Jerry Buttimer (Fine Gael)

I welcome the Minister of State to the House. This is an important debate because the national skills strategy is of paramount importance to the nation, not just for the short or medium term but also for future generations. As the Minister of State said, our competitiveness is at stake and it is essential we succeed in upskilling the workforce.

The Opposition side of the House supports the overall goals of the national skills strategy in terms of moving Ireland towards a knowledge-based society, the need to create high value jobs, emphasising arts and crafts and the need for higher qualifications. As a former director of adult education, I urge that the importance of adult education be stressed for all. We need to upskill and retrain constantly to maintain our necessary knowledge-based economy.

We must focus on some of the statistics. Almost 30% of the workforce, 650,000 people, have only junior certificate qualifications. Some 10% have only primary level education or have no qualification and some 25% of adults have issues with basic literacy and numeracy skills. How realistic are the aspirations of the Government to upskill 330,000 members of the workforce up to leaving certificate level by the year 2020? I wish the Government well with that goal and hope we will all be here in 12 years to see if it has attained that.

We need to improve access to adult education. There are still obstacles to people's involvement in education. The Minister of State was in Cork last week for the lifelong learning festival which aimed to inculcate a love and desire in people to participate. I pay tribute to Tina Neylon, the organiser, and her crew and volunteers. Information empowers people. By giving citizens information and making it easy for them to participate, we demystify the learning experience. I commend people like Máirtín Ó Fathaigh of UCC who have brought third level institutions into townlands and villages and the suburbs of our cities. They have made education accessible and removed the snobbish element attached to it. That is welcome. I note the role that community schools play, acting as providers. I have met with the National Association of Community Education Directors, NACED, in my role in Ballincollig Community School as has the Minister for State at the Department of Education and Science, Deputy Seán Haughey. This role of community schools maintains the traditional ethos of bringing people in, which is important.

It is also important that we enhance the lives of people through participation in education. I ask the Minister to examine the role of the community education provider in regard to the self-financing ethos which inhibits some schools and directors of adult education from putting on courses because of the cost factor. We should not preclude the options for people because of cost and financial burden.

People in the workforce at present with reasonably good qualifications may in ten or 12 years' time, or less, have no job. This is because of the changing work environment, the evolution of different jobs and information technology becoming outdated. We need to work to prevent this. We need to invest in research and development and the Minister of State alluded to this in his report. We need to do this so that we can remain competitive and keep jobs in Ireland.

The life long learning festival in County Cork has a simple motto, which is "Investigate, Participate and Celebrate". In that simple motto, the investigation allows people to be part of the learning process which is creative and different from the three R's which applied before we moved into the more innovative educational techniques. The festival encourages participation, which is fun and this helps to demystify education so that it is no longer a barrier and the formality is gone. We celebrate, whatever the educational achievement or level attained, which is important.

I sometimes worry about the role of FETAC. I welcome the organisation and the framework being put in place, but schools and providers dealing with FETAC do not always get the necessary support. There can be difficulties in terms of trying to log on to the system with a PIN number — I refer to the provider here — and access can be difficult. Perhaps the Minister of State can examine this system to see how it can be made more user friendly. It is critical that people have the right skills. It is essential, given that this underpins the whole national skills strategy, that we have people in the correct categories and that we upskill people. We are committed to this. The obstacles that persist are those of time and finance and we have not addressed these. I hope that if the Minister of State survives the departmental changes next week — if he is not promoted of course — he will take on board the need for adult education to be given priority. Adult education is critical to this national skills strategy and it is critical for the evolution of society.

The leaving certificate should be the minimum target for everybody. I may get assassinated by the teachers unions for saying this, since I am a member, but perhaps it is time to examine the leaving certificate and change it completely. We should not be afraid to have a debate about this issue because the minimum standard for everybody should be the leaving certificate.

I am a teacher of applied leaving certificate which is a wonderful addition to the school curriculum. It gives people who would have left school with no qualifications an opportunity to stay on and learn and, to use the life-long learning festival motto, "Investigate, Participate and Celebrate".

We are behind the target for participation in adult education compared with other EU countries. The minimum level is 12.5% and we have a level of 8%. This compares to 35% in Sweden and 29% in the UK. Ireland is way behind.

I reiterate to the Minister of State that we must equip people. Training people in employment must be a part of this process. Our party has made several proposals which I hope the Minister of State will consider. These include the proposed overhauling of the role of FÁS. It is doing a wonderful job and I commend it and the community employment scheme. The amount of money devoted by FÁS in its budget to re-training and up-skilling people is inadequate in the overall picture.

I am concerned that the Minister announced only today that the first meeting of the new interdepartmental committee will take place tomorrow, given that the formation of the committee was announced to much fanfare some time back, nearly six weeks ago. I am open to clarification on this.

The profile of our employment has changed. However the skills, up-skilling, training, investment in life long learning, investment in education for adults and investment in education for people who leave school early needs to be continued. This side of the House will be vigilant regarding the literacy and numeracy rates and we will pursue this issue. Deputy Brian Hayes will bring a motion in this regard before the Dáil in the coming weeks. It is important that we devote moneys and ample time for debate in this area. It is also important the resources are in place. I ask the Minister to recognise the role of adult education providers in community schools under the umbrella of NACED. They are doing an excellent job and deserve greater recognition.