Mr. Andrew Brownlee:

Yes, partly. We have been working very closely with the NCCA on this. We have used the further education and training modules in specialist areas like mechanics, welding, aviation, electrical, plumbing and green skills to develop an offering that could be given to transition year students. Most of our ETBs are now working with their local schools to deliver those as part of transition year. That is the easy part of it because schools are interested in filling up transition year with highly relevant practical experience, such as work placements. There are no real barriers to doing so. The real nut to crack relates to the Deputy's point about the German model which is the model in Scotland also. In this model students can do credited modules as part of senior cycle, so they could do something like engineering, nursing or electrical.