Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Tuesday, 23 April 2024

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Education and Skills

European Year of Skills 2023: Discussion

Mr. Ray English:

Yes, and one of our plans is to look at a roll-out across the regions. There are also other opportunities. We consider Mr. McLoughlin to be a national champion. He has won the Department's silver medal in electrical installations. We would love to be able to send all the winners back to schools to talk about their careers and where they sit and to have this sort of engagement with students in transition year, as well as with fifth- and sixth-year students, about what careers in skills look like. Mr. McLoughlin is going to the overall WorldSkills competition in Lyon, and, with a bit of luck, he will be coming back as a world champion. This would be another way of bringing people competing for Ireland on the world stage in their career choice into schools. For Mr. McLoughlin, it is in electrical installations. It is about bringing people with this experience back and getting them to show others what can happen and how valuable this experience is.