Charlie McConalogue (Donegal North East, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I commend the Minister and his officials on their undoubted work over recent months in researching and drafting this Bill and in looking at how best we can structure education and training throughout the country for the future. The Minister referred to two landmark dates in Irish education. I have no doubt this Bill, which is the first since 1930 to really reform how the work done by VECs is structured, will become a landmark one. Importantly and beneficially, it will consolidate nine pieces of legislation encompassing 600 statutory instruments and it will streamline the legislation around the regulation and administration of further education and training.

The VEC sector and the work it carries out has a wide impact across our education system. Schools under the direct stewardship of the VECs account for 24% of all mainstream post-primary pupils. When one includes the role the VECs have played in comprehensive and community schools until now, that encompasses an additional 17% of mainstream post-primary students. That shows the impact VECs have had and also the important role the new education and training boards will play in the future.

My party welcomes the Bill. We have particular issues in regard to it but we look forward to engaging with the Minister on Committee Stage. This is something initiated by the previous Government which the Minister has grasped and on which he has expanded and brought forward legislation.

The setting up of the ETBs must be about providing a better service for users, which is closely aligned with the needs of employers, both locally and nationally, which is cost effective and provides value for money and which is easily accessible for learners in each new designated area. We began the process of rationalising VECs in government and the Bill has potential for improving and strengthening the education and training sector and giving the sector a status of its own by bringing together further education and skills training to become one sector separate from the education system.

Until now, education and training has been an add-on to the post-primary sector rather than a strong sector on its own. We believe further education and skills training is a hugely important sector and we welcome any move to strengthen it and give it the status it deserves. Until now programmes had been provided by many different organisations, including FÁS, the VECs, community groups, second level schools and private bodies. We agree with the Minister that there is an urgent need to bring coherence to this fragmented system and to have an integrated sector delivering high quality programmes. There is a need to ensure we deliver programmes that are relevant to the needs of both learners and the economy. It must be ensured certain aspects of further education and training are not lost with the establishment of the 16 new boards and SOLAS. The Minister must ensure, in establishing the new ETBs, that adult literacy and community and adult education are protected and given the same focus. We have witnessed significant improvements in this area over the years and they must not be lost. In recent times, as a result of the recruitment embargo, seven adult education officer posts have become vacant at VEC level and that has had a detrimental impact on adult education. It is crucial that this issue be resolved as quickly as possible to get the new structure up and running. The OECD PISA results relating to adult education are due out in October 2013 and the Minister will have to take strong cognisance of them. He will need to make sure that the new ETBs can respond to provide adult literacy and learning courses and that an opportunity can be given to those who did not complete second level education or who left the education system without being sufficiently literate. We must also ensure that there continues to be a focus on the provision of apprenticeships and this is not lost with the absorption of FÁS training centres into the ETBs.

With regard to the membership of the boards, Fianna Fáil suggested in January during a discussion on the heads of the Bill by the Joint Committee on Education and Social Protection that it must be ensured no existing VEC would be disadvantaged in the new set up. The Minister should wait to ensure the interests of smaller communities are protected. My colleague, Deputy Brendan Smith, raised the example of the amalgamation of the Sligo, Leitrim and Mayo VECs because Leitrim has a population of only 30,000 and, therefore, a small VEC. Naturally, people in that county will be concerned about whether they will be fairly represented under the new ETB structure. The Minister has made provision in the Bill for representations in this regard to take into account the needs of smaller VECs that are being amalgamated. I urge him to give this serious consideration.

The Minister said the Bill reforms and modernises the governance provisions. However, the proposed membership of the ETBs reflects the same structure proposed in the heads of the Bill presented to the education committee earlier this year, which, in turn, is similar to the current make up of the VECs. While the Minister says the governance provisions have been amended, I would like to him to outline how this will be effected on Committee Stage considering the structure is similar to that of the current VECs. He also said the new ETBs will deliver programmes relevant to the needs of both learners and the economy. However, there are no proposals to include learners in the membership of the boards and there will only be four community representatives. Ultimately, there will be ten local authority representatives as well. I am disappointed that learners are not represented on the boards directly because they should be. Why have they been omitted when the reforms are about providing an improved service for learners? Surely if that is the case, they should be represented directly.

