Related Pages - Key Strategic Goals

Higher education in Northern Ireland is funded through the The Department for Employment and Learning in Northern Ireland (DELNI). The role of DELNI is to formulate policy and administer funding to support education, research and related activities in the Northern Ireland higher education sector.


Higher education in Northern Ireland is slightly different to other parts of the UK and Northern Ireland has no higher education funding council. The Department fulfills the roles of both a government department and a funding council. DELNI are advised by the (non-statutory) Northern Ireland Higher Education Council (NIHEC). The Council's primary role is to advise DELNI on the planning and funding of higher education in Northern Ireland. The advice provided spans the whole of higher education and not just higher education in the universities.

On 1st August 2007, Northern Ireland’s 16 further education colleges merged into six new super colleges. The creation of these larger and more influential colleges is just one aspect of the government’s future strategy for further education - get all the facts about this new development by downloading the PDF

Visit our Links and Contacts page to see higher education institutions and colleges in Northern Ireland.

DELNI's Higher Education Policy Branch has a role to develop, communicate and evaluate higher education policy for Northern Ireland in consultation with the sector, other UK Regions and the Northern Ireland Higher Education Council.

Main business areas of the Higher Education Policy Branch:

• Widening participation in higher education is a key priority for the Department for Employment and Learning. Widening participation in higher education is taken to mean increasing and facilitating the participation of those groups, which are currently under represented in the higher education sector, in particular students from disadvantaged backgrounds and students with physical and learning disabilities.
• Higher Education in Further Education - higher education courses are delivered in Northern Ireland’s sixteen colleges of further and higher education.
• Foundation Degrees - new Foundation Degrees are an important higher education vocational/academic qualification which has been described as a two-year route to a degree with high market value because of the focus on employability.
• Teaching and Learning - Higher Education Policy manages a range of teaching and learning initiatives and activities and, to this end, assesses, approves and appropriately manages funding allocations to support the core activities of Northern Ireland Higher Education Institutions.
• International Activity - an area of growing importance for the Department in the context of an increasingly international labour market and increased competition for international students worldwide.
• Teacher Education refers to undergraduate and postgraduate courses in higher education that eventually lead to a qualification to teach. The Department for Employment and Learning has responsibility for the administration and funding of teacher education in Northern Ireland. Courses in teacher education are provided at all higher education institutions in Northern Ireland.

Success Through Skills: the Skills Strategy for Northern Ireland, February 2006.

This document outlines the government's aim to enable people to progress up the skills ladder, in order to raise the skills level of the whole workforce; to help deliver high productivity and increased competitiveness; and to secure Northern Ireland's future in a global marketplace. The Skills Strategy sets out how the Department for Employment and Learning will take these proposals forward in partnership with employers and their representative bodies; individuals and trade unions; training and education providers; the community and voluntary sector and other Government departments and agencies in order to deliver on a long term vision for skills in Northern Ireland.