Debate contribution: Supporting Learning Pathways for our Young People

Debate contribution by Mr Paul Givan on 4 February 2025.

MLA

Mr Paul Givan

Party at the time

Democratic Unionist Party

Date

4 February 2025

Type

Debate contribution (made as a minister)

Business

Private Members' Business

Heading

Supporting Learning Pathways for our Young People

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 4779603

Read the official Assembly record

Text

That leads me on to my next point. The Member is right: pupils have to get the correct advice. The advice at school when I was there was, "Join the police", "Become a teacher" or, "Go into the health profession". It was not the kind of careers advice that we need to be providing to our young people. It is important that we support schools and those who provide that advice. Careers advisers and others should therefore have access to schools to discuss progression pathways with learners. There is an onus on the Careers Service to support learning pathways. I call on the Minister for the Economy to ensure that the service is appropriately resourced to provide up-to-date, relevant and timely advice to our pupils in schools. It has also been suggested that schools are offering courses that would be better taught in FE colleges. In fact, there are several approval processes in place to ensure that the qualifications being offered in a school are appropriate for that setting. They include the carrying out of checks by the awarding organisations; legislation requiring that qualifications being taught in school be approved by the Department; and, for large-sized qualifications, an application from the school, by exception, to offer that course to particular learners. In providing funding to schools for sixth-form pupils, the Department expects them to support those learners at every stage of their two-year learning journey. Only in very exceptional circumstances should a school end a pupil's sixth-form placement at the end of year 13. For some time, employers have been expressing concerns about a skills gap, which is the shortfall between what they expect and need from their recruits and the skill set with which those recruits come to them. The broadly based offer in sixth form has a key role to play in addressing the skills gap. In today's fast-changing, interdisciplinary, connected and collaborative world, we need breadth as well as depth: the ability to take learning from one context and apply it to another. The range of subjects on offer to post-16 students, the mix of academic and vocational options and the range of extracurricular choices equip learners with a more rounded set of skills and perspectives that are ideally suited to the flexible, evolving careers that will be inevitable over the next 10 years and beyond. As our economy develops, the demand for higher levels of skills and knowledge will continue to grow. It is critical that we support as many young people as possible to reach the education and qualification levels that will offer viable and sustainable opportunities in our emerging labour market. If we want an education system in which all children have the chance to make the most of their abilities and become the best version of themselves, we need to invest in their learning. Investing in our schools is an investment in the future of Northern Ireland.

484 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.

Assessment

Not flagged

Jev’s structured answers

Assessed 21 October 2026 at 11:53 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.

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