Dr. Phillip Smyth:

The leaving certificate is important. However there is another leaving certificate, the leaving certificate applied which is really very good. In every family in Ireland, the leaving certificate is key. It is discussed by all the students coming through, it is a factor in everybody life. Parents are constantly talking to each other about the leaving certificate. It is an intangible institution in all our lives.

One can do all the marketing one likes and a great deal of marketing and targeting must be done but one has to change perception. Were tourism and hospitality a full subject in the leaving certificate, it could take 20 years but gradually, people's perceptions would change. People will start to succeed and get good marks. It could be a subject that everybody is doing because one would get a higher mark.

Tourism and hospitality would become a subject for public discourse at the family level and at every level. The same can roll on to apprenticeships. While I am not an expert on the leaving certificate curriculum, I would like the design of the different subjects for the leaving certificate to emphasise the technical and skills element, like in Switzerland. The leaving certificate is important because it is central to our culture.