Norma Foley (Kerry, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

On apprenticeships, there is a hugely important role in the area of guidance and directing our students, as in the instance referred to by the Senator with girls going into opportunities that heretofore might not have been considered. We can never underestimate the power and value of guidance in schools. I was very pleased that one of my first acts as Minister was to ensure the provision of 120 careers guidance posts that would fully restore ex-quota allocations to our schools. I also acknowledge a programme I launched, the new national policy group, to look at lifelong guidance whereby it is not just something we think of when we are considering post-primary students, and that we very much also look at a younger cohort from preschool right up to primary and on. There must be a lifelong positive experience around guidance. The key purpose behind it is to ensure there would be equality, gender fairness and gender opportunity, and the opening up of gender possibilities for all of our students.

With regard to apprenticeships and tasters, members will be aware that we are currently looking at a redrawing of the transition year programme. It is very much my aim and objective that students would have pre-sample opportunities in the widest realm of experience of STEM and beyond that.

I visit quite a lot of schools and even as recently as yesterday I was in Longford. Some of the students there had spent time working with a construction company recently. I was speaking with one of the girls who had done her work experience there. She was full of the information on how it works and she had actually made the decision that she was not interested in pursuing that. That was fine. The important thing was that she had the opportunity to make an informed decision. This is the direction we are moving in now. Let every child and young person sample and decide for themselves.

I know how important SPHE is. It is vitally important that students get the right information from the right professionals and that they get it appropriately. As I said earlier to Deputy Clarke, this is very much the reason to build that capacity in our schools.

This new diploma programme will be introduced for that purpose.

I appreciate what the Senator heard from ISSU and I acknowledge that it has been participative in all that we are doing within the Department. It sits around the table with us as partners in education and it has been an invaluable resource to us with the experience its members have. They are the ones who are at the coalface and it is their experience of education that we need to listen to. Reference has been made to the time it has taken to bring the SPHE and RSE guidelines to the fore and that is because there was an intense consultation process that included the students. The students were clear about what they needed and they were specific, as the Senator and previous speakers have referenced, that the information should be as current as possible and should meet the lives of students in the 21st century. That is why we are putting an incredible amount of weight on what they have said and why we are looking at ways of introducing that into our curriculum. As I have said previously we have introduced the toolkit as an interim measure.

They will be delighted with me in Longford as I have to reference another experience I had there yesterday. I visited a class where the students were in the midst of a programme being delivered that covered areas that included sexual health, vaping and a variety of areas. The students were so positive about their engagement, about the type of information they were getting and about how it was being delivered and it was working seamlessly in the school. I want to point out that there is no shortage of good examples of best practice but the impetus must be to ensure that we see that everywhere. That is the focus behind the RSE guidelines and the subject specifications at all levels. It is taking time but I am adamant that we will move it at the greatest pace we can without compromising the delivery of the type of information that needs to be there. The Senator is correct and I am pleased that we have given the timelines, which we are working towards with urgency and priority. I am joined by my officials and I want to acknowledge the work they are doing in that respect.