Michael Conaghan (Dublin South Central, Labour) | Oireachtas source

The Bill will build strong new structures to continue a long tradition of local community centre delivery of education and training. The new structures will be built on a remarkable foundation, that is, Ireland's proud tradition of vocational education. The new structures which the Minister is proposing are necessary. These measures will ensure the structures are fit for purpose. They will allow for greater accountability, efficiency and co-ordination. The education and training boards with SOLAS will re-orientate a core part of the education and training system to meet the unique challenges which Ireland faces. These combined measures will place further education and training within the one educational framework and offer full educational recognition to further education and training courses, which is a welcome and progressive step.

The VECs work with and within the communities and have always been responsive to community needs. The reduced number of education and training boards, 16, which will replace 33 vocational education committees, will pose a challenge to this but one which can be overcome. The core purpose of the Bill is to reform the structures with the aim of addressing the low scale and size of operations of some VECs.

The Minister has said that these new structures will "strengthen locally managed education". They will position the vocational sector for further growth. However, structures do not make values. In creating these new structures, we must not abandon the values, practices, philosophy and traditions of what went before in the long distinguished history of vocational education provision.

This transition from a system of VECs to the new ETBs is the latest stage of the development of vocational education in Ireland, which dates back far beyond the Vocational Education Act 1930 to a new vision for education, which emerged in Europe in the mid-19th century. This vision is as valid today as it was then and has served the sector very well. The VECs have been animated by this history of educational thought and philosophy, and by the values and ethos traditionally identified with the sector - openness, democratic nature, inclusiveness, responsiveness and accessibility. It is vital that this history and these values be transmitted in this legislation so that they animate the new structures.

Over the years, the VEC has delivered so much, in Dublin and in other communities across the country. The vocational sector has been by far the most inclusive and egalitarian provider of education. The VEC will not exclude anyone and no one has ever been turned away from the gate. The VECs are broad-based, democratically accountable and firmly entrenched in the communities in which they operate. The new measures the Minister proposes will maintain and enhance this democratic link to local authorities and communities. Most importantly, the VECs have always operated with a focus on the needs of the community and the needs of the labour market. Classroom practices have a clear eye to future employment patterns. They engage with different aspects of young people's formation and development - not only academic, but also practical, technological and artistic - and are always responsive to the changing needs of the labour market.

The VECs have a track record of successfully straddling that continuum of education, training and employability. They have pulled these three aspects together in a very dynamic, creative, purposeful and productive way. Given the chronic unemployment that faces a generation of young people and the need to re-orientate our education system to meet the evolving needs of the workforce, many lessons can be learned from the VECs. I wish to mention the work of City of Dublin VEC in the past with the establishment of successful colleges that are now household names, including Kevin Street, Bolton Street, the College of Art and Design and the College of Music. That flair and imagination that typified the vocational sector in the past still lives on, and today is exemplified by the ground-breaking and award winning work in the fields of film­making and animation in Ballyfermot College of Further Education.

As the VECs evolve and become education and training boards, the flexibility and responsiveness which has been at the core of vocational education in the past will prove invaluable into the future. When this issue came before the Joint Committee on Education and Social Protection last November, I asked the Minister if he would consider overtly stating the values and tradition of vocational sector in this legislation. It is essential that a statement articulating the values, traditions and philosophy of vocational education be incorporated into this new legislation so that the strength and vision of the old can animate the new. I ask the Minister to consider introducing a preamble to the Bill to include a statement of these values, traditions and strengths.

I congratulate the Minister on his work in reforming our education system. Reform is good and necessary. However, in this quest for reform we must not lose sight of what is good, what the past has to teach us and what works. We must build on it and take it to the next level. The VECs represent some of the very best of our education system. The education and training boards must build on that tradition.

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