Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Tuesday, 1 March 2022

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Education and Skills

Future Funding of Higher Education: Discussion (Resumed)

Dr. Mary-Liz Trant:

I will start with the question about the migration of craft apprenticeships and the potential role for-profit colleges, private or not, might have in that. There has been significant investment in the infrastructure, including workshops in the public system, in education and training boards and in technological universities. The intention for now is to maintain investment in that infrastructure. That is not to say that over time there may not be other partnerships that develop on the education and training side, but our big challenge is to develop a process to migrate the craft apprenticeships into the system in a way that builds on what has already been invested and increases that provision within the public system for now.