Ms Rachel Collier:

Following up from what Ms Sheppard and Ms Murphy have said, we have recently done research on social innovation education which shows the power of youth voice. Youth voice is not an outcome of the well-being of students but is actually an enabler of well-being among young people. They need to be heard and they need to contribute. That is interesting. For all the factors that have been researched on the well-being of young people, this is the first time it has been shown that youth voice is integral to well-being. That is interesting.

Senator Pauline O'Reilly asked what we can change in education. We have schools that adopt a whole-of-school approach to social innovation. It is integral to what they do and how they embrace youth-led learning and youth voice in the schools. They use the community of students to solve problems inside and outside the school. There should be more project-based work allowed and space provided for it in post-primary schools. The purpose of all those projects can be for societal good. Why not? We promote profit-making businesses in school without a problem. We promote science and technology. Why do we not promote all of those things for societal good? It can happen. Our school in Lebanon has trained all its teachers and it is core to all their subject areas. Any project is done with societal good in mind so the young people learn those values very early.