Dr. Adele Bergin:

I thank the Deputy. He covered many topics. There are a couple of things to reflect on regarding education. As Dr. Barrett mentioned, early school leaving in Northern Ireland is twice the rate in the South. That is an important statistic. It is stark. We know early school leaving is associated with a whole range of negative outcomes for people later in life. When we did our study on education, we interviewed stakeholders North and South about some of these issues. Time and again, people highlighted the success of the DEIS programme in the South in reducing early school leaving and having a whole range of positive impacts. Could something similar be tried in Northern Ireland?

What we have seen in the South is that early school leaving has come down quite a bit over time.

Then there is always the elephant in the room when it comes to education in Northern Ireland and that is the impact of academic selection. It is very much contributing to the early school leaving in Northern Ireland.

The other stark difference, North and South, is in the further education and training sector. Dr. Barrett mentioned that only 10% of the population in Northern Ireland has that qualification whereas in the South, it is closer to 30%; post-leaving certificate, PLC, courses have become a lot more popular. What is happening in Ireland is that the status of further education has been improved. Younger people have a better sense, if they take the further education option, what their potential pathways are to further higher education, to the labour market, etc. They can see those paths much more clearly than they can in Northern Ireland. In the configuration of further education in terms of duplication of courses and what young people can see are their options, there seem to be quite strong differences, North and South.