Joint Committee on Education, Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science díospóireacht

Leaving Certificate Reform: Discussion

Chairman

I welcome Dr. Emer Smyth, research professor with the social research division at the Economic and Social Research Institute, ESRI, and Growing Up in Ireland, Dr. Ruth Freeman, director of science for society at Science Foundation Ireland, SFI, Ms Meadhbh Costello, social policy executive at IBEC, Mr. Neil McDonnell, chief executive of Irish Small and Medium Employers, ISME, and Mr. Tony Donohoe, chairperson of the expert group on future skills needs, EGFSN. Our witnesses are here to discuss leaving certificate reform. I very much thank them for participating in our meeting.

The format of the meeting is that I will invite Dr. Smyth to make a brief opening statement for four minutes, followed by Dr. Freeman, Ms Costello, Mr. McDonnell and Mr. Donohoe. This will be followed by questions from members of the committee. Each member has an eight-minute slot, which includes time for the member to ask a question and the witness to respond. I know it is quite difficult to work remotely so I ask people, specifically witnesses, to raise their physical hands as I can see that better on screen than the icon button. I will then call them in. If at all possible, I ask members to direct their questions to a specific witness. If an alternative witness wants to add to an answer, I ask them to raise a hand. As witnesses are probably aware, the committee will publish opening statements on the website following the meeting.

I remind members that they have to be inside Leinster House to participate in the meeting and also of the long-standing parliamentary practice to the effect that they should not comment on, criticise or make charges against a person outside the Houses of the Oireachtas, or an official, either by name or in a way that will make him or her identifiable. They are also reminded of the long-standing parliamentary practice that they should not criticise or make charges against any person or entity by name, or in such a way as to make him or her identifiable, or otherwise engage in speech that might be regarded as damaging to the good name of the person or entity. That goes for the witnesses as well.

Witnesses who are giving evidence remotely from a place outside the parliamentary precincts may not benefit from the same level of parliamentary immunity from legal proceedings as a witness physically present does. They have already been advised of this issue. I now call on Dr. Smyth to make her opening statement. If at all possible, I ask the witnesses to confine themselves to four minutes.

Dr. Emer Smyth

I thank the Chairman. I am delighted to address the joint committee today. My ESRI colleague, Dr. Selina McCoy, and I made a submission to the committee on leaving certificate reform, drawing on a large body of research conducted at the ESRI over recent years. I will highlight a number of key issues from that submission.

Much of the discussion of senior cycle has centred on the leaving certificate established, LCE, programme so I will focus my remarks on this programme. While some LCE subjects have non-exam assessment components, such as orals and project work, exam-based assessment retains a dominant role and exam results are very high stakes in determining entry to higher education and influencing employment access.

Our research shows that this exam-based assessment has a significant negative effect on the nature of teaching and learning, on the skills acquired by young people and on their overall well-being.

Preparation for the leaving certificate exams means that classes in fifth and sixth year are often characterised by teacher-led instruction, with a strong emphasis on regular homework and exam paper practice. In in-depth interviews, students have contrasted their classroom experiences in senior cycle, where they feel under pressure to cover the course, with that in junior cycle, where they enjoyed more time and space to engage in a variety of approaches to learning and to have more interactive classes. The exam-focused approach is seen by students, parents and teachers as leading to rote learning, with a focus on memorising material at the expense of authentic understanding and a neglect of the development and assessment of broader skills. Exam marking schemes have become a key driver of student engagement in exam preparation.

In Ireland, as elsewhere, we have found that students tend to value hands-on and interactive classes in which they have active involvement. By sixth year, however, many students, particularly those with more ambitious career plans, are critical of teachers who do not focus on what will come up in the exam. For them, good teaching becomes focusing precisely on the kinds of knowledge and skills needed to do well in the exam. Thus, an emphasis on broader educational development or on life skills comes to be seen as irrelevant. Indeed, some of these students negatively contrast approaches to teaching at school with the more narrowly focused approach to exam preparation that they have experienced in private tuition or grinds.

All of this has a significant effect on student well-being. Levels of stress tend to escalate in sixth year with students finding their schoolwork even more difficult than previously. Many students, especially female students, report feelings of strain and loss of confidence in sixth year. For example, more than half of female sixth year students reported feeling constantly under strain more or much more than usual in January and February of their exam years. As a result of this pressure, many students curtail extracurricular and social activities in sixth year, further exacerbating the hothouse climate of exam preparation.

Rates of school completion are now high, with the vast majority of young people in Ireland completing senior cycle, which is a success story. As a result, the composition of the student population is more diverse than previously. In a consultation with stakeholders, students and their parents pointed to the neglect of vocational and practical subjects within the current curriculum. Senior cycle was seen as better suited to those with an academic orientation and with the ability to memorise material, with a neglect of those with more vocational interests and those with special educational needs, SEN. The introduction of level 1 and 2 programmes at junior cycle has provided new routes to recognition for young people with SEN. However, there is no comparable programme at senior cycle, which suggests a need to develop new programmes that build upon the skills developed at levels 1 and 2.

Young people report that the current leaving certificate model does not prepare them well for life after school. The movement from a more teacher-directed approach to a greater focus on independent learning and a broader variety of assessment methods in further and higher education contribute to student difficulties in adapting to post-school education. In addition, a significant proportion of young people do not see their education as helpful in preparing them for the world of work or for adult life. At present, student access to work experience depends on which senior cycle programme they take. In a consultation, there was a strong consensus among students and parents that all young people should be provided with an opportunity to take part in at least one work experience placement. There was also a strong consensus that senior cycle should embed life skills in the curriculum to better prepare young people for further and higher education, employment and adult life.

Research findings suggest that the current leaving certificate assessment model has a negative impact on teaching and learning, narrowing the focus to covering the course and preparing for what will come up in the exam, rather than engaging in promoting critical thinking and broader skill development. The evident consensus in respect of some of the challenges-----

Chairman

I will have to cut Dr. Smyth off there.

Dr. Emer Smyth

I will finish with this sentence.

The evident consensus on some of the challenges has not resulted in clear agreement on the alternatives. However, students, parents and teachers all suggest a need to spread out assessment during senior cycle and to adopt a broader variety of approaches, such as project work, portfolios and presentations, to better reflect student skills.

Chairman

I now call Dr. Freeman.

Dr. Ruth Freeman

I thank the Chair and members for the invitation to appear at the committee. I am delighted to be here to contribute to the discussions. Science Foundation Ireland's education and public engagement connect the Irish public with STEM, science, technology, engineering and maths, which will be my focus. We also aim to inspire young people’s confidence and aspirations to pursue skills development and career choices in the STEM fields. It has been clear over the last 18 months more than ever that we need scientists, engineers and a public that can have a meaningful input into how research shapes our society. We want to smash the stereotypes which might tell our young people that STEM is not for them.

The 21st-century workplace will be a fast-evolving environment. Knowledge and specialist expertise will continue to be critical, but even more important will be the ability to apply that knowledge and expertise in previously unimagined ways. Therefore, the new senior cycle must encompass a programme of learning that enables students to develop skills and knowledge needed to address future challenges. They need to be equipped with the ability to solve complex problems by nurturing creative thinking and innovation. Students entering the workforce will benefit from having good communication and interpersonal skills and the ability to work as part of a diverse team and will be personally effective. Ultimately, we need to create students who will be lifelong learners.

SFI, through its programmes, engages in supporting all stages of our STEM talent and skills pipeline, from the early years in primary schools, through the discover primary science and maths programme, through to smart futures programme for career advice in secondary school, and on to fourth level through master's degrees and PhDs. In fact, we engage the entire country in a discussion about STEM during Science Week in November, which reaches over 250,000 people.

Our annual discover programme is assessed by international peer review and supports between 30 and 40 projects a year with an investment of approximately €4 million. These projects cover a diverse range of interventions, for example, coding, supporting profession development for teachers, activities for transition year students and, importantly, research projects examining why, for example, girls might be less likely to select physics as a subject choice. Our programmes are targeted towards a wide diversity of audiences, including the Traveller community, children and parents in direct provision and students on the autistic spectrum. Projects that we fund promote a more active form of learning and the use of a range of authentic assessment strategies.

At the core of our actions is the focus on building STEM learning throughout a life, what we term STEM capital, or all of the access to scientific and technological aspects throughout a person's life. We recognise that young people must be able to apply their creativity in real-life situations. Participation in informal STEM education projects such as CanSat, SciFest and the BT Young Scientist offer these opportunities and we would welcome recognition for participating in projects like those as part of any future leaving certificate assessment process.

Helping our learners to work in this way requires our teachers to have sufficient pedagogical content knowledge and expertise in assessment so that they can design and enact high-quality learning experiences and use innovative approaches to support both formative and summative assessment approaches. Teachers require ongoing support to transform their professional practices so that learners are more actively engaged in their own learning and ensuring they are ready for the world of work and a society where lifelong learning is now a key competence. We would welcome the formal accreditation of teacher training and teacher professional development offered by SFI and other organisations to ensure a high standard and act as a teacher incentive.

Building on those approaches, we welcome projects such as the assessment of transversal skills in STEM, led by DCU, which highlights the use of appropriate tools, digital resources and innovation in both the curriculum and assessment, so we have a more integrated and active approach to STEM teaching and learning. Digital technologies have the potential to transform teaching and learning in new ways. Many schools now want to capitalise on the efforts made by their teachers during the pandemic and on the new knowledge they have acquired to support different practices.

We also support the development of digital skills and digital technologies that can contribute to future resilience while ensuring that such developments are inclusive and remain focused on bridging the digital divide. We worked on the STEM education policy statement, which identifies the reforms under way in the Irish education system, and we would very much support those. We recognise that young people require more than the ability to memorise facts and procedures.

Many governments have already begun implementing fundamental changes to their education systems as part of reimagining how they organise teaching, learning and assessment to better meet the needs of society in the 21st century. Those countries are now in the process of moving away from an over-reliance on teachers preparing students for this high-stakes summative assessment to a different way of education that is focused on cultivating engaged, connected global citizens. SFI has funded many initiatives which could be mainstreamed into the education system and which could help to bring Ireland on the same journey.

I strongly believe that we need our education system and broader society to recognise different types of learners, different ways of thinking and to consider the different skills and expertise that contribute to a functioning society. It is incumbent on us to ensure that we educate now in a way that will enable us to build a sustainable, inclusive and just society in the future.

Chairman

I thank Dr. Freeman for that. I call Ms Costello.

