Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

I have had a lot to deal with this week, with the week that has been in it, so my examination of this issue has been somewhat rushed. While I have not fully scrutinised every aspect of this important legislation, I feel I need to speak on it. A number of issues of considerable concern regarding this package of legislation - the Bill before the House and a related Bill that we have discussed on Report Stage - have been raised with me. The two Bills will reorganise the further education sector, integrate that sector with what used to be FÁS and is now SOLAS and give responsibility for certain matters to the Department of Social Protection.

We all sympathise with the general thrust of what the Government is proposing and the rationale behind what it is trying to do. It is seeking to streamline the further education sector and link it to the need to educate, upskill and retrain people in a way that better prepares them for the labour market. I refer to those who are entering the labour market for the first time and to the hundreds of thousands of unemployed people who would like to return to the labour market. The idea of trying to connect things up - to join the dots between education, skills improvement and retraining and getting people into employment - is absolutely correct. It has been decided to link this structure to the Department of Social Protection so that the Department will have a role in trying to get people back into the workplace, rather than being seen merely as a place that gives out money. It seems to me that this attempt to put the various pieces together in a coherent way is generally a positive move. It is particularly required in light of this country's awful unemployment situation.

While I am sympathetic to the general thrust of the Bill, I am concerned about a number of aspects of it. The decision to increase the pupil-teacher ratio in the further education sector seems to fly in the face of the stated objectives of this legislation. I did not understand this fully until teachers in the further education sector explained to me the potential damage the increase in the ratio could do to the quality of the courses that are offered in the sector. While the basic point they made is of relevance throughout the country, it is particularly pertinent in my constituency because there are three further education colleges in Dún Laoghaire. It may be unusual to have such a concentration of further education colleges in one place. Teachers and representatives of all three colleges have made the point strongly that the increase in the ratio will fundamentally undermine the incredibly important work these colleges are doing in providing education, skills improvement and retraining to a precise cohort of people in the sectors of society that have been most blighted by the unemployment crisis. More than most, these people need the right type of education and retraining if they are to enter the workforce.

Further education colleges often deal with people for whom conventional academic education, which tends to suit those who go straight from second level to university, is not the best or most appropriate form of education. Very talented people who might not perform well when offered a more academic type of education need a form of education that focuses on their specific abilities, skills and talents. The type of further education we are discussing caters for them by allowing them to develop their skills and abilities in a focused way. Generally speaking, these colleges cater for people from the more socially disadvantaged groups and from the less well-off sectors in our society. The teachers have told me that the change in the pupil-teacher ratio will result in the loss of five or six full teaching posts in each of the colleges in my area.

In fact, if four or five jobs are to go as a result of the ratio, it may mean 11 part-time posts in each of those colleges, given the first people who will lose their jobs are those who are part-time, not full-time. Those people are often teachers with specialisms, without which the courses they taught simply cannot be taught any longer, because the full-time staff would not have those particular skills. They are saying a whole range of courses will be lost in their colleges and that the number of places they will be able to offer is going to be dramatically reduced.

With regard to an issue that did not feature in the debate on the connected Bill, they point out that, because of the caps that have already been imposed in terms of funding being matched with the numbers, they were already taking in hundreds more people than they were being given money for by the Department because they did not want to turn anybody away. That was difficult enough for them but, now, with the change in ratio, it will become unsustainable. They are saying that literally hundreds of places will be lost because they simply will not have the resources to provide teachers with the particular skills.

If that is what is going to happen and, as a result, the avenues for further education and the diversity of different offerings in terms of what is available for further education for hundreds of people is to be dramatically reduced, how do we square that with the generally positive aspiration of trying to reskill and re-educate as many people as possible for the workforce? It runs directly counter to it. It will have the opposite effect to the one the Government states as its objective.

Again, if one were a conspiracy theorist, which, of course, none of us is, one would note, on the one hand, the real impact of what is going to happen as a result of the change in the student-staff ratio in existing further education colleges and, on the other, the fact this Bill contains a specific reference to and provision for outsourcing further education under SOLAS to private colleges. Of course, students pay substantially more in private colleges than they would pay in registration fees in further education colleges currently, given these are relatively modest, despite recent increases, compared to what one would have to pay to the private colleges. While the Government's intention may be genuinely to increase the number of people upskilled, retrained, taken off the live register to be trained and so on, because of the change in the ratio, the further education colleges will not be able to provide for those numbers, and someone is going to have to pick up the slack. It seems to me that this slack will be picked up by the private education sector at a greater cost to the people who need that education, which is very worrying.

If one was putting together the pieces of the jigsaw that are fuelling my concern on this, one would then look at the Government proposals for the membership of the board of SOLAS, which are alarming. The Bill states that the Minister will appoint the chairperson and nine ordinary members who, in the Minister’s opinion, have experience of, and expertise in regard to, matters concerned with the functions of SOLAS and matters connected with finance, trade, commerce, corporate governance or public administration. The word "education" does not feature. It is all about finance, commerce and economics.

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