Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Tuesday, 23 April 2024

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Education and Skills

European Year of Skills 2023: Discussion

11:00 am

Mr. Ray English:

I suppose Mr. McLoughlin has given the answer there. We all need to focus in on apprenticeship and skills. We have a three-day competition but what is to stop us having a national week where we focus in on skills and apprenticeship, work with all the ETBs and technological universities as well as industry and look to have that focus? We are currently operating in September, which is when the CAO results are out. The Higher Options event and the World Skills Ireland competition take place at the same time. There is that tertiary approach. The Senator is right, however. We do need to roll it out across the country. It cannot be Dublin-centric. We would love to get a model where we can roll out across the country and touch more schools.