Carol Nolan urges lift of student earning cap, backs apprenticeships

Thank you for your presentation and I do want to start off by welcoming the positive developments and indeed the changes that have been made in making things easier for students in terms of grants, in terms of the travel distance being cut and that students can now qualify, more students can qualify for a full grant and the maintenance grant being increased by 200 along with the income threshold being increased by 1000 for the standard grant. They're all very welcome measures but I am deeply concerned and look the cost of living is affecting everybody including our students and we all know that quite well and I suppose my main concern minister and I know I've raised this with you before is the student earning cap of 4,500 euro. I do feel that this is posing difficulties to students who cannot work many hours, who want to work, who don't want to have the burden of their education falling back on their family, who are also grappling with the cost of living with the cost of living and I just feel that it would be progressive and a good thing to increase this cap incrementally. I know it can't be done all at once but the fact that it hasn't been increased since 2016 I think that this is something that needs to be done and indeed possibly a lost opportunity. I did make a submission to the steering group review on this very issue. I know that the Union of Students of Ireland feel strongly about this issue also. They've said that it is an obstacle and also if we look at employers and I know I've met many employers in the hospitality sector and they can't fill job vacancies because they cannot source enough students to fill the vacancies because of the cap. So the cap is actually affecting the employer and the local economy as well. So I just feel that it would be a progressive measure to start increasing this incrementally in budget 2023 and indeed this is something that I have called for when I spoke in leaders' questions last week. I call for exactly that. On a different issue then Minister, in terms of apprenticeships and traineeships, I do acknowledge that there are some positive developments which were long overdue because we have a serious gap to fill in terms of apprentices. But I'm just wondering, in order to initiate change at second level and make sure that apprenticeships and traineeships are valued, or particularly apprenticeships, is there a plan to roll out a programme at second level? In order to bring everybody on board, including career guidance teachers who, through no fault of their own, were focusing more on the academic than maybe on the side of apprenticeships. So I just feel it would be beneficial. We've listened here today to some fantastic young students who were apprentices, you know, and I do feel they certainly gave us insight. And if we were to have those young people going into schools and interacting and talking to students, I feel it would be a very good and positive development. And certainly, as I said, bringing the whole school community on board teachers, career guidance teachers in particular, and to initiate a change in our way of thinking about education, what constitutes education. I mean, craftsmanship should be up there, as it is in Germany, it's highly valued. So we should be no different in Ireland in terms of apprenticeships. Thanks Sharon, thanks Jeopardy. Nolan, I must say I agree with, I think I agree with everything you've said. I mean, firstly, thank you for welcoming the positive changes that have been made. I'd be the first to acknowledge there is a start and there's more to do, there's a lot more to do. And I think the SUSE review shows us that very clearly, very comprehensively. The good thing about the SUSE review is we now kind of know what we need to do. So for the very first time, it's identified what is the real cost of education in FET, at an undergraduate level, at a postgraduate level, it's put numbers on each of them. And then how does our grant system compare? And the long and the short of it is when the SUSE grant system was introduced about 10 years ago, it was largely fit for purpose. But a lot has changed in terms of cost of living and particularly, let's be honest, the cost of accommodation in those 10 years. And that's what we're now having to work to respond to. I think you make a fair point in relation to the earning cap and it comes up a lot. I suppose the earning cap was there recognising that a student in full time education is in full time education. At the same time, everything has changed and the foreground figure now seems very low compared to perhaps when it was set. And as you rightly say, it hasn't been reviewed in a very long time. So we will look at this. We will look at it in the context of the pre-estimate discussion. I think this is something that you could increase without having any unintended consequences that I think would be welcomed by students, parents and, as you now say, by sectors of our economy that are actually looking and wanting students to work part time as well. And thank you for your submission on that. On second level change, you know, we started this process with the CAO now having the visibility of apprenticeships, the visibility of further education. A number of our schools are now rolling out at transition-year level apprenticeship taster courses, if you like. I think we will have 30 schools. I will get you the details on this through Solace being rolled out with ETBs. I know KWETB do do that as well. And, of course, there is a really important piece around senior cycle reform here and the exciting agenda Minister Foley is pursuing. And how does that help broaden the discussion around education and skills and maybe more flexibility between what was the traditional Leaving Cert and the Leaving Cert Vocational Programme? I am very eager to do more on CAO reform, though. See, that website, that process has narrowed the discussion too much in Ireland and absolutely determined to change it. And when I talk about the future funding, a key ask of ours is going to be that. There has to be parity, at the very least, of visibility for students around all their options. It is not accidental that we have skills shortages in the construction sector, the hospitality sector, the green skills sectors, and we need to fix that. I will send you on some details of those taster programmes. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.