Ms Meadhbh Costello

I thank the joint committee for the invitation to appear before it today to discuss the topic of leaving certificate reform. I am a policy executive at IBEC, Ireland’s largest business and employer representative and lobbying group.

Ireland’s education system has played a significant role in the economic transformation of our country during the past four decades. As we move to a future of work defined by the rapid adoption of new technologies, digitalisation and increasing globalisation, the education system is being called upon again to renew itself and innovate in several fundamental ways in order to meet major socioeconomic challenges. Responding to the future of work will require creativity, problem solving, digital literacy and communication skills, coupled with an appetite for continuous learning. We need an education system that values inclusion and focuses on formative learning, with multiple assessment modes and progression pathways, and that places a high value on experiential learning.

While our submission committee contains greater detail on IBEC’s recommendations for the reform of the leaving certificate, today I will share some of our key messages. Higher order skills must be embedded across all subject curricula in the leaving certificate to prepare students for active citizenship and the future of work. Moving from a content-based to skills-based learning model at an early stage is more likely to equip students with the skills to become better prepared to engage in the future of work and to tackle grand challenges such as climate change. From a business perspective, our education system must develop learners who have the capacity to adapt quickly, work successfully in a team, cope with ambiguity and continue to learn and be curious. The reformed leaving certificate needs to develop skills such as logical and analytical reasoning, problem solving and intellectual curiosity, effective communication skills, teamwork skills, capacities to identify and manage knowledge and information, and personal attributes around imagination, creativity and intellectual rigour.

The reformed leaving certificate needs to support learners in developing their digital literacy and provide greater opportunities to engage in STEM and digital learning. Our experience with Covid has demonstrated the value and importance of digitally enhanced learning both at home and in the classroom. However, it has also brought into stark relief the digital divide that exists between schools across Ireland. All students need the opportunity to develop the mixture of digital and complementary soft skills necessary to fully engage in an increasingly digitalised society and the future of work. This requires bridging the divide between schools in relation to access to technology, broadband connectivity and technical assistance.

The leaving certificate process should use a wide variety of sources to provide evidence of learning. The dominance of the points race poses a challenge in providing an integrated education experience for students. The student experience is concentrated on rote learning at the expense of developing higher order skills and autonomous learning skills. Reformed and modern assessment methods should focus less exclusively on final examinations and expand opportunities for continuous assessment such as teacher assessment, portfolios of achievement and learning journals. This will better capture the broader experience of learning and help to develop a strong relationship with lifelong learning.

Appropriate resources must be made available to facilitate curriculum development and teacher development to underpin future leaving certificate reform. Teacher quality and professional development should be acknowledged as the most important factor influencing senior cycle review and reform and teachers must be empowered for change through professional development and other supports.

Junior cycle education principles should be extended to the leaving certificate. The senior cycle should recognise all talents and abilities and support all students towards fulfilling their potential, including by providing a wider range of options for learning pathways at senior cycle. There is significant opportunity to introduce new learning pathways such as apprenticeships and further education and training, FET, courses into the senior cycle programme. The new junior cycle curriculum offers a template for enhanced flexibility in programme design that places the learner at the centre, including opportunities for short courses. This approach should be extended to senior cycle to ensure continued flexibility within the system and to support students of all abilities and talents.

We are living through a period of rapid transformation and disruption, but also great opportunity. The availability of talent, skills and people remains a top priority for Irish business and requires a strong emphasis on building a sustained lifelong culture of learning. Flexibility, resilience and an appetite for learning must be ingrained in what we teach and how we teach it to help people and businesses take advantage of the opportunities that will present themselves. I thank members of the joint committee for the opportunity to present IBEC's views on this important issue.

Mr. Neil McDonnell

ISME thanks the committee for the opportunity to make a submission on this matter. Regarding the issues raised on the consultation on assessment, while the leaving certificate has come in for legitimate criticism for the rote learning issue over the years, its fairness, objectivity, reliability and consistency were not in doubt. The significant difficulties caused by obvious grade inflation in the accredited grades system in 2020 and 2021 have demonstrated the failures of adopting an ad hoc approach to continuous assessment. This has damaged the credibility of our education system as a whole.

On key subject areas, Programme for International Student Assessment, PISA, rankings now include a focus on digital literacy. However, ISME and our members have noted basic failings among graduate-level recruits in accomplishing relatively simple tasks, such as formulating a cogent paragraph of text on a business-related topic free of spelling or grammatical errors.

We are not aware of specific issues around access and equality. However, we have had anecdotal representations made to us about the quality of teaching available in certain schools and areas such as STEM and European languages.

On higher and further education requirements, our determination to open ever more universities at the expense of education in technical disciplines is worrying. Annual surveys of the best third level institutions in the world consistently show three technology institutions in the top ten, with Massachusetts Institute of Technology in first place for the last five years. While accepting that university status confers additional cachet on any educational institution, it is essential, bearing in mind Ireland’s relative attractiveness to foreign multinational companies, that we continually strive for excellence in technical education.

We have a significant density of high-tech foreign multinational employers here and a diminishing ability to supply them with suitably qualified labour. Conversely, a study by the IZA Institute of Labour Economics concluded that Ireland had the highest rate of overeducation among employees in Europe. Overeducation was defined as "the proportion of employees in employment whose... level of schooling lies one level or more above the occupational mode." At the same time, the OECD economic survey of Ireland in 2020 found that measured literacy skills of Irish adults remained "close to the OECD average, and numeracy and problem solving skills [were] significantly lower for all age cohorts." This suggests a significant skills mismatch between the output of our education system and inputs required by business.

We note that despite the fact that Irish is an official EU language, Ireland is struggling to fulfil its quota of translators for the translation of EU law, directives and regulations.

On international evidence and best practice, despite domestic views of our education system, the World Population Review puts our education ranking just ahead of the global average. The PISA rankings are now far more granular and useful in their ratings than they used to be, but Ireland is not class-leading in any noticeable respect.

Chairman

I thank Mr. McDonnell and call Mr. Donohoe.

Mr. Tony Donohoe

I thank the joint committee for the opportunity to address it on the really critical issue of leaving certificate reform. As the committee will be aware, the EGFSN is the independent body tasked with advising the Government on the current and future skills needs of the Irish economy.

In making its recommendations on how these skills needs can be addressed, the group is very conscious the secondary education system plays an integral role in ensuring a future pipeline of skills across the economy. This is especially true with respect to the formative influence leaving certificate subject choices can have on future career choices. It is equally important to note the quality of the leaving certificate learning experience has a fundamental impact on inculcating an ongoing appetite for learning after school into adulthood. We have a well-educated and highly skilled labour force, but it is important people of all ages and at all educational levels participate in learning and upskilling on an ongoing basis. This is necessary to sustain their employment and maintain the competitiveness of the Irish economy.

As the group’s submission to the committee details, there is a need to ensure the leaving certificate that is as responsive as possible to current and future labour market trends, maximises awareness of the wide range of potential career opportunities and effectively prepares students for higher and further education, as well as subsequent lifelong learning pathways. As reflected in the EGFSN’s work in recent years, there are a range of critical skills areas for Ireland’s economy that need to be reflected in this process of reform. One area is the development of digital skills as a core workforce competency, as well as higher-level ICT skills to facilitate and leverage digital transformation across Ireland’s economy.

A second area is the embedding of technical decarbonisation and environmental awareness skills across construction, engineering and business subjects. This is required to inform and secure a pipeline of skills into zero-carbon activities and deliver on Ireland’s climate action commitments. The third critical skills area concerns logistics and supply chain management, as well as foreign language skill sets, to support the competitiveness and diversification of Ireland’s trade with non-UK markets post Brexit and allow Ireland to operate and advance its interests in an increasingly globalised economy. Importantly, transversal or softer skills, such as critical thinking, problem-solving, communications, creativity and leadership will also need to be embedded to support students' capacity and resilience, as well as that of the wider economy, in dealing with change, such as the transition to a digital and greener economy and the resulting impact on job roles and occupations.

However, as it stands, the so-called points race and dominance of a final leaving certificate exam limit the integrated education experience needed to develop these higher order skills. Many leave school without developing the ability to self-manage their learning. The examples of alternative assessment methods, witnessed during the pandemic involve a wider variety of sources to provide evidence of learning and produce a qualification. These should be considered in the committee’s deliberations.

International evidence points to greater involvement of teachers in assessment practice in classrooms as a key way of improving standards. I welcome any questions and thank the committee for the opportunity to discuss the important issue of leaving certificate reform.

Chairman

Thank you Mr. Donohoe. Deputy Alan Farrell is first, followed by Deputy Conway Walsh.

Deputy Alan Farrell

I will begin by confirming that I am in Leinster House. I thank our witnesses for their thought provoking opening statements and submissions. Some of the witnesses have already touched upon this issue and I do not want to prescriptive in terms of who answers my questions. Over many weeks and again this morning we have discussed the fact that the leaving certificate is good at certain things but deficient in other areas and that there is a question mark over whether it prepares students for the world of work or even third level and further education. My fundamental question is whether the leaving certificate as it currently stands is an appropriate barometer of students' ability to perform in the workplace and it appears from what the representative of ISME, Mr. McDonnell, had to say, that may not be the case.

I want to focus on trying to move away from a terminal examination and on the points made around continuous professional development, CPD, and how that might be worked into a reformed leaving certificate. I wish to focus on moving away from the terminal exam system towards a more appropriate, module-based assessment within the classroom and on how the introduction of such a model would benefit the workplace. My first question is a broad one around changing the leaving certificate from a terminal to a module-based structure. I would also like to focus on new areas of economic activity where the leaving certificate is not measuring or training students. I am thinking here of coding and climate change. I will throw those two questions to the floor for a willing witness to answer.

Chairman

I will call on Ms Costello first and then see who else wants to respond.

Ms Meadhbh Costello

I thank the Deputy for his questions. As has already been mentioned, there are many positives associated with the leaving certificate that we need to retain in any reformation including the public perception that there is a high level of fairness in the final exams. However, the leaving certificate does not completely prepare students for entering further education or the world of work. We really need an assessment model that champions what we value in the student experience and recognises and rewards all types of learners. This needs to embed transferable skills as well as employability skills. These higher order skills really need to be recognised as a valuable component of an individual's learning. The current assessment model, because it focuses on a final examination, narrows the student's learning experience to rote learning and an ability to recall, at one moment in time, two year's worth of knowledge. What we would like to see is continuous assessment in different formats which would be better able to capture a learner's learning journey across those two years. This should take place over a number of different assessment modes that can capture things such skills in areas like critical thinking, problem solving, team work, communications, data analysis and data identification which will enable students to develop an ability to tackle the grand challenges facing society.

