To ask the Minister of Education (i) for his assessment of the value of the work of Young Enterprise NI; and (ii) whether he will reinstate funding to this organisation.

Young Enterprise Northern Ireland (YENI) provided a valuable contribution to schools in Northern Ireland, through the delivery of funded curriculum support programmes covering enterprise and entrepreneurial education. Due to significant budgetary pressures, my Department took the difficult decision to cease funding in May 2023.

With regards to future funding, all Department’s opening budgets for 2024-25 were agreed last week by the Northern Ireland Executive. The funding envelope that the Department has been allocated faces significant, unavoidable cost pressures and rising service demands associated with delivering statutory and policy obligations. To address these, my Department will again need to take difficult decisions to enable it to operate to a balanced budget in 2024-25. For this reason, I am unable to give you a response regarding future funding to YENI at this time.