Mr. Peter Davitt:

It is valid to say the IT sector is a broad church of skill sets from the general to the advanced, but in terms of the skills audit we launched last week, they predominantly focus on intermediate level skills, good paying jobs open to what I describe as smart people with smart skills. That is what we are trying to encourage. We are also trying to encourage people not just into jobs but onto career paths in areas such as web development, networking, customer relations management, games development and so on. There is a broad range of skills required that are readily available and accessible to the type of client we want to bring forward but which are much more enabled through the combination of a dual education - theory alongside practice. The model could be applied in a number of other sectors. From our perspective, we are anxious to pilot it somewhere in an area in which we know the skill sets and have done a lot of background work on which skill sets are required. We have a good buy-in from industries that want to collaborate in a new initiative and joint venture. The ingredients are available to demonstrate proof of concept in a good pilot project. Our focus is on building it in the technology sector but also on looking further afield to see how it might apply to other sectors in due course.

In response to Deputy Seán Kyne's point on ICT in secondary schools, there is more that we can do within the secondary school system, in spite of the limited resources available, to give people greater insight into technology and technology careers. The ICT sector could do a little more in explaining what are the different categories of technical skills, for example, explaining virtualisation and cloud as against web development. It is very hard for a 15 to 17 year old to fully appreciate the broad range of skills required. There is greater linkage and we are very interested in exploring further links with secondary schools.

Our vision is to engage 3,000 people over a period of three years, focusing initially in year one on around 250. I stress that this not about qualifications erosion in any shape or form. There is a need for people with third level qualifications. We are not, therefore, presenting this as an alternative for those who would take that route. It is for those who do not take that route or drop out because they do not see it as appropriate to their abilities and skills. One in four students drops out in year one. That is a significant number who are potentially lost to the educational system and the economy and it impacts on the student's family. We see our model as an enhancement to current provision. There is an unnecessary division between FET and third level that one does not find in other countries. If one goes to Germany, Austria or Australia, there is parity of esteem between third level provision and FET which we do not seem to share in Ireland. It is essential to address these issues when we find ourselves in a situation where there is severe unemployment and at the same time a significant skills shortage in the technology sector.