On the question of what type of skills students will need for the future of work, a number of key areas are alluded to in our submission and opening statement. Digital skills is a key area. Ireland is a hub for many major global ICT firms and we need to ensure there is a strong pipeline of ICT graduates, which will continue to raise Ireland's profile in this regard. It is a fact that digital skills and digital literacy have penetrated almost every sector of society and that everybody will need to have access to those skills. We need to see digital literacy embedded across the education system and the foundation for that needs to be built not only at second level but also in primary schools to ensure that students have the right preparation to launch them into more advanced digital skills such as computer science, coding, data analysis and even artificial intelligence, AI, skills. Other areas of interest include green skills, construction skills and the transferable skills to which I referred.

Mr. Neil McDonnell

We substantially agree with both of those views. I would not want it read into what I said that the criticism of the leaving certificate is a criticism of the leaving certificate alone, because I am talking about graduates. Our experience is of graduates coming out with some of these difficulties. They are almost set up for failure as a result of some of the issues Ms Costello and Dr. Freeman identified, specifically the emphasis on rote learning rather than the skill of communication. Perhaps our ability to communicate digitally has also been reduced as a result of smartphones and techspeak. That can work very well on a peer-to-peer or youth-to-youth basis, but when it is inadequate and unprofessional to use it when putting something in print in a work-based setting. It is frequently not understood by the other person. The criticism is not exclusive to the leaving certificate, but the over-emphasis on rote learning certainly diminishes people's ability in the problem-solving area.

Mr. Tony Donohoe

Implicit in the questions is that good learning outcomes are in some way different from what business needs when, in fact, they are very much aligned. We might use different language to describe them, but good learning is generally what businesses require, as is the mastery of a particular occupation, skill set or mindset, but also synthesising and creative skills. Ethical awareness and being a good citizen are in no way different from being a good, productive worker. Sometimes I think we talk different languages in education and business but we are looking for the same thing. The most important outcome I would say is learning to learn. In a world that is constantly changing, we need to spark this continuous appetite for learning. Ireland's performance in lifelong learning measurements is medium. That is where the leaving certificate feeds into the process, inculcating this appetite for learning.

Chairman

I thank Mr. Donohoe and the other witnesses.

Deputy Rose Conway-Walsh

I thank the witnesses for their presentations. Mr. Donohoe's point about learning is also of concern to me as regards the importance of the love of learning. The pressures of the leaving certificate were touched on with respect to well-being. I am pleased to see that included. It concerns me that this pressure can almost knock the love of learning out of people. We must also look at learning, not just for the labour market but for our self-actualisation as we go through life.

I have a couple of questions. My question for Mr. Donohoe is how can we do more to address that so we really instill that love of learning in people.

The IBEC submission refers to the need to bridge the divide between the schools regarding access to technology. I want to ask about digitalisation in businesses. We hear time and time again it is the way forward. It is so vitally important. How much of a drag is it on business that we do not have the digital skills we need at the moment? How concerned are our guests about that?

On competitiveness, how long do we have before we are left so far behind we start to lose jobs and lose that competitiveness as well? How important are the inequalities that are being created with respect to creativity, especially in rural Ireland? We have young people trying to study and do their leaving certificate and the National Broadband Plan says their houses will be reached in 2025 or 2026. How concerned are our guests about that? How concerned are they about the lack of computer science in second level schools? How can we address that? We have a huge inequality at the moment. We will have people sitting their leaving certificate next year who have had to teach themselves computer science, whereas in perhaps more affluent areas there are students who will have got full tuition. How can we hope to create a level playing field around that?

The ESRI has also spoken about the inequality with respect to the disadvantaged areas. We are aware 5% of students from TCD are from disadvantaged areas. Better off parts of this city, such as Dublin 2, 4, 6 and 14 have progression rates of 90%. In Dublin 10, 11, 17 and 24 there are progression rates as low as 7%. What are we doing wrong there? We are really failing these people. That will not only have an economic impact on society but a social one as well. I accept that there is much in what I have said, but maybe our guests could speak to a couple of those aspects to start with.

Dr. Emer Smyth

I will briefly pick up on two issues the Deputy raised. The first is that inequality. Our research has shown that all students really lose out from this mode of teaching and learning but it is those from socioeconomically disadvantaged backgrounds who disengage more and are less responsive to an exam-focused curriculum that does not take account of broader practical skills. That is an issue. The distinction between ordinary and higher level subjects with respect to points means young people who take ordinary level feel that even though they are working hard, they are not necessarily getting the reward for it and they can become disengaged.

I was glad the Deputy brought up the broader love of learning. As well as pointing to gaps in the preparation for the world of work and adult life, young people we have surveyed have repeatedly said they do not feel their second level education is fostering that love of learning. This relates to reading for pleasure, appreciating art and music and even engaging in sport and physical exercise. There are issues in producing that more rounded person who can go on to further develop his or her skills.

Mr. Tony Donohoe

I wanted to respond to the Deputy's specific question on stimulating a love of learning. There is cliché about education policy that no education system can exceed the quality of its teachers. Teachers are critical in this. I think we are all instinctively know this and probably remember at least one teacher from our childhood who inspired us in a particular way. We should be relentless in concentrating on CPD for teachers.

That links into curriculum reform because there is another cliché around education policy that the assessment tail wags the curriculum dog. As other contributors have already mentioned, if one focuses on a single method of assessment it is quite logical that the whole learning experience will be skewed to meet that. The importance of not having one method of assessment has already been well covered at this session and at previous sessions.

I mention the importance of linking what happens in the classroom to real life. Sometimes it feels like a parallel process and that is how one excites and interests students such as in the way Dr. Smyth has outlined. Students need to have a well-rounded education experience. People like me make a living out of the more utilitarian skills required for an economy but in the business world we are conscious of needing to produce well-rounded individuals.

Deputy Rose Conway-Walsh

I refer to the digital divide and digitalisation and how much of a pullback that is. How long do we have to address that?

Dr. Ruth Freeman

I would like to address a different point and perhaps Ms Costello will address the digital question. On the love of learning, we know that enquiry-based learning is critical. Teaching people to learn gives them a love of learning. Our evidence from our interventions with primary school teachers shows that confidence is the big issue there. I echo what Mr. Donohoe said; we need to focus on the teachers and we need to recognise those who are doing the CPD, particularly the CPD that is offered by other organisations outside of the formal Department of Education structures. We also need to recognise the opportunities and real world learning that exist outside the classroom. We can cleverly integrate this into assessment modules that are evidence-based and that can be objective. We need to be careful not to think about what we did during the pandemic as the best we can do in terms of continuous assessment. That was an emergency response and we have a lot of excellent research that we should lean on to show us how we can do that better.

I will touch on computer science briefly. We have concerns about computer science in schools. We still see low levels of girls taking computer science in school and we see high drop-out rates at university level. We have all agreed on the emphasis on digital skills so that is a concern.

Senator Fiona O'Loughlin

I thank the contributors for a fascinating and important debate. Last night I had the privilege of being part of a judging panel with young people in the Rotary Club of Newbridge to choose ambassadors for all the values that define the Rotary Foundation to go forward to a national final. I was incredibly struck by all of the young people. They were engaging and effective global citizens to borrow the phrase that Dr. Smyth used earlier. I have been reflecting on that while I have been listening to the debate and I have been thinking about those young people.

Apart from knowledge and having the opportunity to engage in a lot of different and relevant topics and apart from the importance of language and literacy, fluency is hugely important. We see that time after time. While to a certain extent leaving certificate exams examine a certain amount of written fluency, apart from language subjects fluency is not really measured.

I contend that is hugely important, as is very valuable group work. Ms Costello mentioned the importance of group work to moving into the working environment. When we think about it, the leaving certificate, as it stands, is a very individual assessment. It is very important to be able to work as part of a team on projects, either at work or in our communities and families. I am interested in getting some feedback from the witnesses on what they think about the importance of how we assess group work. Should it be part of what do as we go forward?

Work experience was touched on. Other members will have heard me speak previously about the importance I attach to work experience undertaken during transition year but it is not really measured. Many young people find it very difficult to get relevant work experience unless their families have a network. That work experience is hugely important to how young people define what kind of study or work they would like to go into afterwards. It is very important for all the witnesses, and the interests they represent, to acknowledge that we need a far better system. Some chambers and local enterprise offices, LEOs, are quite good but we need a more formalised structure. I am interested in the witnesses' views on that.

Teachers are in a dilemma. So much of what we are talking about focuses on excellent teaching yet we have a situation where teachers are judged by the points their young students attain. A comment was made earlier about the fact that there is sometimes criticism if teachers are not completely focusing their students on exams. How do we get around that? It is very important. The Gates Foundation spent approximately $500 million in the United States on looking at this issue and trying to support very important, empowering, effective teaching that gets away from teachers being measured by the exam results their students get.

It is good to see Mr. Donohoe again. He spoke about the leaving certificate being as responsive as possible to current market trends and lifelong learning. I absolutely agree. How do we build that into a system in a way that needs to be continuous? We are spending 13 weeks, which is a significant amount of time, on this very important topic but we cannot do that every year when it comes to current market trends. How do we build our reaction to, and support of, market trends so we do not have to come back and spend 13 weeks examining, listening and making recommendations?

Mr. Tony Donohoe

I will address the Senator's questions directly. On how responsive the education system can be, let us face it, most people at leaving certificate level do not go directly into the workplace. Some do, but it is a small percentage, probably in the order of between 10% and 12%. Most will go on either to higher and further education or apprenticeships. It is about having the appropriate skills architecture that can inform the system. The expert group, for example, does its best to look five years hence, but in fact we are trying to prepare young people who will still be in the workplace in or around 2070 or 2075. It is impossible to predict that, but we can predict the general direction of travel.

We try our best to match up skills supply with demand in terms of ICT, etc., but it is not a precise science. Who would have predicted the pandemic, for example, and its impact on digital skills? Responsiveness must be built into the system, particularly in further and higher education, apprenticeships, etc. We have to develop that mindset for change, resilience and ability to develop different learning strategies as the environment changes around us. That is inevitable. We are all concerned about carbon at the moment; five years ago, not as many people were. These trends increase in significance so it is around that responsiveness to change.

