Mr. David Duffy:

Indeed, it is a balancing act. We firmly believe that all students should have access to all subjects, not just in post-primary but also in further and higher education and so on. Obviously, there are resourcing issues that come with that. STEM subjects are incredibly important. They constitute about one third of the entire post-primary curriculum, for example. They are incredibly important from an economic point of view. We also need to bear in mind that other subjects are also very important. What is seen as being higher in a hierarchy of subjects now could well be different in three or five years' time. We need to balance that. What we need to recognise is that if we want to prioritise certain subjects at a point in time, and I will use the STEM subjects as an example because that is the main topic for today, we need to do it in a way that incentivises those subjects but does not disincentivise something else. There are some steps that might help with that, that is, helping one subject but not necessarily making difficulty for another. The solutions are largely the same across all sectors from the further and higher education and post-primary levels. One such solution is around class size. In higher education, the class size is 23:1. The OECD average is 15:1. Another is awarding a grant for institutions to provide STEM subjects. Many of the STEM subjects require extremely expensive equipment or facilities. To use that phrase again, institutions are often robbing Peter to pay Paul. If we want to incentivise STEM subjects without disadvantaging another area, a maintenance grant for those highly expensive pieces of equipment, chemicals or whatever would be helpful. Further solutions are additional guidance services across all sectors and access to labs. Our higher education, post-primary and further education members all tell us that access to labs can sometimes be quite difficult. Buildings are obviously a finite space. The curricular concession I have mentioned is another possibility. Another thing that may be useful and to which my colleagues in the ASTI made reference, relates to the fact that physics and chemistry are often minority subjects in schools. Many schools, particularly in rural areas, do not have the numbers to provide a physics and chemistry class but there is a physics and chemistry, known as phys-chem, course as part of the leaving certificate which 500 or 600 students do each year. It is vitally important for small schools and for DEIS schools which could not put on a physics or chemistry course. Quite rightly at the moment, we are rewriting specifications in physics, chemistry and biology. We have recently done it in agricultural science, in applied maths and in computer science. I have been asking and I am at a loss to know if the phys-chem course will continue and will it be updated. For those small schools, it is a lifeline.