Ms Claire McGee:

I can do so after this meeting, if that is okay. For various reasons I do not have full information on where exactly they went and which companies they went into, but it was across different types of the more traditional apprenticeships. I do not know where that one female went but I will follow up on the matter with the Chairman and can come back to her on it.

I would like a greater emphasis on how employers can actually get involved in the pre-apprenticeship programme to provide that two-week work placement and how it can be managed in order that employers also receives some benefit from it, in that they can give a structure work experience programme with a particular project that they could get the young pre-apprentices to work on.

Focusing on the cohort, we should examine if more of the transversal skills can be included, that is, those employability skills that will help apprentices both with their own emotional and behavioural intelligence and will help them to retain on the course and improve their own personal outcomes. Consequently, it is about supporting the apprentices while they stick with the programme.

We should also make sure that we have a greater focus on how this is part of that suite of apprenticeships and we seek appropriate pathways into the new apprenticeship programme. This is a pilot scheme very much focused on DIT's experience within the more traditional, construction-based apprenticeships but we should think about how this will roll out into the newer spaces and the new generation of apprenticeships about which we have just spoken.