I will take Senator O'Loughlin's second question around assessing group work. As Ms Costello has pointed out, that is important. I chaired the NCCA's curriculum board for the new business studies course for the junior certificate a number of years ago. Part of that is assessment of group work. It can be done around teacher assessment, but also presentations, which speaks to the Senator's other point around oral presentations. Having projects, asking students to present on them and having teachers trained in these methods of assessment is a possible approach. There are very few jobs where one goes in, memorises as much as one can and is then put in front of a blank piece of paper to write as much as one can. That is not the way the world of work works. It is important not to make total generalisations because significant progress has been made, particularly at junior cert level. It is not the finished article but progress has been made. However, the classroom still looks like something that was there 40 or 50 years ago, in some instances.

Dr. Emer Smyth

I agree with Mr. Donohoe about the importance of group work and young people find it engaging so it is a win-win on learning and assessment. On work experience, we need to recognise the importance of providing opportunities for work experience for young people who do not take transition year and supporting work-based learning when they are back in the classroom. There are some good models with business and the community and their work with schools around mentoring and bringing learning from workplaces into the classroom.

Mr. Neil McDonnell

I will address two points raised by Senator O'Loughlin. First, we have an inadequate level of working in teams at leaving cert level and when a young person goes into the workplace, he or she will never be working alone in most jobs. The ability to work in a team setting is essential. Second, on recognising and rating teachers by points and performance, the body politic bears some responsibility for this. We raised the point earlier about converting all our ITs into regional universities. That suggests we value the academic, but not the technical, the skilled or trades. I say to Senators and Deputies: physician, heal thyself. If they continually say to young people that an academic education and letters after one's name is important, they cannot blame people for taking that view when they see points output.

Deputy Aodhán Ó Ríordáin

I thank the witnesses for their presentations. Apologies, I have to leave after my contributions. So the witnesses will be aware, we have had a number of presentations over the past weeks.

The committee in general feels that this is our one opportunity to do something about the leaving certificate and that if we do not do something now, we will have lost a historic opportunity. I have a sense that the education system in general perpetuates inequality and, therefore, the leaving certificate also perpetuates that inequality within the system. It prepares people to be good at doing the leaving certificate but does not necessarily prepare them for much else. People with means can buy results by stepping outside the system and facilitating their children to go to the Gaeltacht for Irish, access grinds for any other subject and so on. There is also a great disparity between what certain second level schools can offer. We saw that with Covid and the digital divide but also with DEIS second level schools. Some 85% of students make it to leaving certificate. We have a system that we feel needs to be radically overhauled but how do we do that? There are two issues. One is what the students are studying and the second is how we assess what they are studying. Is it fair to lump a load of written exams at the end of sixth year and expect that to be an adequate reflection of anybody's abilities? There is also all the commercial pressures that go in with that and the journalistic obsession with points and the ranking of schools.

I have a question for the business representatives. I am trying to be as fair as I possibly can. Is there not a hard business case for the eradication of educational inequality? Does it not make sense for representatives from ISME and IBEC and others to have radical positions on the economic viability of the State for prosperity, that is, that inequalities within the system be got rid of and that we have a fully literate 18- or 19-year-old cohort leaving school? We would not have one third of children in disadvantaged schools coming out with basic reading problems, there would not be that level of drift from 16 years onwards in disadvantaged areas, and 17.9% of our adult population would not be functionally illiterate. People would not be falling through the cracks and, therefore, leading lives in which they do not contribute as much as they possibly could to their own happiness and well-being, as well as to wider society. Is there not a hard, cold, economic case to be made for the eradication of educational inequality? Do the witnesses not think their own presentations into the future could be more balanced? They could address both the needs of business but also what is needed for wider society. I sometimes think the presentations are a bit lopsided.

For anyone else who wants to contribute, do they agree with my assessment that the leaving certificate basically makes people good at doing the leaving certificate? We need a model which, I have to be honest, will potentially involve teachers embracing the idea of self-assessment in the context of their students. That is something we got used to over the last two years as part of the Covid response to the leaving certificate and it could potentially be part of a future leaving certificate. Those are my questions. I ask the witnesses to address the business case for the eradication of educational inequality and how restrictive an assessment model this is for what students are studying.

Ms Meadhbh Costello

I thank the Deputy for his question. He makes a valid point. The important thing to highlight here is the types of challenges we are going to be facing into the future. Covid is a good example of this and there are other things like climate change, land use, food security, sustainability and demographic changes. They are all business challenges but they are also wider community challenges so it is important that we do not completely separate what is happening in the future of work and the business environment from what is happening in the community.

We need to ensure the education system is geared towards preparing everybody to be able to face these challenges, whether it be in the workplace in developing solutions and responses to these challenges or in broader society, and that they have that level of resilience as we move forward. That requires these broad concepts and buckets of skills in terms of problem solving, critical resilience, digital literacy, numeracy and general literacy. The challenges we face as a business community are shared with the broader community. Working together through the education system is the way we can best build the resilience of the community overall for the benefit of everyone.

On the Deputy's point on the assessment process, from our perspective the assessment process is driving how students learn. We need to ensure the assessment process embeds the values we want to see in the students' education experience. That assessment process should therefore take account of skills such as problem solving, critical thinking, group works and the way we can measure those in a practical sense. Elements such as portfolios of achievement, work experience, short modular micro-credential courses and continuous assessment all have a role to play in the broader picture.

Chairman

Do any of our other guests wish to respond?

Mr. Neil McDonnell

Yes. We would agree with Deputy Ó Ríordáin on that one. There is absolutely a business case for this. That is why I took up this invitation and am here today. In our pre-budget submissions and our submissions to the SME task force, we continually emphasise the importance of education. If I could be cynical for a moment, I would say this is one of a long list of business priorities for small businesses that are also ignored by the body politic but we want to see this one addressed.

I draw the committee's attention to the fact we have been campaigning for two years for a basic business qualification for small businesses. We want to upskill our own people in this sphere. Businesses contribute to the upskilling requirement via the National Training Fund deduction, in that 1% of PRSI is taken off employers and put into the National Training Fund. There is close to €1 billion in the fund, which we are trying to allocate intelligently to get the best impact for the business community in specific upskilling. I agree with the Deputy's point that there is a solid business case to remove inequality in the leaving certificate and pre-leaving certificate.

Deputy Aodhán Ó Ríordáin

I wish to ask Dr. Freeman a direct question on access to STEM subjects in all-girl schools or within our highly gendered second level system. Approximately one third of our second level schools are single gender. Traditionally, access to STEM subjects has been a challenge among all-girl schools, which is changing but possibly not changing enough. Is that something Dr. Freeman agrees with? Is it still an issue? Does remote learning, which we have seen during the past three years, offer an opportunity to schools, which have not had such a traditional dynamic, to deliver certain subjects into the future? Could remote learning fill that gap?

Dr. Ruth Freeman

Absolutely. In terms of that whole use of digital technology, particularly where out-of-field teachers are currently covering a subject in school, we could use methodologies like that to get high quality teaching across different schools. We need to think about breaking down those barriers. When it comes to the gendered aspect of schools, there was some evidence previously which showed that perhaps girls did better in STEM subjects in an all-girls school. That evidence is very weak and we would have to question what other aspects that are going on in a gendered school that are giving those outcomes. We have talked a great deal about education needing to reflect society and the challenges people will have in the workplace and on an ongoing basis. Diverse working in teams is what we need to see and that is what we should see in our education system as well.

Chairman

I thank Deputy Ó Ríordáin for his question. I call Deputy Ó Cathasaigh, to be followed by Deputy O'Callaghan.

Deputy Marc Ó Cathasaigh

I will begin by referring to something that Dr. Smyth did not reach while making her opening contribution. The final paragraph of the opening statement begins by stating, "In conclusion, existing evidence points to a negative effect of the Leaving Certificate assessment model on the education and socio-economic development of young people and points to the potential to adopt a broader approach to assessment that is not focused on a short window of time at the end of their second-level education." The paragraph goes on to rehearse a lot of the deficiencies in the leaving certificate model that have been repeatedly identified at this committee. There has been close to unanimity expressed on the deficiencies that exist in the leaving certificate. There has been mention of the need to move to an alternative assessment model that works across the senior cycle. There is also the fact that we tend to point at the matriculation element of the leaving certificate and to focus too much on that. There is also the temptation within all schools to move to a system of rote learning, which definitely has an ongoing impact into third level, and further and higher education where people who are good at rote learning are promoted and the deficiency in critical thinking skills remains in place. I would encourage people to read the last paragraph of the opening statement as supplied. It is a very good summation of many of the contributions that we have had at this committee so far.

I have a range of reasonably specific questions for Dr. Freeman and Mr. Donohoe. I will start by asking Dr. Freeman about the STEM field. We have never before experienced such a rate of change in the STEM area. Are we keeping pace in terms of the curriculum specifications for sciences such as physics and computer sciences? There has been an extremely high rate of change in computer sciences in particular. We referenced teaching skills as well. Are we getting the engagement on CPD that we need in order for teaching to deliver at the level needed? Formal accreditation has been mentioned. Are we incentivising this? Unless there is a carrot to that stick, in respect of people taking on CPD in their own time, then we cannot expect people to engage as they lead busy lives. Are we doing enough to support the learning of digital skills and digital technologies?

In the specifications for subjects, are we pointing at things that really do develop problem solving and critical thinking? Coding is a very logical format and is based around problem solving and critical thinking skills. Are we doing enough to retrofit STEM subjects in schools to keep pace with the actual change in the area?

Dr. Ruth Freeman

The STEM subjects for the leaving certificate are subject to the same general issues that we have all talked about this morning, namely, rote learning and the regurgitation of facts in the final summit of exams. Through the work that has been done in Dublin City University and other places, we can see that there is a good opportunity to bring in that inquiry base in respect of the STEM subjects. As experimentation, by its very nature, is in the STEM subjects, we can bring that in.

The general issues, however, remain in STEM. We have discussed the idea of portfolios of work and teamwork. We need to start bringing those aspects into the formal assessment processes.

We can think about recognising the learning and informal education outside of schools. I wish to reference things like SciFest, BT Young Scientist and Technology Exhibition, and the CanSat competition. There are also things like Model United Nations, where students undertake to do teamwork and presentation work. We have some very strong activities in Ireland with which we could build more formal partnerships in terms of the education system and we could think about how we can make sure that all schools have access to those kinds of extracurricular activities and that they are incentivised and enabled for schools. We can do that.

