We had an excellent debate a few weeks ago on the action plan for education with the Minister for Education and Skills, Deputy Richard Bruton. It was a great debate, with a high level of participation in what was a great discussion. I ask the Leader for a focused, stand-alone debate on the following aspects of education. The first involves those young people who leave school prematurely. While the number of such young people has fallen in recent times, there continues to be a significant cohort who leave prematurely. We need to discuss the factors at work in that regard and the remedies we could put in place to reduce the risk of early school-leaving to keep them in school.

A closely related matter involves the large cohort of young people for whom the academic option is not the best. We need to look at the German model of apprenticeship. While it has some academic input, it is mainly an apprenticeship model. We must look at the entire range of apprenticeships on offer. I notice that more of the traditional apprenticeships are returning, including in areas such as insurance.

I ask the relevant Minister to attend the House to consider why people leave school early, the strategies we can put in place to cope with this and, in respect of those who remain, how we can make school and lifelong learning more attractive. There is a lacuna which we need to address, including by way of a specific debate in the House.