Mr. Andrew Brownlee:

On those points around making apprenticeship a more viable career option and looking at the importance and the role of the leaving certificate in that regard, there are a few things to say. First, we have been focusing a lot on the Generation Apprenticeship campaign to raise awareness in schools of potential apprenticeship pathways. We have been working with guidance counsellors, the National Parents Council Post Primary and the TUI to get the information out there. However, clearly that is only part of the issue. We have a system here where the focus of all school leavers' decisions on where to go next is around the CAO. That lends itself to a situation where two thirds of school leavers go directly into higher education. Indeed, there are even schools where 100% of school leavers go directly into higher education. I believe there must be people in that cohort who are better suited to an apprenticeship or to a further education and training, FET, course, even it is part of a pathway to then go into higher education.

We are doing a few things in this area. We are working with the CAO, the education and training boards, ETBs, and Education and Training Boards Ireland, ETBI, to look at how we can find a way to put FET and apprenticeship options on the table at the same time as the higher education choices at that decision point when young people are talking to their families, teachers and career guidance counsellors about what to do next. That is one part of it. The other part, to which the Deputy has alluded, is around the leaving certificate. A review of the senior cycle is currently being undertaken. It is most important that that review looks at how we can embed vocational options and pathways within the senior cycle so that people can get a taster for careers in engineering, STEM, nursing and a whole range of different vocations, and can be encouraged to move into further education and training and apprenticeship. That is very important.

The Deputy mentioned the constraints on the scale and ambition of the programme. I do not think there are such constraints, but I think you need to take apprenticeship as being part of an overall system. There is massive potential for much more of role for further education and training and for higher education to work alongside those two offerings to give us a fit-for-purpose system which can meet the needs of the future world of work and society.