In terms of STEM, and I think Ms Costello referred to this, we need people to go and access data. We can all get data by typing into the Internet now. What we need to do is teach people the scientific method. I mean how to set up an experiment, analyse data, assess the information generated by the experiment and generate a hypothesis.

Those are core skills that will be addressed across the whole curriculum.

When it comes to teachers, our CPD interventions are primarily at primary school level. We can probably extrapolate from some of the lessons there, however. We need to incentivise teachers to do CPD courses. It is not formally recognised if they do CPD through SFI. Most of the CPD in the primary system, perhaps understandably, focuses on numeracy and literacy. Those are clearly core skills we want people to come out of school with. Our focus is on inquiry-based learning and supporting teachers who do not have the confidence in STEM to teach STEM for those early years. We have to put in place backfilling and make it possible for teachers. Teachers have a busy curriculum and they work hard. We have to be realistic about what they can do. When we bring in these interventions, we need to make sure that they can work in the context of the school working day for teachers.

Deputy Marc Ó Cathasaigh

I have a couple of questions for Mr. Donohoe. He said that we perform in a medium way. I want to give him an opportunity to comment on where we are with life-long learning. This is an element of education that we can afford to do better in. Mr. Donohoe referred to digital skills, environmental awareness, and technical decarbonisation skills. Ms Costello commented on some specifics that we might need. I wanted to give Mr. Donohoe the opportunity to comment on a more specific range of skills he thinks we will need in those areas, whether in further education or in the workforce. It is similar to what I asked Dr. Freeman. Are we retrofitting our curriculum quickly enough to provide the basis for tracking that through education and into the workforce?

Mr. Tony Donohoe

On the Deputy's question about lifelong learning, we were much poorer on this in comparison with elsewhere. I will give the figures from the latest EUROSTAT in October or November. It asks people across Europe if they have had experience of lifelong learning or been involved in any sort of course in the previous four weeks? Ireland had an 11% rate. The EU average was 9.2%. I can remember when we were at 7%, and at 6% at one stage. We have improved but we are still not at the levels which can be seen in northern Europe. Sweden has a rate of 28.6%, Finland is at 27% and Denmark is at 20%. We have targets to hit. I do not think we can overemphasise the importance, from a business perspective, of lifelong learning and the requirement for it because of the pace of change.

Mr. McDonnell mentioned the SME sector. His organisation is involved with the implementation of a report which looks at introducing best practice management methods for owner managers and the SME sector. Looking at our analysis of what needs to happen there, it goes back to developing this entrepreneurial mindset in the school system. This is where it starts. When we think of entrepreneurship, it is not just creation of financial value, but seeing opportunities and exploiting them to create value. It can be financial and economic, but it can also be cultural and social. It goes back to my original point that there is not an exclusive business voice in this conversation.

The Deputy asked questions about zero-carbon and environmental awareness. Yesterday, we launched a report on skills for the zero-carbon economy, which is tied into the Government's climate action plan and what will be required to deliver on this. We are fishing in the same pond as the construction sector with the Housing for All targets, etc.

Much of it is in those traditional craft occupations and construction skills. However, they have another dimension. The Deputy mentioned retrofitting the curriculum. We must also introduce retrofitting skills into traditional apprenticeships.

We must also modify our motor maintenance courses and certification processes to acknowledge that electric vehicles are coming down the track. Many of the skills involved can be completely new. We have, for example, a new apprenticeship for wind turbine technician coming on stream. Many of them are for new occupations but more of them are actually for modifying existing courses, as I said in my opening remarks, across business studies, engineering and a whole range of occupations. We are also producing a report we hope to launch before the end of the year from the EGFSN on artificial intelligence. Again, we want the specialists but it is more likely to be something plus artificial intelligence or something plus zero carbon. Rather than totally new occupations, it is about disruption of existing occupations and tasks that need to reflect what are sometimes called mega-trends, such as zero carbon.

We touched on this earlier. I think Deputy Conway-Walsh talked about schools being measured by students getting 97% conversion to university with other schools getting much lower levels. There is an argument that schools with 97% conversion are failing huge numbers of their students. There are probably many students in that cohort who are perhaps very technical and would do very well through STEM routes, in apprenticeships and in other kinds of STEM-type roles. Perhaps we could do that through having other routes as well, through STEM in the leaving certificate, and not just a points race with these three very clearly divided subjects that, because of stereotypes, attract very different cohorts of students to study them. That does not really represent science in the real world.

Deputy Jim O'Callaghan

Should we try to identify at an earlier stage people who have a particular capacity and ability for STEM subjects? Is that trying to make a decision too early in their educational careers?

Dr. Ruth Freeman

When we look at the world that lies ahead of us, there is an argument for the critical role STEM will play in dealing with climate change, in particular, and the big societal changes that are coming. Having a STEM-literate population, and a history-literate and English-literate population, is a good thing. That is the strength of our system because things do not operate in silos. It is a disadvantage if we get people to specialise very early on, but we could have different emphases on their subjects. As Dr. Smyth alluded to, maybe not all the subjects would be assessed for a university route. It is getting away from this idea that someone is only in school to focus on that big exam summit at the end. If we broaden it to include school being about education to be a lifelong learner, a global citizen and someone who can, in an informed way, participate in democracy and the decisions society has to make, that changes the conversation. I do not know if that answers the question.

Deputy Jim O'Callaghan

It does. I will ask Ms Costello a question in respect of what was in her statement on behalf of IBEC. She referred to the fact that an education system should really be making students curious about what they are and are not learning. One of the criticisms of the leaving certificate is that people get out of habit of thinking for themselves and instead just rote learn answers they believe are appropriate to exam questions. Is it important that business has people who think for themselves? Is there a concern in business, and possibly elsewhere, that we are producing many graduates and people who do not think for themselves and in fact outsource their thinking to others?

Ms Meadhbh Costello

It is very important that we develop people and graduates who have the capability to critically analyse and develop information, in addition to acting on it. Embedding this critical thinking into second level, and even primary, education will be so important. The fact is rote learning tests people's ability to recall information at a specific moment in time, but does not necessarily allow people to critically analyse and assess that information because they are training for a very specific final examination, with set questions, etc., they can prepare for. We need to look at how we can assess those pieces around critical skills and critical thinking. That comes back to things like looking at project work and the modernisation of some aspects of further education that could be brought into the second level education stream. We should also look at things like portfolios of achievement and even external options for different project-based work that can all build up that critical thinking component. That will be very important as we see technologies being developed incredibly quickly. How can we respond to that and to challenges such as Brexit and Covid? That requires a very high aptitude for critical thinking.

Businesses are often very focused on STEM subjects but, equally, multidisciplinary learning that combines the humanities with STEM subjects will be incredibly important as we go forward. We need the technologists who can develop new technologies and resolve very technical issues, but we also need, for example, behavioural economists, coming from the humanities who can tell us how to apply these new technologies, and who can create that type of behaviour change we need around issues such as climate change, which we have even seen during Covid.

Deputy Jim O'Callaghan

Mr. McDonnell referred in his paper to some concern about an ad hoc approach to continuous assessment.

Do I detect from this that although Mr. McDonnell recognises the faults in the leaving certificate, he believes it is better than what would replace it if we had internal assessment by teachers?

Mr. Neil McDonnell

The point was that the manner in which the continuous assessment was marked for two successive years was ad hoc. It had highly negative consequences. On the other side, we need to move to a continuous assessment model. We look to achieve from that something that is objective and reliable. I do not come at this from an educational perspective and would not hazard to offer how that would be achieved. I think the other contributors will do that. From the moment a young person leaves school and goes to college, he or she will be subjected to continuous assessment. In the workplace, he or she will be subjected to continuous assessment. It is hard and sometimes brutal for that to happen and the sooner they get used to it, the better. I will summarise the point by stating the manner in which continuous assessment was executed in the leaving certificate years of 2020 and 2021 is not the way we can execute it in future.

Deputy Jim O'Callaghan

Mr. Donohoe, like all the contributors, says it is extremely important to try to develop critical thinking among second level students and other persons. Is that possible in an exam structure that has questions that in general, have a right or wrong answer and do not enable somebody who displays different types of thought processes and analysis to gain points?

Mr. Tony Donohoe

I am not sure I fully agree that exam questions have a right and wrong answer. In mathematics, for example, marks are attributed with an emphasis on showing your working out and how far you take the question. Marks are assigned for that. We have mentioned the humanities, history, English etc. In those subjects, it is around how the arguments are developed. The answer might be wrong but critical thought processes may be demonstrated. Dr. Freeman has mentioned problem-solving in science. If you have demonstrated an ability to think critically in your answer, you should and in some instances do get marks assigned for that, rather than for ending up with the right or wrong answer.

I do not want that to sound like a defence of terminal exams, though I think they have a value. The problem with the leaving certificate system is that it is predominantly about the terminal exam, which skews the system. That does not apply to all subjects. History has projects. I always thought home economics was a really good subject at leaving certificate level with multiple methods of assessment. Still, the system generally is skewed by this one, high-stakes exam, which, I would argue, is more stressful than continuous assessment.

Senator Pauline O'Reilly

I thank the witnesses. I will follow up on a couple of points now that we have a bit of time and have heard the opening statements and initial responses to questions. One such point is around citizenship. I met the Dublin Chamber task force on sustainability last week. I am keen to look at what we can do in education to ensure people are fully informed about things like putting in submissions and planning, as well as the impact that has on both the wider community and on business. For instance, we know that cycling and walking in urban areas increase footfall, bring people into retail and support local businesses. Dublin Chamber has put out some helpful statistics on that.

However, that is not always reflected in the submissions that come in. Is there something that can be done in that regard in schools to ensure people are fully informed? There are cities, though I cannot name them off the top of my heard, where the vast majority, or between 80% and 90%, of people were against public realm space being developed but, once it was in place, 91% were in favour of it. That is a real challenge for us in the context of moving fast enough on the climate and biodiversity crisis.

It is also a real difficulty when it comes to sustainability in business, because businesses are trying to do two things. They are trying to appeal in some ways to their customers who are saying one thing but they know the green way is the way of the future for business. I would love any insight our guests may have on that and how we could build that into leaving certificate or the education system more generally.

