Katherine Zappone (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister of the State to the House for this debate on the future of further education and training. I compliment him for the wide-ranging initiatives in which he, the Minister for Education and Skills, Deputy Quinn, and the Government have engaged.

I come to this debate as a professional educator - as a theorist and practitioner of further education, adult and community education and training. I also founded a voluntary organisation that has operated in this field over the past 25 years, An Cosán. It has designed and delivered education and training from basic literacy to third level degrees, inclusive of training and ongoing professional development and the establishment of a social franchise in early years education that now employs over 100 people, most of whom we trained ourselves. We have worked side by side with the public sector, FÁS and the vocational education committees and in collaboration with the voluntary sector, ably represented by AONTAS and NALA.

Although our time is short for today's debate, it is a genuine opportunity to have an exchange of views prior to the taking of the Further Education and Training Bill 2013 in the Seanad. I hope our points and questions may influence the Government's presentation of the Bill to the House.

I commend the Minister of State and the Minister for Education and Skills, Deputy Quinn, on the scale of the transformation process in further education. They have set in train a move towards a vision of integration and co­operation at national, regional and local level. This is central to a vision that could really work and enable SOLAS to be a beacon of light for the future. The Ministers have stated they are developing a whole-of-government approach, insisting on co­ordination among the three primary Departments - Education and Skills, Social Protection and Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation. This is a great goal. They also have laid out how SOLAS will drive co-ordination and integration at national, regional and local level, another great goal.

What is not as explicit in the Further Education and Training Bill - and it needs to be - is the co­ordination and co-operation that must happen between the three primary sectors of further education and training, namely the public sector, the voluntary and NGO sector and the private sector. The Bill refers consistently to the design and delivery of training by public and other bodies. Will the Minister of State please consider including in the Bill a name for the sector in the future that is consonant with the make-up of the sector as it is in the present? I am deeply concerned, as are many others, that with the establishment of SOLAS and the enactment of the Further Education and Training Bill 2013, the public sector will swamp and swallow the vibrant, effective and long-standing voluntary sector, inclusive of adult and community education. This must not happen. A prime ingredient of Ireland's recovery from this deep recession is the effective education, training and placement of those without jobs, especially the long-term unemployed, as well as those living and working within social contexts of disadvantage. The voluntary sector of adult and community education carries a wealth of know-how that works in theory and in practice. The future of further education and training ought to ensure there is a prime place for such know-how.

Our vision of integration within this sector must ensure the design and delivery of every programme is learner-centred and always provides integration of education with training. How can this happen? It can happen through a pedagogy and curriculum that focuses on the interaction between students, teachers and the wider society. The curriculum is not simply the set of learning outcomes but, rather, engagement with information, knowledge and thinking. This is fundamental to all education but, in particular, further education, as it serves people who may have been failed by their previous schooling. At the end of every programme we need critical and creative thinkers and skilled and capable employees. A learner's charter, named in the Bill, would also contribute to this.

The strategies of SOLAS and of the education and training boards ought to ensure, especially through the quality control of programmes and support of the ongoing professional development of educators and trainers that is envisaged, that our future workforce will be engaged citizens, supporting the development of the person, our communities and our country.