- 2017Implementation
- 2018Implementation
- 2019Implementation
- 2020Implementation
- 2021Implementation
- 2022Completed
Description
The Skills for growth initiative was launched by Enterprise Ireland and the Department of Education and Skills to all regions. The inclusion of other government agencies ensures that a comprehensive and coherent picture of skills needs can be gained at the government level. The initiative guides small and medium enterprise (SME) representatives to think strategically about their current and future skills needs. It also introduces them to tools and questionnaires, which help them identify skills needs, skills shortages and reasons for the skills needs arising. Once skills needs have been identified, regional skills forums link companies with the education and training providers best suited to responding to their skills needs. All data collected in this capacity is collated by the Skills and Labour Market Research unit in SOLAS and used in the identification of skills shortages in Ireland.
The Skills for growth project is overseen by the Department of Further and Higher Education Research, Innovation and Science (DFHERIS), with members comprising the Skills planning and enterprise engagement unit (SPEE) in DFHERIS, the Skills and Labour Market Research Unit in SOLAS, Enterprise Ireland and the DEASP.
The Skills for growth initiative is launched in December 2017.
In 2018, additional partners were brought on board. These partners include employer engagement officers working for other government agencies, e.g. Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection (DEASP) and Údarás na Gaeltachta, the regional authority responsible for the economic, social and cultural development of Ireland's Irish-speaking regions.
The Skills for growth initiative continued to expand during 2019, in terms of partners and the amount of data gathered. Additional partners came on board, employment engagement officers in DEASP and Údarás na Gaeltachta, and received training in gathering data relevant to the identification of skills needs and gaps in Ireland. Enterprise Ireland continued as a partner, rolling out workshops that led to further engagement between indigenous Irish businesses at regional level, and the managers of the regional skills forums (RSFs).
Data on difficult to fill jobs and upskilling/reskilling requirements were collected on a quarterly basis and used to inform the 2019 National skills bulletin, published by SOLAS, on behalf of the National Skills Council (NSC).
The activities of the Skills for growth project continued during 2020, although the impact of COVID-19 and the related economic restrictions was reflected in a slightly reduced number of employers surveyed. Training on the identification of difficult-to-fill vacancies was moved online in the second half of 2020 and was delivered to staff engaging directly with employers, most notably to the employer engagement officers in DEASP. Despite the pandemic, difficult-to-fill vacancies continued to arise (albeit at a slightly lower level than the previous year) and the Skills for growth data were used to inform the 2020 National skills bulletin.
Skills for growth continued, where possible, during the COVID-19 pandemic.
This initiative has been mainstreamed within the services and provision of the regional skills forums (RSFs), and the delivery of skills audit to employers in each of the local regions.
Bodies responsible
- Department of Social Protection
- Enterprise Ireland
- Further Education and Training Authority (SOLAS)
- Department of Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science (DFHERIS)
- Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection (DEASP) (until 2020)
- Department of Education and Skills (until 2020)
Target groups
Entities providing VET
- Companies
- Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs)
Other stakeholders
- Social partners (employer organisations and trade unions)
Thematic categories
Governance of VET and lifelong learning
This thematic category looks at existing legal frameworks providing for strategic, operational – including quality assurance – and financing arrangements for VET and lifelong learning (LLL). It examines how VET and LLL-related policies are placed in broad national socioeconomic contexts and coordinate with other strategies and policies, such as economic, social and employment, growth and innovation, recovery and resilience.
This thematic category covers partnerships and collaboration networks of VET stakeholders – especially the social partners – to shape and implement VET in a country, including looking at how their roles and responsibilities for VET at national, regional and local levels are shared and distributed, ensuring an appropriate degree of autonomy for VET providers to adapt their offer.
The thematic category also includes efforts to create national, regional and sectoral skills intelligence systems (skills anticipation and graduate tracking) and using skills intelligence for making decisions about VET and LLL on quality, inclusiveness and flexibility.
This thematic sub-category refers both to formal mechanisms of stakeholder engagement in VET governance and to informal cooperation among stakeholders, which motivate shared responsibility for quality VET. Formal engagement is usually based on legally established institutional procedures that clearly define the role and responsibilities for relevant stakeholders in designing, implementing and improving VET. It also refers to establishing and increasing the degree of autonomy of VET providers for agile and flexible VET provision.
In terms of informal cooperation, the sub-category covers targeted actions by different stakeholders to promote or implement VET. This cooperation often leads to creating sustainable partnerships and making commitments for targeted actions, in line with the national context and regulation, e.g. national alliances for apprenticeships, pacts for youth or partnerships between schools and employers. It can also include initiatives and projects run by the social partners or sectoral organisations or networks of voluntary experts and executives, retired or on sabbatical, to support their peers in the fields of VET and apprenticeships, as part of the EAfA.
High-quality and timely skills intelligence is a powerful policy tool, helping improve economic competitiveness and fostering social progress and equality through the provision of targeted skills training to all citizens (Cedefop, 2020). Skills intelligence is the outcome of an expert-driven process of identifying, analysing, synthesising and presenting quantitative and/or qualitative skills and labour market information. Skills intelligence draws on data from multiple sources, such as graduate tracking systems, skills anticipation mechanisms, including at sectoral and regional levels. Actions related to establishing and developing such systems fall under this thematic sub-category.
Subsystem
Further reading
Country
Type of development
Cedefop, & ReferNet. (2025). Skills for growth: Ireland. In Cedefop, & ReferNet. (2025). Timeline of VET policies in Europe (2024 update) [Online tool].
https://www.cedefop.europa.eu/en/tools/timeline-vet-policies-europe/search/28301