I also have concerns that the appointment of parent representatives has been transferred from local to national level and will instead be drawn from national parents associations. I refer to the principle of subsidiarity in that those who make decisions on behalf of the people they represent should be as local as possible. Until now, the selection of parent representatives to many VECs has been unduly costly and administratively cumbersome but I am concerned about decisions being taken at national rather than local level. The Minister should revisit this and engage with the IVEA and parents associations to ascertain how a structure could be put in place, which would allow parent representatives to continue to be selected at local level. I am concerned that they will become too far removed. Another consideration in this regard is where more than two parents associations are in play, the members of the ETB will decide which is selected. A 16-member ETB will have ten members representing local authorities and they will decide who the four community representatives are and, ultimately, who the parent representatives are and that raises issues. Section 28(7)(a) provides that a national association of parents must nominate one man and one woman but this must be revisited. It is a shame that there will be little staff representation on the new boards. The Minister attempted to introduce gender equality by providing for separate panels for staff selection but the Bill does not provide for gender equality in the appointment of staff.

I am also disappointed that there is not sufficient emphasis on representation from the business community. The four community representatives will be drawn from a mix of community groups and the business community. However, the Minister stated in his contribution yesterday that he will table amendments, which will require the ETBs to engage regularly with the business community. Ultimately, a key role of the ETBs will be the provision of education and skills training to people living within their communities. That training must be connected to the employment, business and economic development of the area. If there is not sufficient joined up thinking to ensure training meets the needs of business, which, in turn, will be crucial to those being trained because they will come out with qualifications that will make them employable, there could be a fissure in terms of ensuring the boards work the way they should. Unfortunately, that aspect of our education and training sector has not always been as responsive as it needed to be to emerging needs in the economy. There has been an effort at third level, particularly in institutes of technology, to ensure local business involvement in their governance structures thereby linking them to businesses in their areas. Given the role the ETBs will play, this should also be considered for them. I question whether regular meetings will ensure business involvement to the extent that is needed.

Perhaps we should consider permanent business representation on the education and training boards to ensure joined-up thinking between education and skills provision and the needs of the wider economy.

The Minister outlined the saving he expects from rationalisation and reform of the VEC sector and FÁS. So far, he expects savings of approximately €3.2 million. The current administration costs of 33 VECs is approximately €40 million but the total budget for the VEC sector is €1.1 billion. Savings of 1% amount to €10 million, so in the overall context of spending on the VEC sector the savings amount to one third of 1%. I would have expected a stronger analysis of where savings can be found and the impact on rationalisation, better working practices and better co-ordination of services. We have not yet seen a strong impact assessment. If the Minister has more detail on this, he can comment on where he sees savings and what work has been done to identify them. A welcome development is the incorporation of FÁS into the education and training boards, leading to the 800 FÁS staff in 16 centres amalgamating and joining the education and training boards. That will help to streamline the provision of training and provide a more co-ordinated approach. It will also lead to savings and avoid the duplication that undoubtedly existed in the past. Does the Minister have further detail? I have seen very little detail on the absorption of FÁS into the education and training boards. Perhaps the Minister can publish some of the detail on the progress made.

Fianna Fáil supports the broad thrust of the Bill, which is landmark legislation in respect of the education system and how it is provided. It can be a positive measure and it is also important that it becomes part of a reform in respect of how we deal with people who need to be upskilled and how we relate to people who find themselves unemployed, both from the perspective of social welfare and ensuring social welfare is linked to how their training and skills needs are provided for. I look forward to engaging with the Minister and my Opposition spokesperson colleague, Deputy Jonathan O'Brien, on Committee Stage. I commend the passage of the Bill on Second Stage.

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