Dr. David Hughes:

It is a privilege to have the opportunity to attend this meeting. We received this week a copy of the report on preventing youth unemployment through education and training. Having shared it with the Minister for Education, Mr. John O'Dowd, MLA, we would like to give its recommendations more measured consideration over a slightly longer timeframe. The committee will appreciate that these are relatively early observations.

I will begin by giving some high-level contextual background to the Department. School education makes a major contribution to society and is a key enabler of improved life chances for our young people. It contributes to community well-being and the success of our economy and it is a cornerstone of the Executive's programme for Government.

The Minister's corporate plan for education sets out a clear strategic direction that puts pupils first and is designed to ensure all young people regardless of their backgrounds can achieve their full potential. Lead corporate goals to support this vision are, first, raising standards for all through high-quality teaching and learning and ensuring all young people enjoy and do well in their education, have their progress assessed and have their attainment recognised, including through qualifications. The second lead corporate goal is closing the performance gap and increasing access and equality, that is to say, addressing the underachievement that exists in the education system and ensuring young people who face barriers or are at risk of social exclusion are supported to achieve their full potential. It is also about ensuring our education service is planned effectively on an area basis to provide pupils with full access to the curriculum and the entitlement framework.

I will offer the following observations on specific recommendations in the report. Recommendation No. 3 is on the provision of cognitive and job-specific skills in schools to improve the employability of young people. One of our key vehicles for raising standards and preparing pupils for the world of work is to ensure every young person has access to a modern, relevant, broad and balanced curriculum. The statutory curriculum places great emphasis on developing the core skills sought by employers. It includes all the skills specifically mentioned in the report from primary school onwards: literacy, numeracy, communication, teamwork, problem solving and learning ability. All schools are required to deliver on these skills and assess and report to parents on children's progress in them.

Employability per seis one of the strands of the learning areas, namely, learning for life and work, LLW, within the statutory curriculum. It cuts across all learning areas and occupies discrete curriculum time. It is intended to develop critical thinking and equip enterprising young people with a can-do attitude.

Recommendation No. 4 is on the provision of entrepreneurial education. Enterprise and entrepreneurship appear in our curriculum from key stage 1 onwards as part of personal development and mutual understanding in primary school and continues within LLW at post-primary level. The Department of Education funds Young Enterprise NI to support the delivery of this aspect of the curriculum in the form of company-based programmes, master class industry events and classroom-based programmes. In the 2014 to 2015 period, more than 100,000 pupils accessed the programmes.

Recommendation No. 7 is on the improved provision of career guidance. The Department of Education and the Department for Employment and Learning have a shared careers strategy. The Careers Service works with schools to provide careers advice to young people at crucial decision points, in particular year 12 when they are 15 or 16 years old. A recent review of the careers strategy has confirmed the strength of our approach and sets out some areas for improvement: the revision of the Careers Service website; the establishment of a regional careers advisory forum, which will bring together employer representatives, education providers, parents and other stakeholders; and the development of a central work experience portal.

Recommendation No. 8 is on enhanced levels of support for those who are disadvantaged, which is a key ministerial priority. Examples of some of the actions being taken include giving every school the responsibility to address underachievement within their school communities, changes to the school funding formula to allocate additional resources to schools serving high proportions of our most disadvantaged pupils, and the extended schools programme, which allocates approximately £10 million every year to schools serving disadvantaged young people. This money allows schools to provide additional programmes and support the vital connections between schools and their communities. Further actions include targeted, time-bound interventions such as the recent Delivering Social Change literacy and numeracy projects, which funded more than 260 additional teachers to support literacy and numeracy outcomes for children and young people from disadvantaged backgrounds, and the education works advertising programme, which promotes parental and community involvement in the education of our young people.

I will also refer to the work of the North-South Ministerial Council meeting in its education sector format, which has allowed Ministers to work effectively together across a range of areas of mutual interest for the benefit of pupils in both jurisdictions. The council has a strong focus on educational underachievement and the Departments have shared their experiences in a practical way through joint events and workshops. The Ministers, Mr. O'Dowd and Deputy Jan O'Sullivan, recently agreed to commission work that would help to progress joint efforts aimed at understanding and addressing educational underachievement. This work will involve an all-island programme of dissemination of good practice, an independent examination of the work of both Departments and recommendations on further promoting benchmarking and sharing of best practice and experience in this important area.

I hope this short submission provides some illustration of what the Department is doing across the areas highlighted in the report, and I look forward to the discussion and having a more detailed examination of the report over the coming weeks.