Ciarán Cannon (Galway East, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I move amendment No. 1:

In page 5, to delete lines 28 to 32 and in page 6, to delete lines 1 to 6.

The purpose of this amendment is to delete the definition of "further education" from the Bill. As it is currently delivered, further education covers a very broad spectrum, ranging from basic adult literacy and numeracy courses all the way up to courses certified at level 6 and even above, in certain examples, in the national framework of qualifications. It also spans the generations of learners from adult learners to early school leavers. It is delivered in a number of formats in formal classroom settings, in less formal settings in the community and also online in a blended learning method. Essentially, it is a very flexible form of education and needs to be able to meet the diverse needs of learners in the most appropriate setting. That flexibility and innovation in our delivery mechanisms needs to be encouraged and facilitated in the future.

From this very brief description of further education, one can see how difficult it is to define exactly what it is in strict legal terms. There will always be a danger that some element of this increasingly diverse form of education will be excluded from that very narrow and overly prescriptive definition. On the basis of feedback from various groups and on the advice of the Office of the Parliamentary Counsel, it was decided that the best approach would be not to include that legal definition of further education in the Bill. It is considered that the further education and training strategy, as proposed in section 9, would be a far more appropriate mechanism and the place in which to describe further education in all its iterations and would be less legalistic and more meaningful for those whom we wish to serve through further education.