Joan Collins (Dublin South Central, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

The decision to impose cutbacks on the further education and training sector is an extremely retrograde step. It flies in the face of the Government's Action Plan for Jobs which was announced with great fanfare last year. The plan linked economic recovery with the development of skills in the workforce. It included a commitment to give those who have been on the dole for more than 12 months priority access to places in the further education and training sector. According to those who work in the sector, however, the cuts will have a devastating impact. As my colleagues said, it will lead to a loss of up to 500 jobs, or the equivalent of 200 whole-time posts. It will have a particular effect on part-time teachers who bring specialist knowledge to specific courses. These specialists cannot be replaced by fixed-term teachers who do not have the specialist knowledge needed. This will result in a substantial decrease in the number of courses offered.

The Teachers Union of Ireland suggested yesterday that a college with 1,000 students could lose the courses being undertaken by 400 of these students. The Inchicore College of Further Education will lose five teachers if the pupil-teacher ratio is increased from 17:1 to 19:1. The loss of so many teachers would decrease subject choice and remove specialist options from various courses. It would lead to losses of guidance hours, the cancellation of courses, decreases in enrolments and reductions in the number of support hours in language and general courses. The Teachers Union of Ireland has made the point that these reductions will inadvertently target areas of disadvantage in Dublin7, Dublin 8, Dublin 9, Dublin 10 and Dublin 12. Other areas that particularly need support will also be affected.

The Action Plan for Jobs allocated €20 million for new education and training programmes. The bulk of this money is going to private companies that are running programmes and courses originally developed in the public sector by further education colleges in the post-leaving certificate sector. The further education sector has been very innovative in responding to the need for new skills and new employment demands in the economy. When this cut is considered, with the scrapping of the cost of education allowance and the increase in college fees, it is clear that it will exacerbate our society's move towards the position where access to higher education is not a right for all but the preserve of a privileged few. While I support the motion, I question the motives behind it.

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