Verona Murphy (Wexford, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thank both the Minister and Minister of State for attending this afternoon. I thank the Minister, Deputy Harris, for his time earlier this morning for a meeting on the technological university for the south east. It is an exciting project which I am passionate about. It will be exciting to see that develop over the next 12 months. Hopefully, we will have announcement on it in January.

I concur with Deputy Lowry on the innovative response and how both the Minister and Minister of State are driving the Department. Their decision to streamline the CAO system is welcome. Students will now be able to apply through the CAO for an apprenticeship and level four and five courses. Hopefully this will increase the take-up and awareness of apprenticeships. For some reason, we have developed a recent obsession to push everyone into college courses. Apprenticeships have often been overlooked by those who would be better suited to them, not to mention the severe lack of apprentices in many years. Will the Minister investigate further why the obsession with college courses has developed to the detriment of apprenticeships and other employment focused training? That has been my experience as a former president of the Irish Road Haulage Association. I am sure we can all point to examples but it would be good if the Minister could just look into that to ensure one does not circumvent the other.

A recent Irish Independentarticle quoted the Higher Education Authority's figures on third level dropout rates. These figures show dropout rates of 25% across the third level sector. Dropout rates rise to 45% among those studying computing courses. That is a concerning and alarmingly high figure. The overall figure for college dropouts being one in every four students must also be ringing alarm bells in the Department. It is a major issue which we need to examine. Hopefully the new CAO reforms might help address that to some extent. However, we could and should be doing more.

One reform I believe is worth investigating is an optional transition year between second and third level. We already have a transition year between junior and senior cycle in secondary schools. A strong case can be made that the transition between second level and third level is a far more significant and difficult one for students to make. They are moving away from home for the first time, possibly, meeting new people, living with other students, being expected to cook and run a household. It is learning to live in a totally different way than what is expected at second level. There are significant challenges for third level students. It would be worth investigating a similar type of optional transition year system between second and third level. Under such a system, students could sample different course options, getting used to the challenges of living away from home and generally familiarising themselves with the college way of life before making a final course decision.

The hope would be that such a scheme would help reduce the number of college dropouts and the number of people who end up enrolling in courses that they regret. The leaving certificate classes of 2021 have missed a significant chunk of their face-to-face school time over the past two academic years. This will no doubt have a knock-on effect for those students heading off to third level in September in which case it may result in higher dropout rates and more difficulties for students settling into third level life.

On grade inflation under predicted grading systems, it is well documented that students who sat the leaving certificate in 2019 or prior to that who are looking for a CAO place in 2021 will not have the benefit of such inflation. Are any steps being taken by the Department to address the imbalance and to ensure that deferred CAO applicants will not be negatively impacted by this? A written response to this would be perfect.

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