Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The challenge to deliver suitably qualified graduates to meet the demands of the public and private sectors is a fundamental focus for my Department. It needs to be and is a fundamental focus for the Government and this House, I am quite sure, across the entire skills system, including tertiary. I often say to students when I meet leaving certificate classes that everybody in the Dáil says we need to build more houses, and we do, but I am not going to build a house, and if every Member of the Dáil were to come together, we probably would not build a house between us. Some of the biggest societal challenges we face, whether climate change or housing, require making sure we have a skills pipeline. That requires a broadening of the conversation we have with young people about their options after school. I passionately believe that.

We have made huge progress on university progression and we should be proud of that. We now need to apply a similar level of focus to broadening the conversation about apprenticeships. Let us debate in this House how best to do so, how we might do it more quickly, what we do well and what we do not do well. I think we can all agree on the need to make sure the students sitting in sixth, fifth or fourth year classrooms today are aware that the trades and the crafts can provide high-paid, skilled jobs that can help address some of the biggest societal challenges. We are putting a focus on making sure that, for the first time ever, apprenticeships and further education and training options are on the CAO website. I am pleased to see that more that 15,000 students who logged on to cao.ie/optionswent directly from that page to the apprenticeship website to find out about more options.

We have an advanced system of skills provision across further and higher education and lifelong learning, which is agile and responsive to changes in the world of work. It is critical that graduates acquire technical and transversal skills. This is an important point in response to the Deputy's question. We need to embed transversal skills in our degree programmes and higher education institutions. The development of skills policy and responses to skills needs is evidence-based and informed by the work of the skills and labour market research unit of SOLAS, which is an agency of my Department, and the expert group on future skills needs.

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