Ms Beth O'Reilly:

I studied music technology for my leaving cert. That was the only STEM with which I engaged.

If we want to look at increasing the number of role models people have, whether that is on a gender or socio-economic basis, the way to do that is by bringing the learning of STEM back into our communities. Not everybody needs to achieve a PhD on a STEM course. There should be a great amount of focus on bringing STEM into our further education, FE, institutions and ensuring that community-based learning around STEM subjects is focused on. One should not have to go into a QQI level 8 degree to engage with it. STEM can be learned at all levels. That means it should be looked at in a lifelong learning perspective and not just at primary, post-primary and degree levels.

We should have a significant focus within FE on the specific skills in which we are facing shortages in employment, and also on emerging skills. We need to look at smaller courses for things like artificial intelligence and cybersecurity so that those skills can be brought into our local communities in order to create more role models in that way.