Ms Tara Farrell:

I thank the Chair and the committee for the opportunity to speak here today.

Aontas is a non-governmental membership organisation that was established in 1969 and has more than 400 members from across the lifelong learning spectrum. Our mission is to advocate for the right of all adults in Ireland to access quality learning throughout their lives and promote the value and benefits of lifelong learning. The purpose of our written submission was to highlight what we see as the undesirable and harmful impacts of proposed legislative changes on community education providers.

In terms of context, community education is adult learning that takes place in local community settings across Ireland and is delivered by professionally run organisations. The Aontas community education network has 110 members in 24 counties. Community education has a phenomenal scope and does the following: addresses policy priorities; supports participation in accredited and non-accredited programmes; is socially inclusive; and supports the equality of access to education for under-represented groups, particularly disadvantaged women and women who are economically inactive.

Based on this contextual information, it is extremely difficult for Aontas and its membership to accept the ongoing funding and resource challenges that community education is placed under. These challenges are made worse by the proposals for a required payment into the learner protection fund for community education providers that is proposed in this Bill, which we fully discussed in our written submission. I refer to section 29 and specifically the amendment of section 65 of the principal Act. We are requesting that not-for-profit community education providers be added to the list of providers who are exempt from the learner protection fund. The current list includes many entities to which many of my esteemed colleagues belong. I refer to technological universities, SOLAS, Teagasc and the Royal College of Surgeons of Ireland to name but a few. It is a shocking oversight that community education providers have not been included in the list. Also the new charities governance code requires all charities to be compliant by 2020 so this could be a means of establishing criteria. Some colleges have already imposed a 2% levy on student fees that is called the learner protection charge so the burden will fall on students, which is not feasible for community education.

As a community education provider in Longford I can categorically state that additional fees will have a detrimental effect on the provision of community education to those who are furthest from the education system. Why should it be even more difficult for those learners to access education? The community education sector has suffered significant and disproportionate funding cuts in recent years. I work with Longford Women's Link, which provides over 15,000 hours of education provision annually, reaches learners who are most distant from the system and provides meaningful opportunities for them. Longford is the fourth most disadvantaged local authority area nationally. Both counties Longford and Wexford have the lowest percentage of persons with a third level qualification at 32.5% and 18% of the Longford population have no formal education or only primary education.

A critical issue for us is the fact that all providers of accredited learning are treated in the same way, despite major structural differences and despite the fact that the Act allows for flexibility, for example, the re-engagement fees under section 80.

In terms of re-engagement with QQI, there are six Aontas members, including ourselves and An Cosán, that have formed a community of practice and are setting the quality assurance or QA standards for our sector and we all re-engaged in 2009. However, the re-engagement fees involved will impact our provision. The total intake of fees for the six of us will be between €12,000 and €24,000. Therefore, a fee waiver would be a small investment in the scheme of things given the impact of continued provision of accredited learning in our communities. A sum of €5,000 would allow us to deliver a QQI Level 5 award to 20 women in a disadvantaged area in County Longford. The majority of our learners are women so the impact of additional financial burdens on providers will have serious implications for women and their families.

I ask joint committee members to engage with Aontas and its membership to understand that approval of these new learner protection fund fees and any additional fees will seriously impact the access that learners have to education across the country. We are wholeheartedly committed to learner protection and it is at the centre of our provision but our issue is with the exclusion of community education from the list.

In May, the joint committee published its report on education inequality and disadvantage. Conclusion 3 specifically mentions that funding is sparse for adult and community education and recommends that community education is supported to achieve parity of esteem, which is at odds with some of the proposals in the Bill.

I thank the members for their time and wish the committee well in its deliberations.