Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Tuesday, 18 April 2023

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Education and Skills

The Future of STEM in Irish Education: Discussion (Resumed)

Mr. Jamie Bermingham:

There is a big stigma in sixth year regarding apprenticeships. They try to change your opinion of them. I do not know if it is just an older opinion, let us say, where it is judged that you will only get so far by going that route. As a matter of fact, it is not true. As I mentioned earlier, if you do your four years, you will have that behind you and then you can go on to do anything else. You can go back to do level 7 or level 8, and you can keep going. That needs to be expressed and shown much more so that people can see that you can go further than just doing a four-year apprenticeship and qualifying as, for example, an electrician, plumber or whatever. Those are the important points that need to be considered and expressed much more - 100%.