Ruairi Quinn (Dublin South East, Labour) | Oireachtas source

Yes, I would like to read some comments I prepared into the record of the House. We have had more than 20 contributions from different Deputies. Deputy Áine Collins has simply confirmed that the response has been broadly very welcoming. It is significant but not surprising that many of the people who spoke were themselves former members of a VEC board and, therefore, have an intimate knowledge of it.

It is intended that this legislation would be both an enabling and reforming legal instrument. All Deputies have paid tribute to the role played by VECs both in the education sector and in society. Flexibility and responsiveness to change and emerging needs has been a defining feature of the operation of the VECs going back to the 1930s. Deputies Anthony Lawlor and John Paul Phelan referred to this. A key strategic consideration informing the restructuring of the VECs is the need to retain and support this demonstrated capacity. We must also ensure the VEC sector is positioned to meet future challenges across the education and training sector.

Deputy McConalogue said the new education and training boards, which originated under his party's Government with the former Minister for Education and Science, Batt O'Keeffe, must be about providing a better service, ensuring stronger links with employers and delivering value for money. Deputy O'Brien for Sinn Féin referred to the need to strike a balance between securing efficiencies, maximising effectiveness and ensuring those within the sector have a rewarding experience. Deputy Boyd Barrett perhaps put it more succinctly by saying that it is important we get this right.

It is important that we get this right. I agree wholeheartedly with these sentiments and believe the Bill will deliver on these goals.

There are a number of issues raised by the Deputies to which I want to refer. The issue of ensuring representation of local parents on education and training boards was raised by a number of Deputies. We have moved away from the existing system of elections to one of nominations from national associations of parents. This is because of the very cumbersome procedures that are currently in place. However, in moving to a system of nominations, we will not be diluting the local dimension of parental representation; rather, we will be strengthening it. Under the current legislation, the two parents' representatives are elected by parents of VEC students but do not themselves have to be parents of a student. Under the Bill's proposals, the two parents' representatives must be parents of students currently registered in an ETB school or centre.

With regard to business and learner representation, the most significant issue on which submissions were made on the general scheme of the Bill, before it came to this House, was that of the composition of the new boards. I want to ensure that the new bodies are effective and efficient. In trying to accommodate too many interests, we run the risk of undermining their efficiency. However, the need for representation on education and training boards of particular groups, specifically those representing learners and business interests, was a strong and recurring theme in today's debate. I will, therefore, reflect further on this between now and Committee Stage.

Deputies McConalogue and Bannon spoke about the need to bring together the further education and training sector in its own right, as did many other Deputies later this afternoon. This is the basis on which the decision to establish SOLAS was made. It will be a single national agency to provide overall strategic direction for further education and training policy. It will work with the new network of 16 education and training boards, which will provide the local and regional expertise in order to enhance the service and experience of learners.

Some concern was expressed that SOLAS could be competing with education and training boards in various parts of the country. The further education sector is the only sector that does not have a co-ordinated and clear role with the backup of an agency to implement and augment what it wants to do with delivery agents on the ground. In a sense, SOLAS will be for the further education area what the HEA is for higher education. There is no college with a notice stating "HEA college". The HEA is the policy body in addition to having financial and other roles. The role of SOLAS will not be precisely the same as that of the HEA but, in terms of the identity on the ground, there will not be a SOLAS identity in the education and further education sectors. That will be branded by the name of the local education and training boards in the 16 areas in which they are to be located.

The published Bill differs from the general scheme by including provisions which reflect the role education and training boards will have in regard to skills training and learners. I hope to introduce legislation to establish SOLAS later this session. As I said in an interjection this morning, this will be a much tighter and smaller Bill than the legislation involving the consolidation of nine items of primary legislation plus many statutory instruments associated with the work of the VECs over 80 years.

The SOLAS legislation will be enabling legislation. I intend to have it brought before the House so it will nearly run in tandem with this debate. I hope that, with the co-operation of the Houses, both Bills will be passed with the intention of activating them as soon as possible in January of next year.

The issue of savings was raised by a number of Deputies. It was asked whether this is the raison d'êtreof the Bill. Clearly, the Bill will deliver savings but its real potential is to tap into the skills and experiences in the sector by augmenting the functions of the VECs. I hope the incentive for such rationalisation will be that savings that are secured in this area will be retained within the education and training board sector.

The basis for the proposed changes in the VEC structure has a direct resonance with the strategic objectives of the reforming public service agenda. Deputy Tom Hayes referred to that in regard to the local authority reforms announced yesterday.

Through the changes proposed, the sector can be enabled to contribute more significantly in terms of driving improved outcomes for education and training provision within its schools and centres and in other programmes. Many Deputies, including Deputy Heather Humphreys, talked about the desirability of shared services. Without in any way threatening any other sector of the education system at either primary or secondary level, I hope there will be some sharing of services - in respect of IR, the temporary provision of staff should somebody call in sick, or the small building programme, for example - so that teachers can concentrate on being teachers. I refer in particular to principals of relatively small primary schools. Managing a small building works programme over the summer takes up all their time, bearing in mind that their skill may not necessarily be project management.

The current VECs, as I said in my opening speech, are delivering on the ground, very effectively in some cases. Reference was made to the campus in Monaghan. There is a similar one in County Louth and there are examples in Kildare and elsewhere. There may be an Educate Together school, gaelscoil and second level school on the one campus, with each sharing facilities. This makes a lot of sense.

The last succinct point made by Deputy Michael Conaghan, a former chairman of CDVEC in addition to being a lecturer or teacher in one of its further education colleges, was on the values of the VEC sector. The Deputy spoke somewhat nostalgically but very assertively about the need to allow somewhere in the legislation capacity for the VEC sector, as we still call it, to state very clearly its ethos or values. There is such provision in regard to primary schools as there is an ethos that animates the primary schools under various patrons. It may be about language, religion or multidenominationalism. In the free voluntary sector, there are similar declarations of values or ethos as an integral part of what the education system is for those schools. This is because education is not value-free, nor is it just about preparing people for the labour market.

In response to what Deputy Conaghan said and to references to a less explicitly stated sense of the role of VECs and their relationship with the communities in which they are located, perhaps I could make provision in the legislation. We can talk about it on Committee Stage. I do not believe we will have 16 different sets of values. Perhaps the IVEA could be invited to facilitate a discussion on this. Perhaps we could have an enabling provision in the legislation, formulated on Committee Stage, that would enable the education and training boards to indicate unambiguously the educational ethos or set of values in primary, secondary and further-education levels. The one body will span all three sectors. There is no other integrated institution that will actually have that range and cover.

I referred a number of times to the VEC sector. What I am doing in this Bill is creating a new structure for the education and training sector, as reflected in the Title of the Bill. In so doing, we will be ensuring that the sector is enabled to meet the considerable challenges that now arise and will arise. I look forward to further engagement with all the Members who have been engaged in this debate. I thank everybody for his contribution and commend the Bill to the House.

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