Ms Moira Leydon:

From the evidence base, the one significant issue coming through on an urban-rural disparity at second level is the opportunity for students in rural areas to have access to out-of-school, extracurricular activities. Yesterday, the OECD published its programme for international student assessment, PISA, report on Irish education. One of the pertinent questions that came from the floor at this was the lack of opportunity for students outside of cities to have out-of-school science, technology, engineering and mathematics, STEM, activities. This involves students visiting a local factory or institute of technology or being part of a joint school exercise. The capacity of rural schools, by definition parents and young people, to have access to educational enrichment opportunities is significantly different and of a lesser quality than in urban areas. That is a matter which public policy should take into account, especially with the emphasis on STEM subjects.

The cost of transport is critical to this dimension.

The second area where one can see emerging rural-urban differences is in the post-school experiences of young people. Young people in rural areas, the evidence strongly suggests, have much fewer opportunities to engage in non-third level learning opportunities. In other words, there are not the same amount of vocational education and training opportunities, there are not the same amount of PLC courses and there is not the access to the apprenticeships, which, of course, is only beginning to take off again and is particularly in the larger urban areas. Despite the economic recovery, we still have a phenomenon in the country of those not in education, employment or training, NEETs. Some 20% of 25 year olds are in that category, which is frightening, and over 55% of these NEETs are unemployed.

The urban-rural divide is stark. Young people in rural areas do not have the same opportunities of access to vocational education and training after school. This is significant in terms of both policy about social exclusion and sustaining rural communities. Some economists are talking about the so-called "dual labour market". In rural areas, there are the young people who go on to third level. They have access to the high-tech jobs, to the jobs in the financial services, the pharmaceutical sector, etc. They are moving out of the rural area. Those who are left behind are not skilled enough for these jobs but they are not skilled enough even for the jobs in the locality. There is almost a "rump" - not wishing to use a derogatory term - of young people in their local areas who do not have employment opportunities because they do not have the skills, etc. From the point of view of public policy, that vocational education and training area would be an important area to look at.