Mr. Tony Donohoe:

As Dr. Freeman says, we are in violent agreement on a lot of this stuff. It is about the "How" rather than the "What". I urge members to be careful about discussions around quality of education. Quality is a slippery concept when it comes to education. I represent a group that is looking for education that is relevant to particular needs of the economy but companies want good citizens as well as productive workers and there is no contradiction in that.

The writer who I frequently refer back to is Howard Gardner, who made his name in the 1980s in the field of multiple intelligences. I am sure that colleagues would be aware of that in general terms at least. More recently he wrote a book for business leaders and he talked about the disciplined mind, the creative mind and the synthesising mind, which is an important one. Members will have heard previous contributors talk about technology. It is not just about the technology itself but the design, the design thinking and understanding what people want and need. That brings in the humanities as much as the technical skills. Howard Gardner also talks about the respectful mind and the ethical mind and it is important in a business context that we are respectful. That thought refers back to our conversation around teams.

It is also about working in companies with globalised structures, respecting differences with people. The ethical mind is not just about moral ethics, but about exercising one's responsibilities against the Senator's point as a citizen. We have seen some fairly graphic examples of this, particularly in the debates around climate. The OECD's PISA study suggests that Irish school kids, or 15-year-olds, show a relatively high awareness of environmental issues. We should not, therefore, go too hard on the system. Where I would suggest-----