A really interesting point was made in respect of working in a team. I cannot remember whether it was Mr. Donohoe or Mr. McDonnell who bought that whole issue up. Where are we seeing the downsides to people not having the skills to work in a team? Is there some way in which it is crystal clear when people leave school that they do not have those skills? Mr. McDonnell made a point in his opening statement in respect of the fact that, contrary to the narrative we hear, we are not a world leader when it comes to education. We may be just above average but when one considers Ireland in the global context and the kind of wealth the country has, one would probably expect us to be doing far more there. It would be a shame for the committee to come out with a report that continues that false narrative when we actually have an opportunity to be really creative and innovative about what we can do next.

Mr. Neil McDonnell

On the team working issue, many schools are good at that, certainly in transition year but also up to junior certificate level. They put kids doing syndicate work and project work together. Where there is no emphasis on this, that should be addressed. I always say to new employees that it is not necessarily their technical skills that will result in them getting into trouble or an end to their employment, it is their soft skills, that is, the ability to deal with other people and communicate with people. Soft skills are essential in the workplace and if young people do not have an exposure to working in teams, they may struggle in that regard. Team sports are a great educator in that way but many kids are not involved in team sports. Similarly, students being given a project where a big task is divided into three, four, five or six smaller tasks and each person is responsible for one part of that task and that has to be co-ordinated is an introduction to the way the working environment works. Initiatives like that on a structured basis in the education system are really necessary. This is an area where young people run into trouble when they come into a formal work setting and are told to go away to work, possibly with a person who is 20 or 30 years older than them, and that is a big deal and they have never done anything like it before. That is an essential skill.

On the issue of Ireland not being world-leading, I do not wish to give the idea that I think the education system is going backwards. What I am suggesting is that peer countries are moving forward far more quickly than we are and they are constantly improving. Education is an iterative process and things change all the time. The advances we have seen in digital learning in the past two years purely because of Covid have been extraordinary. That will be a worldwide phenomenon. Are we going to be able to exploit it? If we are very conservative or move at the speed of the slowest participant in educational reform, that is where we will be left behind.

Other countries will advance quickly on that. It is not an absence of performance in our system. Rather, we are seeing high performance among peer and competitor countries.

Senator Pauline O'Reilly

My first question was on citizenship. I would be anxious to hear any responses to that and I know Dr. Freeman spoke about citizenship.

Dr. Ruth Freeman

It is about rethinking what the senior cycle is about. The committee has heard us all in violent agreement that this final summit of high stakes is dominating the entire way we think about the senior cycle. There is a lot of evidence and I agree with Mr. McDonald that other countries are moving quickly and are looking at this evidence base about how people teach and learn. We know what we need to change; we just need to be bold about how we do it and to empower the teachers and the system to do it.

The continuous assessment and the calculated grades that happened during Covid are not the ideal scenario. That was an emergency response that we had to take on. It is important that we do not judge what a continuous assessment might look like based on that. We need to go back to the experts and researchers who are looking into this and who are developing ways that we can do more objective continuous assessment. We can empower and train teachers to do that. There is no doubt that additional skills will be required for teachers to do that. In terms of global citizenship, we must change the narrative that everything is about the points at the end of the day, and we heard about students almost complaining about teachers who went off-piste away from what they needed to do in the exam. That is when we can reframe the discussion and we need to think about school as more than just preparing for that academic pathway. It is for preparing for many different pathways and it is about preparing for life.

I will raise the following point because it comes up in a lot of our campaigns around women's' health and menopause. Are we equipping people to even look after their own bodies once they leave school? Are we giving people basic training in life skills? That has to be more than just a couple of modules in transition year. We need to think about those kinds of empowering skills for everyone. Once we change the dial and move the focus away from the final exam it opens up a world of opportunities for us to create more engaged citizens.

Mr. Tony Donohoe

As Dr. Freeman says, we are in violent agreement on a lot of this stuff. It is about the "How" rather than the "What". I urge members to be careful about discussions around quality of education. Quality is a slippery concept when it comes to education. I represent a group that is looking for education that is relevant to particular needs of the economy but companies want good citizens as well as productive workers and there is no contradiction in that.

The writer who I frequently refer back to is Howard Gardner, who made his name in the 1980s in the field of multiple intelligences. I am sure that colleagues would be aware of that in general terms at least. More recently he wrote a book for business leaders and he talked about the disciplined mind, the creative mind and the synthesising mind, which is an important one. Members will have heard previous contributors talk about technology. It is not just about the technology itself but the design, the design thinking and understanding what people want and need. That brings in the humanities as much as the technical skills. Howard Gardner also talks about the respectful mind and the ethical mind and it is important in a business context that we are respectful. That thought refers back to our conversation around teams.

It is also about working in companies with globalised structures, respecting differences with people. The ethical mind is not just about moral ethics, but about exercising one's responsibilities against the Senator's point as a citizen. We have seen some fairly graphic examples of this, particularly in the debates around climate. The OECD's PISA study suggests that Irish school kids, or 15-year-olds, show a relatively high awareness of environmental issues. We should not, therefore, go too hard on the system. Where I would suggest-----

Chairman

To be fair to other members, I have shown the Senator very generous leniency. I am aware that I have not given the same leniency to other members. I will bring the Senator back in when I bring the other speakers back in. I call on Senator Dolan first and then I will go back to Deputy Conway-Walsh. I have a couple of questions and then I will come back to the Deputy.

Senator Aisling Dolan

I thank the Chair. It is wonderful to be here today and I welcome all our speakers. I know Dr. Smyth from the ESRI, Dr. Freeman from Science Foundation Ireland, Ms Costello from IBEC and Mr. Donohoe from our expert group on future skills needs and Mr. McDonnell from ISME. We are all here to talk about reform of the leaving certificate. It is great to hear that in the submissions, from what I can pick up on, overall there is quite a lot of support for us looking at a reformed leaving certificate. That is what our committee is here for. We welcome the witnesses' submissions. This is going to feed into a report and many recommendations. It will drive change within the Department of Education. I thank the witnesses for the time they have spent in putting the submissions together and for the thought they have given to them. I have a few questions and will give a bit of an overview as well. On the future of skills, witnesses talked about the artificial intelligence, the digital transformation and the challenges we have and have seen over the past year and a half with healthcare and with climate change.

I might pose my first question to Science Foundation Ireland. It is great to see Dr. Freeman. First, I congratulate Science Foundation Ireland's new director general, Professor Philip Nolan, who will be taking up the role shortly. Professor Mark Ferguson, I suppose, will continue as chief scientific adviser. He has led the ship over a long number of years, which has been great to see. I welcome some of the projects that SFI has been doing in the community. I am based in Ballinasloe, County Galway, and I represent Roscommon and Galway. The Creating our Future roadshow and the impact it has had in engaging with the communities across towns and villages has been excellent. I thank SFI's team for that. I have some questions for Dr. Freeman. In the submission from Science Foundation Ireland, Dr. Freeman talked a little bit out the accreditation of teachers. I know that previously, teachers were involved in different projects - perhaps at the centres of excellence around the country - working with researchers, getting a flavour and making them more exhilarated about science and the potential of science and so on. Dr. Freeman might speak a little about the accreditation of teachers and what that could look like, were we looking at it for a secondary school.

The witnesses also mentioned lifelong learners. I have enjoyed this theme, which has run through a number of the submissions. I work closely with the Minister for Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science, Deputy Harris, on the apprenticeship programme about rolling out all the opportunities. The Minister, Deputy Harris, through the Central Applications Office, CAO, reform next year, will showcase everything that is there including the post leaving certificate, PLC, and further education sectors and the apprenticeship programme, as well as our traditional routes into college. I like this focus. I ask Dr. Freeman to comment on STEM in the CAO reform and what impact that might have on science. She spoke as well about girls taking up STEM subjects. I remember from when I was there about the importance of role models. I note role models were important in the reports that came back to us. What sort of role models do we need for the future for both boy and girl students going forward? Maybe Dr. Freeman can say something about that.

I have a question for Mr. Donohoe about the expert group on future skills needs.

He referred to our school and educational experience giving an appetite for learning after school. I liked that phrase. As part of the expert group's report, Together for Design, it worked with career guidance teachers. Is there any feedback from that? Was that solely to do with transition year?

Mr. Donohoe spoke about the low levels of lifelong learning and I am aware of the 11% statistic. We need to get people back into the workforce and back into study. So many people have taken career breaks. There are mums and dads at home who have taken time out. How do we encourage them and get their confidence back so they think about study, working or taking part in their local communities? Community groups are coming to the fore in towns and villages. They are driving change in our local areas, which is why it is important that people consider living and working in regional areas. I ask the witnesses to say a little on that.

Mr. Donohoe also spoke about languages. As an arts student, I appreciated that because languages are very important. I have to upskill as Gaeilge but French and Spanish are very important to me. I ask the witnesses to expand a little on language skills.

Dr. Smyth from the ESRI spoke about the stress for students and I appreciated that. I am not sure I like the term soft skills. I never did. I was an arts student and people would always talk about soft skills but I never liked the term. I like thinking about skills we have for life.

I will come back to fifth year and leaving certificate students. In an ideal world, what would a perfect leaving certificate look like? I would welcome a comment on that from any of the witnesses.

I again thank the witnesses. We need to develop our skills and equip our students. They are our talent and the people who will drive forward and lead our country, whether in public representation, communities, business, research or any other walk of life. Education is crucial for that to happen and the witnesses' submissions are crucial for us in looking at how we ensure students are equipped to take on these challenges and succeed in them.

Dr. Ruth Freeman

I thank Senator Dolan for those questions. I will try to be brief so we can get through them all. On accreditation, there are lots of models in other professions whereby we can recognise CPD more broadly, rather than just the CPD coming through the Department of Education. We should be thinking about where can we get teachers to go out and get these skills. We can then accredit them and make sure they reach a certain standard and they can use a portfolio of different accreditation. At primary school we have the green schools and the discover primary science and maths, DPSM, programmes. We can develop a model of accredited skills for teachers. We do it in engineering and accountancy and loads of other professions so we can do that.

When it comes to role models, we have done research and spoken to thousands of students in their first year of college. We have spoken to 3,000 or 4,000 students and asked them detailed questions about why they are doing the course they are doing. The biggest factor in determining the course is whether they think they will fit in with the other people on the course. They are thinking about whether they will be like the other people on the course, and that is true whether they choose a STEM subject or a non-STEM subject. As a society we need to think about what kind of role models we are putting out there. In the STEM area we work with RTÉ and that is why we do things like Science Week. It is about opportunities to get out there and present all these different kinds of careers and options and show people that they can be a scientist, for example. We have to smash those stereotypes and that is just as much the case in the arts. There are probably young boys out there who are interested in dance and music and may feel that stereotypes are not allowing them to pursue their passions.

