Jonathan O'Brien (Cork North Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Sinn Féin welcomes the publication of the Bill and will support it. We believe the ethos and spirit of the Bill are welcome and overdue. On Second Stage we simply outline the proposals in the Bill, but on Committee Stage we will bring forward a number of amendments which will improve the legislation. The Bill is part of a package of legislation the Government has brought forward to reform further education and training. We have just completed consideration of a Government Bill prior to the commencement of this debate in respect of which there was all-party support. I said at the conclusion of the previous debate that the Bill which is now going to the Seanad for consideration is without doubt one of the most reforming we have seen. The Further Education and Training Bill 2013 is equally reforming and important. Its importance places on us a responsibility to get it right. If we do not, the consequences will be felt for many years to come.

The Bill will establish Solas and disband FÁS. When the heads of the Bill were initially published, 150 submissions were made on them. It is a measure of how critical the legislation is considered to be, not just by those in the business sector but by those providing education and working within the further education sector and adult learners and disability groups. They all have an interest in the legislation. Sometimes when we talk about further education, there is a perception that it is for people who have recently lost a job or who are just coming out of school and did not get enough points to get into college. They use the further education model as a stepping stone. However, it is not just people in those categories who benefit from further education and training. I will touch later on some of the functions of Solas but one of them will be to develop a five-year strategy. The strategy will be critical to the performance of Solas. If we do not get the strategy right at the outset, everything that follows will be flawed.

The further education and training sector has developed many offshoots and is not very cohesive in the delivery of programmes. FÁS and the VECs deliver approximately 70% of FETAC awards, but there are other organisations providing further education courses through secondary schools, Youthreach and community groups. It is a diverse sector with no cohesive way to manage courses. The Bill is an attempt to put in place a body, Solas, which will be responsible for the oversight, planning and funding of further education in the State. There will be many challenges, some of which Deputy Dara Calleary touched on. It is all well and good in theory but the practicalities will have to be examined. International research shows that countries which ring-fence education budgets and in times of recession place a greater emphasis on education, increasing funding in some cases, recognise the importance of education to economic recovery. The further education and training sector in the State has a critical role to play to turn the economy around. Unfortunately, some of the decisions which have been taken recently are not helping.

Deputy Dara Calleary touched on measures in the last budget on the pupil-teacher ratio. We will lose 400 teaching posts in the further education sector on post-leaving certificate courses. Many of the posts involve teachers with the expertise we need to educate the up-and-coming workforce, the long-term unemployed and those who have something to offer to help to turn the country around economically. Not only did the Minister propose to increase the pupil-teacher ratio, he washed his hands of it. He said it was up to the CEOs of various VECs and the principals of institutions providing the courses to get together to minimise the impact of the policy on further education. It is up to CEOs and principals to sit down and ensure that courses which need to be protected are protected. It is no way for the Minister to do his business. I have been very complimentary of the Minister on many of the measures he has introduced and understand that he is under increasing budgetary pressure. I do not lay the blame solely at his feet. The Cabinet has a responsibility to ensure that the education budget is protected and it should not be up to the Minister himself. There should be a widely-held belief in Cabinet that education plays a critical role in turning the economy around. The Minister for Education and Skills should be receiving the support of other Ministers when he is at the Cabinet table trying to protect the education budget.

There will be significant challenges in transferring staff to Solas. We must ensure that as the process takes place there is no disruption to services. A significant proportion of the legislation deals with the transfer of staff to the new body. We welcome the provision of whistleblower protection given the problems we saw in FÁS when a small number of individuals did a huge amount of damage to the agency's reputation. It was unfair in circumstances in which FÁS provided some high quality courses over many years and helped many people to get back into employment. It should not be forgotten.

The Bill lists five or six of the functions of Solas. I mentioned one earlier, which was the preparation of the five-year strategy for the provision of further education and training which has to be completed after consulting with stakeholders. Solas cannot prepare the strategy simply to meet current skills shortages in the labour market. There cannot be a short-sighted approach. We need to take a holistic approach to labour shortages. We have spoken about foreign languages. A group of us returned from Finland this morning where we were studying that country's education system. Finnish school leavers aged 16 years can speak four languages whereas the schools here teach English, Irish and one other language though some students may opt for two. The languages are not used in everyday life and become defunct after a few years. In Finland, there is a focus on languages. They know that if members of the workforce speak a number of languages, they are better prepared to meet economic challenges as they arise.

Its whole education system aims to prepare for life after school. It prepares for five, ten, 15 years down the line, observing the trends in the labour market in the short, medium and long terms. It tailors its curriculum to meet those potential needs further down the line. In every report Finnish students perform above average in reading, writing, mathematics and languages. There is no state examination in Finland. The students go through the system learning what they need to learn but there is no way of evaluating that. The only way to evaluate it is in terms of employment rates and how they meet the changing needs of the labour market and they do it very well.

There are several issues the Government must consider in the strategic plan for SOLAS. It cannot focus only on the immediate needs of the Irish labour market. It needs to see what trends are coming down the line and put in place the courses to deal with them. We must also put in place courses for the long-term unemployed to help individuals of a particular age who are not suited to manual labour, who have maybe worked for the past 20 years and have unfortunately lost their jobs and want to upskill. We need to put tailored courses in place that enable them to contribute to society. While the legislation is very welcome and we will support the Bill we must examine in more detail how we transfer what is being proposed in theory and how it will work in practice. We look forward to working with the Minister of State on Committee Stage. We will bring forward several amendments and we look forward to that debate taking place sooner rather than later. It is critically important that we pass this legislation as soon as possible and that SOLAS can get on with its job.

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