DIT and Student Retention

The retention of students and the enhancement of their educational experience must serve as one of the core principles of any institution charged with fulfilling a national and international role in providing full-time and part-time programmes in higher education. However, up to recently student retention was not in the consciousness of educators in Ireland to a degree sufficient for strategies and initiatives to be put in place to effect change and improve it. Over the last 25 to 30 years, tertiary education in Ireland has evolved and developed exponentially, paralleling extraordinary changes in our society. In the past, a solid Leaving Certificate result was a key to gainful employment, while attending third-level was an exception to the general rule. Today, a large number of students see the Leaving Certificate as a key to further education rather than an end in itself. Many now want to proceed to further education after secondary level, a fact reflected in the number of programmes offered to potential students. The universities and institutes of technology have provided the courses and developed multi-varied programmes to attract and provide appropriate qualifications for their students, in order for them to be able to seek and obtain gainful employment, increasingly at home but also abroad