Ms Meadhbh Costello:

I thank the Deputy for his question. He makes a valid point. The important thing to highlight here is the types of challenges we are going to be facing into the future. Covid is a good example of this and there are other things like climate change, land use, food security, sustainability and demographic changes. They are all business challenges but they are also wider community challenges so it is important that we do not completely separate what is happening in the future of work and the business environment from what is happening in the community.

We need to ensure the education system is geared towards preparing everybody to be able to face these challenges, whether it be in the workplace in developing solutions and responses to these challenges or in broader society, and that they have that level of resilience as we move forward. That requires these broad concepts and buckets of skills in terms of problem solving, critical resilience, digital literacy, numeracy and general literacy. The challenges we face as a business community are shared with the broader community. Working together through the education system is the way we can best build the resilience of the community overall for the benefit of everyone.

On the Deputy's point on the assessment process, from our perspective the assessment process is driving how students learn. We need to ensure the assessment process embeds the values we want to see in the students' education experience. That assessment process should therefore take account of skills such as problem solving, critical thinking, group works and the way we can measure those in a practical sense. Elements such as portfolios of achievement, work experience, short modular micro-credential courses and continuous assessment all have a role to play in the broader picture.