Marshalled List of Amendments

24 June 2024

Item 6: Order Paper 41/22-27 – Monday 24 June 2024

Motion: Retaining and Inspiring Young Talent

Proposed:

That this Assembly, while noting the educational and professional development opportunities for students studying away from home, regrets the large number of young people forced to leave Northern Ireland in order to pursue higher education who would otherwise wish to study and build lives here but are unable to; notes that the equivalent of a large university’s worth of students are studying in Britain and a high proportion are unlikely to return; acknowledges the negative societal and economic consequences of this trend, particularly on our low levels of productivity; further notes that this so-called ‘brain drain’ compounds the negative economic consequences of our low levels of educational attainment among school leavers; calls on the Minister for the Economy to work with the Minister of Education to develop a strategy to reduce the number of students leaving these shores who would otherwise wish to stay, including growing undergraduate spaces here, and collaborating with the Irish Government to increase the volume of cross-border undergraduate entrants; and further calls on the Minister to report to the Assembly on agreed actions not later than December 2024.

Mr Matthew O’Toole

Ms Sinéad McLaughlin

Ms Cara Hunter

Amendment 1

Leave out all after ‘productivity;’ and insert:

‘and calls on the Minister for the Economy to develop a strategy to reduce the number of students leaving these shores who would otherwise wish to stay in Northern Ireland.’

[Mr Phillip Brett]

[Mr Trevor Clarke]

[Mr David Brooks]