Debate contribution: Skills Gaps between Young People and Businesses

Debate contribution by Ms Kellie Armstrong on 30 September 2025.

MLA

Ms Kellie Armstrong

Party at the time

Alliance Party

Date

30 September 2025

Type

Debate contribution

Business

Private Members' Business

Heading

Skills Gaps between Young People and Businesses

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 5142977

Read the official Assembly record

Text

Thank you, Madam Principal Deputy Speaker. It is not too often that we come to the Chamber to debate a motion on which we all agree. As a mum and someone who loves living here, I think that giving our young people opportunities to remain here, to have something that they can value, to earn money and to enjoy life is key. All of us in the Chamber want that for our young people. As the motion indicates, we have already started off well. Employment is going well, but 25,000 young people in Northern Ireland are currently not in education, employment or training. What are we going to do about that? The work on skills that the Minister is doing will pay dividends, but there are a few things that we need to look for. I thank David Honeyford, Michelle Guy and Kate Nicholl, all of whom have been working on skills issues for the past while. I also thank those Members around the Chamber who have spoken today on the issue. Our young people are key to our economy, and we need to give them hope, opportunities and chances in life. I am very concerned about what Labour is doing. It is talking about young people who are not in employment having their benefits taken away from them if they do not find work within 18 months. That is concerning. As somebody who sits on the Committee for Communities, I say, "Really?". We should be looking to support those young people rather than talking about taking benefits away from them. The Minister of Education is consulting on keeping children in school until they are 18. That will require them to participate in education, training or an apprenticeship. We look forward to hearing the outcome of the consultation, because it is another step forward. It cannot, however, result in what the Chancellor of the Exchequer has talked about, which is the youth guarantee that young people will be put into work. That work could involve doing nothing in which they are interested and not be related to their skills. It might also be for the most minimum wage possible. That would take the heart out of any young person. Let us therefore think about the opportunities. Skillnet Ireland is a good model to follow, but we need to work hard not just North/South but east-west. We also need to look to Europe and other places to see what models we can work towards having in order to deliver better for those 25,000 young people. As Sinéad McLaughlin said, skills gaps do not stop at the border. We need to think about the successes of others and move forward. There needs to be greater alignment between skills development and further and higher education. What skills does Northern Ireland need? As we heard from Cheryl Brownlee, the Youth Assembly said that it did not know what skills Northern Ireland needs. That goes back to the cooperative partnerships that we need to see established between Departments. Why are we allowing young people to choose GCSEs without telling them what they will get from those GCSEs? Instead of giving them career advice when they are 15 or 16, we should talk to children and their families as soon as they start big school. We should advise 12-, 13- and 14-year-olds before they pick their GCSEs. I was delighted to be involved with a number of schools that had started to bring employers in before the GCSEs were picked in order to give young people ideas about what the future could hold, what jobs pay and what might be an option for them. For some young people, especially vulnerable young people who live in disadvantaged communities, we need to grow their ability to see beyond the present. We need to give those young people opportunities. When we ask what skills Northern Ireland needs, it is over to the Department for the Economy. Where are the businesses that are coming forward? What do they tell us that they need now and will need for the jobs that will come in the future? When I was at school, every Tom, Dick and Harry wanted to be a nurse, and then it was, "Nobody become a nurse. We have far too many nurses". Today, there is AI, cryptocurrency, cybersecurity and all of that stuff — my goodness, we did not really have computers when I was at school — and our young people need to know about the jobs of the future. The careers services in our schools need to take a big step up. Careers teachers are not necessarily the right people to tell children about the careers that are out there. If you have been to school, university and teacher training colleges and then gone to work in a school, you have not experienced the outside world. I would love to hear more about businesses coming forward to help with careers advice by going into schools to talk about the options that are available. There was news about apprenticeships on the radio this morning. I have had plenty of emails from my constituents on the issue. Some young people are accepted by further education colleges, but they do not have a business to give them a placement. We need to identify placements to ensure that the young people are trained for a job for the future, potentially in the business with which they have their placement. We need to provide a talent pool for businesses, but we also need businesses to be part of the development process for apprenticeships to ensure that apprentices are trained with the skills that they will need for their jobs. As regards children with physical or special educational needs, we have far too many young people who do not see work as an opportunity for them because of their disability. From my prior life, I know that most of the barriers to work for such young people are not their skills; they are transport. The Department for Infrastructure needs to be included in the debate. Look at any of the surveys of young people that are done. The all-party group on disability visited Fleming Fulton School. The young people talked about work placements and told us that they need to get a bus, for instance from school to the centre of town, but, because they are wheelchair users, only one of them could use the bus at a time. It is very isolating. We need to think more about the whole-life experience of young people with special educational needs or physical disabilities and about how we can help them get to work. We need to ask ourselves whether the qualifications that we provide for young people through schools, further education colleges and higher education will provide the skills that our employers need. I admit that I am the one and only Byzantine studies graduate from Queen's University in 1993. Something that I share with Simon Hamilton is that we were both ancient history students. What job was I going to get with that? My postgraduate training in the graduate management development programme is the qualification that took me into sales and marketing, because, let us face it, I was not going to get a job in Byzantine studies. Some people may say that I am still talking about ancient history. We need to look at our skills. I remember sitting in a room with a lot of people from the transport sector — because I ended up working in transport, as you do with a Byzantine studies qualification — and a person at the front asked, "What do you get if you have a degree in ancient history?". I said, "Well, I am sitting beside you giving legal advice to the Department". Learning for learning's sake is important, but training for a job is equally important. We need to see whether our qualifications are providing the skills that we need, and whether we are supporting children and their families to think about the choices that will provide them with the best opportunities. My education in Latin was handy for doing legal work, but are we teaching the right languages? Are schools teaching the right IT skills, AI skills and all of that? I am glad to hear that the Minister is talking about a skills action plan and that she has included social enterprises in that. I had the absolute pleasure of talking to Edith and the guys at Mind the Gap about the cross-border work that they do for people with disabilities. That includes looking at how businesses can improve their understanding of the needs of people with disabilities, and making sure that those people's skills align with potential work opportunities. A skills action plan that ties all that together is important if we are to achieve social justice. No young person in Northern Ireland should be let behind. We do not want to hear that Protestant boys or disadvantaged communities have been left behind; we want opportunities for all. The motion calls on the Minister:

"to establish a talent development agency ... to ensure ... alignment between skills development in further and higher education",

and to identify what businesses here require. I would love to keep as many of our young people here as possible, earning, working and spending their money here in Northern Ireland. When Northern Ireland is busy and at peace with itself, we do much better. We have seen that before. Of course, we want to work with the South, but we also want to work east-west and with Europe. We want to work with anybody who will help us to bring forward the jobs that our young people will need.

1,625 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.

Assessment

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Assessed 21 October 2026 at 13:16 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.

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