Mr. Aidan O'Shea:

From a trading point of view, we recovered very well from the pandemic period. The industry as a whole, including most schools, has returned to pre-pandemic numbers. Being the industry we are, we are very exposed to geopolitical forces, whether these concern immigration changes, currency changes and so on. Even this year alone, we have seen certain markets that would have been performing well now no longer being available to us due to changes in economic circumstances on the ground, visa requirements through embassies, etc. Many members talk about the technological issue. There have been significant advances in everything from machine learning to AI and so on, and this is going to change the industry immensely in the next five to ten years.

In the immediate period, increased costs this year have certainly had an impact on our members. There has also been the challenge of meeting the demand we have seen from younger students, who are now arriving in with English language skills at higher levels than 15 or 20 years ago. The average teenager arriving in Ireland 20 years ago was coming at CEFR A2 to B1 levels, so at elementary and pre-intermediate levels. These students are now coming in at higher levels, so in the long term the types of programmes we will be delivering will see us move away from general English to more specific life skills, soft skills, leadership skills and so on. We are having to adapt our programmes to meet the demands of younger students coming in. Every year, we are looking at how this impacts our programmes, recruitment, assessment and so on. These are the immediate challenges for the industry.