Mr. Barry Slattery:

I was intending to respond to the Senator's previous question but my answer applies to her final one also. A great deal of what she outlined happens in transition year in many schools, given the level of autonomy transition year affords schools. One issue that is probably not recognised sufficiently relates to the incredible creativity of schools and teachers to respond to the needs and interests of students. Because of the autonomy, it is in some ways camouflaged within the system and we are not aware of it. One step we have taken - I think it is to be published today or tomorrow - is the issuing of a call for expressions of interest from schools to get involved in a school-based review of the programme that will help us in the process of redeveloping the programme statement for transition year.

That is one of the actions that was announced by the Minister last month. It is one specific action we are taking that will hopefully uncover some of that practice.

That brings us to the point the Senator raised about transition year and apprenticeships. We concluded the review - prior to publication - it coincided with the launch of the future further education and training, FET, strategy by SOLAS. Unsurprisingly, there were huge synergies between its ambitious agenda and the actions arising from the senior cycle review. That can broadly be encompassed in the idea of looking at pathways from school to FET. This includes: looking at the learning pathways in a redeveloped senior cycle; looking links between new apprenticeship opportunities and transition year programmes; and looking at the links between FET schools and others. We established a standing committee, similar to the committee we would have with our colleagues in the SEC, with SOLAS. We have already established a working group which has members from our executive and members from SOLAS and we have brought in the education and training boards, ETBs. In that working group we are identifying where there are FET providers. This is camouflaged throughout the system and it is happening in local pockets. We have been conducting an audit of where FET providers have established strong relationships with schools to look at what modules they provide. Already many of these modules and connections appear to be happening in transition year. We are looking at the existing modules on offer, how they were created and what led to their development, and we are also looking at how we can offer them more broadly across transition year. There is a long way to go but we have started that work with SOLAS and as I said, today or tomorrow a call will go out to schools to do that audit.