Mr. Tony Donohoe:

I thank the Deputy. We have picked a good day to talk about rising sea levels. I cannot claim that I am aware of any work being done on that. It strikes me that it is something that would feed into general construction skills requirements, planning, the environment, etc. While I give Dr. Power a few moments to reflect on that, I will take up some of the Deputy's other questions, which I probably know a little more about.

Regarding mathematics, in a previous life I represented a business lobby on Project Maths. I was on the Project Maths steering group and I still bear the scars from that experience. Reform of the mathematics curriculum was one of the most emotive subjects. I remember three days of phone-ins to radio shows on it. That highlighted the challenges surrounding the leaving certificate because this was an attempt to move from a highly predictable paper implementing a very predictable formula to using maths in real-life environments. They were set up as problems and the emphasis was on problem solving. The business community was pushing for it. Eventually, the reforms went through. I have read some reviews since then that are not completely definitive on the success of the programme. Many of these questions go back to the fact that no education system can be more effective than its teachers. The big challenge there was that a cohort of teachers who were used to teaching to the test were now being asked to transform to problem solving etc. Having said that, in fairness, at the time the mathematics teachers did engage with retraining and reskilling. That is definitely the direction in which we need to move. I will definitely have a look at that Stanford programme because maths is critical as an underpinning of a whole broad range of subjects. It is a basic literacy that we need.

As for Finland's Committee for the Future, Finland is always cited in our world as top of the class in skills development and education. It tends to do education well. Taking the PISA rankings, Finland consistently comes in the top three in mathematics and literacy and has a long tradition of innovation and planning in this area. We used to have similar foresight bodies to that committee in Ireland. It is probably something we should look at again.

Career guidance comes up consistently across all the EGFSN reports as something that needs to be addressed. To respond to the Deputy's question about apprenticeships, the challenge there has been that apprenticeships have been traditionally in those 27 craft areas and, at particular times in the economic cycle when workers, particularly construction workers, could get better paying jobs, they tended to switch out of it. Since then, the reform of the apprenticeship model has tried to broaden the number of apprenticeships and we have over 60 now. I think the essential attractiveness of these newer apprenticeships will be their progression opportunities. It is less likely that people will opt out of them, as the Deputy suggests, but this is taking quite a long time. So far this year we have about 6,500 apprenticeships. Only 20% of them are in those new areas. This is a critical policy challenge - it is an implementation challenge now - to encourage the availability and take-up of these new apprenticeships where there will be these progression opportunities where one can move from a level 5 course right up to doctorate level. It seems a bit counter-intuitive to think of an apprenticeship at PhD level, but University of Limerick is offering one now. Principal engineer is a level 10 qualification. I am not suggesting that everyone wants to attain those levels, but those progression opportunities have to be there if we are to make apprenticeships more attractive.

Perhaps Dr. Power wants to-----