Maeve O'Connell (Dublin Rathdown, Fine Gael)

As the Minister is aware in the programme for Government outlines plans to create a single application portal for further and third level education. I would have thought that a first step in that is to create an information hub. The Minister correctly identified four different websites that people have to try to go through. It is quite challenging for young people to navigate all of this, particularly if they do not really know what they want to do. Asking them to navigate through these, even with the support of a career guidance person, can be quite challenging. It would be quite useful to have information on grants, application forms and other supports that are out there. The Minister mentioned earlier that people are not fully availing of the grants. This again indicates an information gap and there is certainly a complexity issue around that. I recently talked to a parent who highlighted that they looked at some of these application forms and they basically stepped back and said they needed a bit more time to think about it. There is a real opportunity for us to simplify things and enable more people to continue their education journey.

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