Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I fully agree with Deputy Cannon. I realise he knows about this matter from his time in what was the Department of Education and Skills, his work on CoderDojo and his interest in this whole area. I could list out all we are doing at third level, as I did in my opening statement, but the Deputy is entirely correct that these decisions are made by young girls long before they get to third level. I must highlight the question of access and availability to subjects in all schools. It is a fact that in some all-girls schools, there has not been sufficient subject diversity. People are working to improve this.

We are aware that because we have narrowed the conversation so much, students, whether men or women, were not hearing much at all about apprenticeships. This feeds into some of the work we are doing on CAO reform. I have met some female apprentices and will be meeting more after this committee meeting. I ask them whether they entered apprenticeships directly from school. Sometimes they laugh at me and say they did not know anything about apprenticeships at school. It is as if they got there accidentally. Maybe they took the traditional college route, found it was not for them and heard about an apprenticeship later. They say they wish they had known about apprenticeships earlier. Therefore, I hope some of the work we are doing on apprenticeships, further education options and the trades through the CAO discussion and reform and the changes to the website helps, but it is very much about getting role models into schools as well as having the relevant conversation. We are now trying to build a panel of female apprentices to visit schools in order that students will believe they can be one when they see one.

Subject choice is an important aspect. Professor Anne Looney in DCU has spoken to me about how subjects are taught. I do not have the research in front of me and I am going on memory but if one asks a class whether anybody is interested in science, one is likely to see more male hands than female hands going up in many primary schools. I am led to believe, however, that if the pupils are asked whether they are interested in whether we can come up with a cure for a health condition, more female hands begin to go up. There is research, rather than just anecdote, behind the understanding of what the concept of science is and how it applies to the different genders.