Mr. Adrian Cummins:

In the Department of Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science, good work is being done on apprenticeships. The grant of €2,000 announced for this year to help employers covers the cost of an apprentice going to college for one day or two days per week. However, the grant is €2,000 regardless of whether the period is one day or two. We need to consider how we can amend the arrangement to support more businesses to get more apprentices on board. The apprenticeship programme represents a cost to business.

Good work is also being done on collaborating with the further and higher education sectors, including education and training boards, ETBs, in the further education sector and the new universities around the country in the higher education sector. The aim is to have better migration of trainees from, say, the ETBs right into universities and up through the pathways associated with the qualifications framework. Much work has been done but there is a lot more we can do. We need to consider how we can do it better.