To ask the Minister for Employment and Learning for his assessment of the number of university graduates in Northern Ireland comparative to other areas of the United Kingdom; and what plans there are to increase the number of graduates.

The table below shows that Northern Ireland produces significantly fewer university graduates, relative to population, than any other part of the UK.

Table 1 - Qualifications gained at UK HEIs as a proportion of the population by location of institution - 2014/15

The recently published skills barometer demonstrates clear evidence of a need to increase the supply of graduates in our workforce, particularly as we prepare for a lower rate of corporation tax from 2018 onwards. My Department has already taken some action to address this through targeted support for an additional 1,419 undergraduate places in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics subjects between 2012 and 2015, and funding for an additional 234 PhD places in economically relevant subjects since 2012.

In addition to enhancing traditional forms of higher education provision, we have sought to develop a more diverse range of pathways for gaining higher level qualifications in Northern Ireland, in particular through our new system for apprenticeships. A range of higher level apprenticeship pilots are already in operation and additional pilots are being tested this year in advance of the full rollout of the new system. In a similar vein, we have been exploring opportunities to improve access to part-time and postgraduate study through the student finance system, and I intend to announce my plans in these areas in the near future.

However, any expansion ambitions we have are going to be seriously curtailed until we find a sustainable funding solution for our higher education sector. Our local universities are already significantly underfunded compared to their counterparts elsewhere in the UK, and further reductions of some £16 million this year have both compounded this funding gap and had a direct impact on their intakes of full-time undergraduate students.

Last year my Department initiated a public engagement process, called the Big Conversation, to raise awareness of, and seek solutions to, these issues. My Department intends to publish a response to that process in the coming weeks, outlining the various options available to us to secure a sustainable funding model for higher education and support the scale of growth which our economy requires. Those options will need to be considered in the context of the next Comprehensive Spending Review period.