Ms Fiona Hartley:

In the FET strategy, there is a twofold focus. One is on labour market activation skills for the economy and the other is social inclusion. In the strategy, we outline very clearly that we look at skills not just as in skills for employment, but also skills for employability which are equipping people to insulate themselves against future unemployment and giving them the skills for lifelong learning. Just to reassure some of the people who are here, particularly from a further education background, it is not just about labour market activation. It is about looking at the whole social inclusion agenda. My colleagues from ETBI have already referenced a number of the programmes in terms of adult literacy and community education. We have a long history to which Michael has referred.

In terms of the concern that we are just looking at full-time accreditation, which Senator Craughwell mentioned, we could look at more modular type of learning. That is actually recognised. The importance for community education is that this is a way for people to actually engage in education. Unaccredited provision is the key to enabling people who are on the margins of society to begin to engage in a process which eventually would lead them to further skills development. What is important there, and we have mentioned the importance of gathering data to evaluate this, is to actually ensure that we develop the appropriate metrics for evaluating programmes of that kind, which often are not accredited.