Rose Conway-Walsh (Mayo, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I thank all the witnesses for their contributions. There is real value in these contributions. We should use them for all the witnesses we have before us in the future to test the answers and to generate our questions from what they have contributed today. I thank them for that because, without having that in the report we will do, it will be very lopsided. I hear what the witnesses say, that young people have to be fully involved in decisions that are made, policy decisions in particular.

Looking at Tami's statement, if there is one thing I am really struck by today, it is her sentence, "We were like machines directed to memorise and reproduce as much material as we could." We have to learn from that because if that is how the experience is for some young people in the system, it absolutely has to be changed because human beings are not machines. I can see how that can happen. The other contributions referred to the absolute focus on points rather than apprenticeships and all other options, and there are so many options. It would make you ask if we are really limiting the options that are now available that were not available many years ago if they are not made accessible to students. I would like to give Tami an opportunity to speak to that in terms of having just one focus on the education before I move on to the next thing.