68 students enrolled in the Green Cert last year, and Derek expects the numbers this year to be in the mid to high 50s.

Derek says there is a five-fold difference between the peak and trough. He points to the last downturn in enrolments in ag colleges, which was approximately 12 years ago, when enrolment in Pallaskenry went down to 24.

Intake at Pallaskenry peaked in 2014 and then dropped back in 2015 and 2016. According to Derek, the reason numbers peaked in September 2014 was due to a number of full-time farmers in their mid to late 20s who needed to do ag training for the Young Farmer Scheme and national reserve top-ups.

Derek says numbers are down due to the economy. He says there is practically full employment in Ireland at the moment. People are therefore being drawn back into sectors that are vibrant again – such as construction – and particularly into apprenticeships.

However, Derek isn’t overly concerned about this: “We’ll get them back at some stage.” He contends students spend four years doing the apprenticeship, followed by approximately four to five years working after that – and then they come back to the Green Cert.

This is something Teagasc’s head of education Tony Pettit agrees with. Pettit maintains that the fact school leavers are choosing to go into construction instead of agriculture this year doesn’t mean they’re abandoning their agricultural training entirely – rather they’re deferring it.

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

Distance Education

Pallaskenry is making up for the drop in enrolments with another facet of the Green Cert. Distance learning courses are something Tony says there is a continuing strong demand for and this is proven at Pallaskenry. (The distance education route is used by those who have already completed a course at third level from Level 6 upwards.)

Traditionally, there were approximately 50 students doing the Green Cert via distance learning at Pallakenry. Then in December 2014 there was an intake of 150. This was followed by an intake of 200 in December 2015.

Two weeks ago, 195 students started distance education courses in Pallaskenry. Derek says something notable about this most recent group is that a large number of them were working outside the country for five or six years and are now back. They had gone into trades – and they’re now back for their agricultural education.

Kildaton

Kildalton College took in 140 Green Cert students last year. Principal Paul Hennessey says applications to his college are back a bit, but it’s hard to quantify at this stage by how much.

“We were expecting the syllabus to change for this September’s intake, so application forms for the current course were taken down. It was then decided to keep the existing syllabus for next year. There was a period of about six weeks to two months where no application forms were available,” says Paul.

Ballyhaise

John Kelly, who is principal at Ballyhaise College, is not expecting a drop in numbers applying to the Cavan-based college, which currently has 1,007 students in attendance.

This is something he attributes to the fact there is “no other college in this half of the country” and that the college has a large catchment. That catchment includes Cavan and Monaghan (which he describes as their “heartland”), while Ballyhaise also takes in many students from Donegal, Meath, Louth, Dublin and Westmeath.

In terms of the Green Cert, there are 129 students on the Level 5 Agriculture course and 513 on a range of Level 6 courses. John is quite positive about the resources he has at his disposal at the moment: “We’ve definitely done better than most. There are a lot of resources being put into the college.”

Gurteen

Mike Pearson, principal of Gurteen College in Co Tipperary, says he’s been in Ireland too long (17 years!) to comment on what application numbers will be like by the time the deadline passes. “It’s impossible to comment. I’ve seen record numbers – both high and low.” CL