We hugely welcome the new options on the CAO form. STEM has consistently been associated with high academic achievement in maths but we know there is a range involved. We need far more diverse ways of thinking in STEM than just people who are getting top marks in higher level maths.

I fully endorse having a broad range of pathways into STEM. STEM needs to be broad and diverse if we are to solve the problems.

Senator Aisling Dolan

I thank Dr. Freeman. It is true that it is about connecting with students to show that it is a path that is open to them, and it is about accessibility.

Dr. Emer Smyth

I am glad the Senator raised the issue of stress. The levels of stress associated with the leaving certificate assessment and preparation are concerning. It drives activities such as sports outside school, which are a protective factor. We have seen positive developments related to well-being in the junior cycle, with time and space devoted to it. We need to see that carried forward into the senior cycle. We need to not see well-being as an add-on that should be pushed aside in preparation for the examination. We need to embed some of the life skills that we have been talking about in that way. The National Council for Curriculum and Assessment, NCCA, is currently reviewing relationships and sexuality education. Data from Growing Up in Ireland have shown that there are still gaps for young people. We assume that young people are talking to their parents about sex and relationships, when they are not necessarily, and young men in particular may be missing out on those conversations. It is important that we have a nuanced view of sex education in our schools in the context of broader well-being.

Senator Aisling Dolan

I thank Dr. Smyth. As a member of the first ever Oireachtas Sub-Committee on Mental Health, I welcome that. It is crucial that there are safe places for people to talk and that they feel confident about talking about schools or clubs. In sixth class classes in Galway and Roscommon, there is a programme with Galway Sports Partnership, where 11 and 12-year-olds run marathons. They do between 600 m and 800 m a week. It is about building lifelong skills of having a routine of running and how that is good for both head and heart.

Mr. Tony Donohoe

I will take the Senator's three questions. As we have said before, we all agree about developing an appetite for lifelong learning. There is also the matter of providing opportunities. There are some interesting projects happening in the human capital initiative, including a project relating to microcredentials, which provides learning in bite-sized chunks. For many full-time workers, it is impossible to allocate time to get a master's or bachelor's degree. Turning that into chunks and having an education system, including universities, technological universities and institutes of technology, that presents information in a modular way is positive.

The second question was about apprenticeships. These will work if we give people real progression opportunities. There has been significant discussion about apprenticeships since we had the reform in 2012. There is evidence on the ground relating to taking up new apprenticeships. The traditional 27 craft apprenticeships will go with the ebb and flow of the construction sector. Demand is high at the moment. There have been 6,700 so far this year, which is higher than last year and is encouraging. I am particularly interested in the other apprenticeships, which go up to PhD level. The University of Limerick provides a PhD for principal engineers. That is needed. It is about young people's aspirations and breaking the stranglehold of the points system and the leaving certificate on young people's aspirations. That can be done by providing them with opportunities to progress. Those are the critical elements of the apprenticeship model.

On the matter of languages, I have been involved in education policy for a long time. I find languages the most problematic of the lot, with regard to how they are actually addressed. It is a disadvantage of being an English-speaking country. I do not think the teaching and learning of Irish has done any favours, which is due to the way that Irish is taught rather than the fact that it should be taught.

It might have dissuaded some people from taking up languages. Basically, we need to give young people opportunities to use languages, be it in sport or wherever else and in different contexts. Believe me, language skills are critical in this post-Brexit world. Those in the Irish indigenous sector, in particular, will have to diversify their markets. There is an old saying that you buy in your own language but you sell in your customer's language. If one wants to be successful in export markets one needs to have staff who have a facility with languages.

Senator Aisling Dolan

I thank Mr. Donohoe for that response. On apprenticeships, the new technological universities, particularly for Athlone and Limerick, the Technological University of the Shannon, TUS, Midlands Midwest, and the Connacht-Ulster Alliance, which will be kicking off with the Galway Mayo Institute of Technology, GMIT, the Institute of Technology, IT, Sligo and the Institute of Technology, IT, Letterkenny, have been working closely with the education and training boards, ETBs, in each of those regions to drive post-leaving certificate courses and national framework of qualifications, NFQ, levels and to bring people, as Mr. Donohoe said, right the whole way through to masters or PhD level but doing it in smaller chunks and making it more accessible. A student spoke at the launch of TUS Midlands Midwest in Athlone who had started doing a PLC course and then moved on, and she is now head of the students' union in that brand new university. That is an excellent example of how one can progress, taking it slowly, having the option to earn and learn and handle the costs involved in attending college. Go raibh maith agat, Mr. Donohoe. I thank the Chairman. I do not know if I have any time remaining.

Chairman

No. The Senator is well over her allotted time.

I have a few questions for the representative from IBEC on continuous assessment and apprenticeships. What is IBEC's view on the Government and the Minister, Deputy Harris's proposals on apprenticeships and their importance on foot of his recent announcement on them? Will one or more than one of the witnesses comment on the need for fluency in modern foreign languages among the workforce? How can the teaching of those languages be improved in the context of reform? Mr. McDonnell or Mr. Donohoe spoke about people working in teams. The leaving certificate is like a sport but it is very much an individual sport. Everyone is out for himself or herself. There is very little team work involved other than in a small limited number of subjects. With the way things have changed in the workforce, everything is now about working in teams. Much more is achieved through working in teams. Have the witnesses ideas or proposals on how such team work could fit into a reformed leaving certificate? I will bring in Mr. McDonnell first and another witness might indicate to respond to my question on modern foreign languages.

Mr. Neil McDonnell

Not being an educationalist, I would be reluctant to get into the detail of this other than to observe team working is an essential skill. As to how that is achieved, I will leave the nuts and bolts of that to others. For example, there are projects in history, business, even in mathematics, science or biology than could be done on a team rather than an individual basis and they could be marked on that basis with a collective mark for the members of the team rather than an individual mark. Those are the sorts of ways it could be achieved but I would leave that issue to those who are vocationally qualified to suggest how it could be achieved.

Chairman

I thank Mr. McDonnell for that response. Ms Costello might comment on my question on apprenticeships and continuous assessment.

Ms Meadhbh Costello

Yes. There are exciting opportunities to embed aspects of the apprenticeship system or further education and training, FUT, offerings into the second level education. On apprenticeships, there are clear opportunities to introduce apprenticeship programmes. That would help to achieve the overall ambition set out in the national apprenticeship action plan of increasing the number of apprenticeships to 10,000 per year.

The introduction of employer-led apprenticeships in key industry areas, such as cybersecurity, finance and accounting, has really transformed the apprenticeship offering in Ireland. However, we really need to boost the perception of apprenticeships for key stakeholders, including parents, guidance counsellors and students themselves, to create a narrative around apprenticeships that actually shows their true offering. We need to highlight that the apprenticeship is an alternative model of learning that crosses the boundary from further to higher education. There are opportunities to earn while you learn, develop a lifelong career and earn qualifications up to level 10.

One example of a potential opportunity is the P-TECH pilot, which has been rolled out in Dublin's North East Inner City, with a number of schools involved there. It provides an example of this type of public-private partnership that is supported by industry and education institutions to increase the number of students who are engaged in this type of learning and to help them achieve a qualification on the QQI framework, as well as a school qualification. We need to assess the progress that the pilot has made and explore what type of opportunities there are to expand it into other areas.

On the issue of modern languages, I think it was mentioned earlier that from a business perspective, it is critical that we increase the number of people who are engaging in modern languages, as well as diversifying the languages that they are engaging in. In recent years, we have seen a growing demand for language skills. However, we do not have the skills available in Ireland to meet these needs. Indeed, prior to Covid, there was actually an increasing number of vacancies associated with those language skills. Ireland's language strategy sets out the objective of diversifying and increasing the uptake of languages learned, as well as cultivating the languages that exist in our community. We have people of more than 200 different nationalities in Ireland. We need to look at the impact of issues such as Brexit and globalisation, which are actually driving the demand for the learning of different languages. We must look at the challenges around the dominance of English in the global area, the lack of awareness around opportunities that foreign languages can bring to the individual and the perceived difficulty around learning languages, as well as the shortage of teachers who are qualified to teach modern languages.

Chairman

I address my questions to Dr. Smyth and Dr. Freeman. On the issue of the reform of the leaving certificate and the reform of subjects, I recently met with chartered accountants and representatives of the private sector to discuss the reform of the teaching of accountancy and the way it has changed dramatically over the last number of years. Of course, there is a need to reform the leaving certificate, but do Dr. Smyth and Dr. Freeman feel there is a need to reform the way some of the subjects are being taught? Perhaps it is a wider conversation that we should be having. I would be interested in hearing their opinion on that issue. I ask them to comment on the issue of modern foreign languages and how we can work that into the reform of the leaving certificate.

Dr. Emer Smyth

I think how we teach and how we assess are inextricably linked. We have seen that the focus on exam preparation, in the context of subject areas with quite detailed course content, puts pressure on students and teachers to focus on very teacher-led methods, and not the kind of experiments and group, presentation and interactive work that students find engaging and that actually help them learn better. If we reform what is rewarded or how we assess what is done in senior cycle, that will help foster more engaging approaches to teaching. However, that alone will not be sufficient. We will have to support teachers to take advantage of the opportunities that an opened-up system would provide. We have seen that they have reacted positively to junior cycle reform. It would provide an opportunity for those kinds of methods to carry forward into senior cycle for both teachers and students.

The language issue is very tricky, as Mr. Donohoe has said. It is a curse of being an English-speaking country. When we talk to young people and interview them about languages, they ask why they should bother with them because everybody speaks English. It is back to awareness and the facilitation of guidance early in junior cycle on course choices and thinking about options for the future.

We also see this with apprenticeships and there has been a change. Having apprenticeships in the CAO process will likely have positive outcomes. What we see when we speak with parents and students is that higher education is the cultural norm. If young people get into a post-leaving certificate course or apprenticeship, they often see it as second best in many cases. They see themselves as not having attained what they really wanted. We really need to support young people's choices from very early on, even as far back as primary school, keeping options open for them regardless of gender or social background.

