Mr. Peter Davitt:

Career guidance is fundamental. It sets an individual on a particular path. Everything can be enhanced and improved. In terms of career guidance, no one is an expert in everything and no one can be. We therefore have to find mechanisms by which career guidance teachers, schools and other resources can leverage the advice and insight of others. We need to find mechanisms to ensure more effective dialogue between the industry - and different sectors - and schools and colleges. There may also be a role for chambers of commerce and so forth so that they can have a more direct input.

For every course we support across the country, at whatever level, we organise a company visit. Everybody goes on a company visit as part of their training, ideally to a company in an area relevant to what the person is studying. This gives an insight into the job opportunities that are out there and offers students an opportunity to talk to employees in the sector. People doing certification examinations may hit a brick wall and wonder what is the point of going on. This type of industry engagement can help them to see it is worth persisting and there is a job at the end of it.

I do not like the term "mock interviews"; we prefer to call them "simulated interviews". We put great emphasis on this particular strategy, which involves asking people to research actual job vacancies before having them "interviewed" for those roles by an industry representative, FIT staff member or a tutor from the relevant education and training board or college. It is about bringing real life into training and there is scope for us to do more in this regard. We are looking to do more, for example, in terms of supporting career guidance within schools and finding creative ways of ensuring an effective dialogue between industry and colleges.

At this point we have worked with most education and training boards throughout the country. They have come through a massive change process, as part of the fundamental reform of the entire further education sector. It is the most significant reform we have seen in a long time. My instinct in talking to CEOs, principals and tutors is that there is a real desire and enthusiasm to build for the future and create the right programmes. There is a recognition, too, that programmes must develop and evolve. Instead of having two pillars working in the same space, we now have a single, more focused approach. My sense in working with ETBs and colleges is that there is a strong desire to get the right types of courses in place and a strong commitment to enabling people to acquire the skills they need to compete for jobs. I am very optimistic that the ETBs, with the support of SOLAS, will be very responsive to opportunities in the technology sector and beyond.