Ms Megan Yeates:

I will address the couple of questions directed towards me, but I will respond to the Chairman's question first. It is a question people love to ask me, because the industry I am in of freight forwarding and logistics is quite unusual. My degree title is logistics and supply chain management. I did my work placement with DHL in my third year and I moved into the transport sector. I also completed my certificate of professional competence management examinations at the end of second year. Like many others I meet in the industry, I was not especially attracted to it, but I ended up in it by default.

I was only aged 17 when I did my leaving certificate. I considered myself quite young to be leaving school and to be deciding what I wanted to do moving on. I took the initiative to have a year out and took a gap year, during which I worked. In that time I decided I would like to do a business course because I was drawn towards that area. In school, however, I had done all science subjects and I never completed a business subject to the leaving certificate. I was looking for a business course that was a bit more detailed and specific as opposed to a broad business subject. By chance I stumbled across the course in the Dublin Institute of Technology, which is now Technological University Dublin. I had studied applied maths and higher-level maths and I enjoyed them so it drew me to the course with its spreadsheet modelling and other maths subjects it offered. As I get more into the industry and the more business events I attend, I find that most people working in the logistics have just stumbled into it. One does not go through secondary school saying, "I know what I will do when I leave school; I will go into freight, or transport or supply." As I attended events, and especially over the summer as I met people, I have started working more on telling my story and I have taken time over the summer to write a blog. I cover topics such as why I chose freight forwarding, why I got into logistics and my WorldSkills journey. I have tried to share that journey to perhaps inspire somebody else along the way who might be looking for that little bit of inspiration.

My course is not an apprenticeship but TUD launched the logistics associate apprenticeship last year, which ran successfully for its first year and is now in its second year. It has also launched in Cork this year with significantly high numbers.

Reference was made to the gender gap, which is a topical issue at the moment, especially in the industry itself. I sat in on some of the meetings for the apprenticeship programme. There was quite a high proportion of males. My graduating class numbered 53 in total, of whom only eight were women. We can see a gender divide in this regard but it is interesting that it was 95% women to 5% men competing in the WorldSkills competition. In Europe, there appears to be a greater emphasis on women in the industry. Noting the other competitors in my category, there was a higher percentage of apprentices than students in the competition. There is a greater emphasis in Europe on freight forwarding and so on in apprenticeships.

A question was asked about school support at leaving certificate level. I believe that honesty is the best policy here. No support was given by my school in respect of leaving certificate choices for other options afterwards. Once a week, career guidance time was set aside where we were given time but it was very much a case of, "Go and work in the computer lab and work on it yourself." When I came to leaving certificate level, I was unsure. I was only 17 and it is quite a big life decision to make at such a young age. I took the decision to take a year out to do further research, so I knew I was going into the right course. Many of my classmates went straight into college and then dropped out within their first year. This is quite normal. I must give credit where credit is due. The push by SOLAS now, and the Generation Apprenticeship launch is doing a fabulous job at the moment. We are definitely starting to see it more across social media and reaching out to that younger generation. As Mr. Dempsey pointed out, there is no support from schools for apprenticeships. They are still struggling to get over the kind of image problem at the moment. As Mr. O'Keeffe said earlier, even parents will still discourage apprenticeships because they were always seen at one level while third level education was at another level. That is the way they were pushed. A lot of positive work is being done at the moment. It will just take some time to build up the momentum. It has to be a case of going into secondary schools and starting with the students at an earlier level, perhaps at third year and transition year and fifth year. If it starts at sixth year, it is too late. As Mr. Dempsey referenced, the student fills in his or her CAO application in October or November just for the sake of getting it done and out of the way so he or she can focus on the leaving certificate at that point. This is definitely something that could be taken into account moving forward to target the younger audience.

My younger brother is currently in sixth year. The students were brought to the Higher Options conference but there has been no push to bring them to any of the Generation Apprentice events. Schools could be encouraged to cast a wider net. The apprentice events are out there so there are opportunities to bring them along. Ireland Skills Live does a great job at showcasing apprenticeships and we ourselves show what can be achieved, be it through an apprentice route or a third level education route. There are amazing opportunities. The content of the logistics apprenticeship is quite similar to the third level content, so the opportunities are available at the end are also quite similar and there is huge scope for opportunity with either path.