Dr. Ruth Freeman

I fully support Dr. Smyth's comments on the assessment methods. In looking at STEM, as I alluded to earlier in my comments to Deputy Jim O'Callaghan, the big difference we see between students who take biology versus physics and chemistry is not reflective of what we see in STEM in the world of work or in university. If we step back and think about the key capabilities we want, we are talking about developing curiosity, inquisitiveness, critical thinking, analytic and problem-solving techniques and group work. Perhaps we could have a more modular curriculum that is not fully teacher-led with a vast array of set knowledge but rather one where students can identify modules in which they are interested and curious about within the scope of a curriculum. It would not be so defined. Some of the curiosity and love of learning we have all identified as important comes from being able to spend some time exploring and learning what people are interested in.

The more modular approach was discussed in terms of microcredentials and breaking down the experience in different ways and that would certainly be beneficial in STEM. It gives a resilience as people would be learning to learn rather than just learning a set of information when, quite honestly, they could probably google much of it or it will be out of date, as we have all acknowledged the fast pace of STEM and of everything. There is also a creative piece that we see as really critical in STEM and there are hard lines sometimes drawn between STEM subjects and the skills associated with languages, arts, design and creativity, for example. We must have a more cohesive approach in bringing them together and recognising we do not just want people strong in one area but we need to foster all those skills.

Chairman

Mr. Donohoe is chair of his grouping and, therefore, I ask him about the importance of apprenticeships. We had a conversation here a number of weeks ago with other witnesses. I am delighted that apprenticeships are part of the CAO process but before that if a young person was not completing the form or talking about it, he or she would not be part of the peer group. Apprenticeships coming into the CAO process will make them more enticing for many people.

Have the witnesses any comments on the importance of transition year? Is there any scope for part of the transition year to be part of a final assessment for the leaving certificate? It is a really important year. Listening to a number of witnesses over the past number of weeks, the importance of the transition year has come through. We can see the learning and common sense that students gain and they can see different options they may not have considered previously. I am interested in comments on that.

It is one thing to say we will double the number of apprenticeships but we visited the technological university facilities at Cork and Limerick and people there spoke about pressures on those facilities. Much investment is needed in colleges if we are to double the number of apprenticeships and take a serious look at the number of apprenticeships we have and need.

Mr. Tony Donohoe

I will take the apprenticeships question first, if I may.

It is a bit like leaving certificate reform insofar as everybody agrees on the "what" but there is less agreement on the "how". This one has been around for the last decade. During the last crisis it was decided by the then Government that the apprenticeship model and the number of apprenticeships available were not meeting the needs of the economy, especially given that there were just 27 craft apprenticeships. There are 62 apprenticeships now. There are opportunities but, as Dr. Smyth has said, it is very difficult to change the cultural mindset. Ireland has either the highest or second highest succession or progression rate to higher education in the EU. It is very difficult to persuade people that educational attainment involves anything other than higher education. Culturally, it is what all levels of society aspire to. We should not underestimate that challenge. I still believe that by providing for a broader number of apprenticeships and making these progression pathways a reality for people, we can demonstrate that they can go on and do an honours degree, a master’s degree or a PhD if they want to. If those progression pathways are transparent, this approach is more likely to work but it is going to take a heck of a long time. It is worth doing. The earn and learn model works in other countries. I believe that the institutes of technology and the technological universities have an important part to play in this as well.

I agree with Senator Dolan’s point on investment in equipment. We found that in some apprenticeships, we need more capital investment in medical devices, etc. This is part of a much broader conversation about capital investment in higher and further education. Education is trying to compete with health and housing, which are the current must-haves. Due to its longer term nature, we tend not to notice the deterioration in capital and the lack of investment over a longer period of time. That is a big mistake. We are shoring up problems for the future.

I agree 100% that there is a significant opportunity to embed transition year in some other way into the leaving certificate. Ireland’s transition year is quite unusual when one looks at other education systems. It is a real strength. It provides an opportunity to bring business and education together. I believe IBEC organised an event last year with the National Association of Principals and Deputy Principals which enabled many young people interact with business online, ironically. Anything that brings business and education together is very powerful. If that is to be valued, it has to be assessed in some ways. There is an old business adage that what gets measured gets managed. That also applies to education. It does not have to involve examinations, but it needs built in to the evaluation and assessment process.

Chairman

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Deputy Rose Conway-Walsh

I have two comments on the apprenticeships. I agree with everything that has been said. Currently, we have a backlog of approximately 10,000 apprentices waiting to do their apprenticeships. These apprenticeships, which should last four years, are lasting five or six years. We also need to deal with this in real time. That is certainly not helping the situation.

On PLC courses, I understand that approximately 4% of people who do the nursing PLC can then go on to actually take up nursing. That is also a real problem. There are too many very simple blocks that need to be taken away and for which somebody needs to take responsibility. We can be forever and a day talking about the future and the big broader pictures but if we do not remove these blocks, people are still going to find themselves in a situation where there are no defined pathways. We have spoken about this matter at this committee and at the Joint Committee on the Implementation of the Good Friday Agreement. We have brilliant oncology nurses but why do these nurses not go on to become consultants?

There are blocks there that need to be addressed. The pathways are not clearly defined. Sometimes we take up a few good examples and then think this is okay. We are losing out on the direction of travel we need to be going in with the wider population. That feeds into the excellent Science Foundation Ireland programmes. How do we mainstream those programmes? I feel a lot of money is, I will not say wasted, but we are not maximising the investment we make in those programmes by not mainstreaming them and, indeed, in some cases we are embedding inequalities in them where they are so closely defined in geographical areas. How will we mainstream them and what are the blocks to doing this at present?

We have some really talented young autistic men and women across the State and we are not investing in them in the way we should. They range from really creative people to those who are excellent at coding and programming, but we are losing a lot of this potential because we are not giving them the opportunities to excel to their full ability. I will confine myself to those two questions to allow for in-depth answers.

Dr. Ruth Freeman

At its heart, Science Foundation Ireland is very focused on the idea that everyone has a right to have access to STEM skills. As I said before, a lot of the challenges we face as a society will, at least, involve conversations about STEM. We have had loads of conversations over the past 18 months. We are all armchair scientists now. We have embedded in our programmes the idea of access and reaching those who do not have the same science capital that maybe the more privileged in society have. That is a fundamental objective of our discover programme.

To respond to Deputy Conway-Walsh's question on apprenticeships, in terms of the supply side, Covid-19 has not helped that. We probably also need talk to the responsible agencies such as SOLAS and Higher Education Authority about it. It is a critical issue in terms of the crafts apprenticeships. I note from the figures in the report we published yesterday that we need 33,000 housing units. Currently, we have approximately 40,000 workers in the sector. We will need 25,000 in the next five years and it will peak at 80,000. Between the Housing for All strategy and the climate action plan we will require a great number of workers in this space. At one level migration might be part of the answer but I would much prefer to see a stimulation of apprenticeship opportunities.

As I say, Covid-19 has probably not helped that. In addition, as Ms Costello alluded to, there is the speed at which they move through the system. There could be some bureaucratic impediments there.

Chairman

Deputy Conway-Walsh will have a further two minutes and we will then conclude the meeting.

Deputy Rose Conway-Walsh

I have to go to the Chamber, but I would be interested if one of the witnesses could speak about our talented autistic young people and how we can better support their needs and enable them to reach their full potential.

Dr. Emer Smyth

I will make a brief point. In any leaving certificate reform, full inclusion has to be embedded in the whole process so that we do not lose the talent of our wonderful young people. We have seen a sea change in investment and support for children and young people with special educational needs, but we all know there are still gaps. Colleagues, led by Dr. Selina McCoy, are doing some work at the ESRI looking at post-school opportunities for young people. It is a case of resources but also of inclusive practices at the school level. It is also about providing opportunities that will follow on from the level 1 learning programme, L1LP, and level 2 learning programme, L2LP, which have been a success at junior cycle level, and linking them in to options at a senior cycle level. It is also about providing flexible pathways within senior cycle so that we do not have, for example, a ring-fenced leaving certificate applied and that those kinds of opportunities and learning experiences can be experienced by all young people and that they could perhaps take a suite of short courses that would better suit their needs. This is an issue that is probably worth a session of its own.

Deputy Rose Conway-Walsh

I thank Dr. Smyth.

Chairman

That concludes our meeting. I thank Dr. Emer Smyth, Dr. Ruth Freeman, Ms Meadhbh Costello, Mr. Neil McDonnell and Mr. Tony Donohoe for attending, and also Mr. Aidan Power. I commend all the witnesses on their extensive research and commitment, and their willingness to engage with the committee and share their expert knowledge, expertise and insights. We are discussing an important issue. We hope the Minister will publish her report on the reform of leaving certificate from the National Council for Curriculum and Assessment, NCCA. It would be beneficial to this committee and everyone else involved. I do not believe the committee will have the appetite to publish a report until we see the NCCA report. It would be more beneficial to have representatives of the NCCA before the committee.

Again, I thank the witnesses for their insights. It has been beneficial for the committee to consider the issue from the point of view of industry. The contributions were fabulous.

The joint committee adjourned at 1.53 p.m until 11 a.m. on Tuesday, 4 December 2021.

Joint Committee on Education, Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science díospóireacht - Tuesday, 30 Nov 2021

Leaving Certificate Reform: Discussion

Dr. Emer Smyth

Dr. Emer Smyth

Dr. Ruth Freeman

Ms Meadhbh Costello

Mr. Neil McDonnell

Mr. Tony Donohoe

Ms Meadhbh Costello

Mr. Neil McDonnell

Mr. Tony Donohoe

Dr. Emer Smyth

Mr. Tony Donohoe

Dr. Ruth Freeman

Mr. Tony Donohoe

Dr. Emer Smyth

Mr. Neil McDonnell

Ms Meadhbh Costello

Mr. Neil McDonnell

Dr. Ruth Freeman

Dr. Ruth Freeman

Mr. Tony Donohoe

Dr. Emer Smyth

Dr. Emer Smyth

Dr. Ruth Freeman

Dr. Ruth Freeman

Ms Meadhbh Costello

Mr. Neil McDonnell

Mr. Tony Donohoe

Mr. Neil McDonnell

Dr. Ruth Freeman

Mr. Tony Donohoe

Dr. Ruth Freeman

Dr. Emer Smyth

Mr. Tony Donohoe

Mr. Neil McDonnell

Ms Meadhbh Costello

Dr. Emer Smyth

Dr. Ruth Freeman

Mr. Tony Donohoe

Dr. Ruth Freeman

Dr. Emer Smyth

Ms Meadhbh Costello

Dr. Ruth Freeman

Mr. Tony Donohoe

Dr. Emer Smyth

Joint Committee on Education, Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science díospóireacht -
Tuesday, 30 Nov 2021