Mr. Tim Horgan:

The world skills competition, which will be held in the RDS in September, is a fabulous opportunity for students to learn about the skills and opportunities that are available. There have been some positive moves including, for example, the link on the CAO website to apprenticeships, although it needs to be further integrated. The link allows students to click on to the apprenticeship.iewebsite, which is a huge improvement as it allows employers to feature vacancies and to link with students. There have been other improvements and the new apprenticeship office will guide us into the development of a single apprenticeship system. It is getting the message out there. As a university, we feature apprenticeships in our prospectus.

There is a cultural issue around the apprenticeship and for parents, encouraging students to go to university is probably an easier pathway than encouraging them to go into an apprenticeship. That said, there is also an opportunity with the technological university sector offering pathways for apprenticeships through to level 10. That is a key point and is really important. Parents can see that industry is cyclical, especially the construction industry and if students begin an apprenticeship as a plumber, they do not know where that industry will be in five years' time and the student may end up unemployed. However, by offering pathways through, as we do, to add-on degrees at level 7 and beyond, we enable apprentices to avail of new add-on opportunities.