Mary Moran (Labour) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister of State to the House.

The education system has a key role to pay in fostering and developing the skills and innovation base to support economic recovery, as well as the development and expansion of the enterprise sector. We have a significant problem with youth unemployment, with 82,000, or 14%, of our 15 to 24 year olds currently unemployed. I welcome the Minister's comments on the Government's commitment to the youth guarantee. In the past, many of those who left school early went on to complete apprenticeships or got jobs in the retail or service sectors. These opportunities, however, dried up almost completely with the onset of the recession. Many of these young people are now choosing to stay on or return to education to give themselves the best chance of securing employment as the economy recovers.

Further education and training has been provided over the years by a range of agencies, with an investment total of some ¤900 million annually at present. There are approximately 9,000 staff employed in centres offering over 270,000 places to learners on full-time, part-time, formal and informal courses. The aim of these courses has been to meet the needs of early school leavers, to provide second-chance education for people who did not complete the leaving certificate and to provide vocational preparation and training for labour market entrants and re-entrants. In 2012, for example, there were 32,688 places on post-leaving certificate courses for learners over 16 years of age who had completed the leaving certificate, or equivalent, or who are adults returning to education. There are also part-time programmes such as the back to education initiative, the advantages of which are important for those who avail of them and which I have experienced as an educator.

Up to now, one of the largest providers of further education and training has been FÁS. Last year, FÁS provided 81,500 market-led and client-focused training interventions for unemployed people, with a total investment of ¤420 million in current expenditure. One of the excellent initiatives the Government has rolled out is the Momentum programme, which will provide 6,500 places for the long-term unemployed. The programme started in December. However, this sector of our education system has been crying out for change.

The Government has embarked upon a major programme of reform to ensure our education and training programmes are fit for purpose. There is little doubt that there has been duplication of courses across the spectrum and there are areas of provision that need complete reform if we are to ensure that taxpayers are to get the best possible value for money. We have to embrace change. We all know the FÁS brand been somewhat tarnished in recent years. I welcome the new training and education authority, SOLAS, which will be responsible for commissioning and funding the delivery of the service from the 16 new education and training boards, which, in turn, will replace the 33 existing VECs. The boards will be responsible for the planning and delivery of all vocational training and further education in their regions. SOLAS will also have the freedom to commission private sector providers as it deems appropriate. Further education and training will no longer be an indistinct sector with no real identity; rather, it will be more akin to the higher education sector, with SOLAS having many parallels with the Higher Education Authority. A core part of its role will be to ensure the referral of jobseekers to appropriate courses, and therefore the inclusion of a guidance service will be important.

Questions have been raised in the past about the quality and relevance of courses at this level. With so many providers and programmes, it has been difficult indeed to ensure that the learner gets the best possible teaching and training. SOLAS will have a role in auditing and quality-assuring the programmes that are delivered and it will have the task of ensuring that teachers and trainers undergo continuous professional development as well. We have discussed the importance of continuous professional development previously.

As in all areas of education, the learner should be at the core of the process. Having spent time in Youthreach courses, I am mindful that if trainees are not interested in what they are doing and if the courses supplied for them are merely gap-fillers or are run because the teacher was available in a given subject, then problems arise. The key to ensuring students remain on courses and interested is to make the courses trainee-centred.

I have no doubt there are challenges ahead, not least those surrounding the differing terms and conditions of employment of teachers in further education services and those of FÁS trainers, to which we have referred already. I know the area of holidays is an issue, because courses run by FÁS, Youthreach and SOLAS are to be run year-round, whereas in the schools the term is shorter. Integrating the two systems will not be easy.

We keep coming back to the recent job announcements in the digital economy sector, such as those at eBay and PayPal, based in my home town. They have brought a great sense of hope to those seeking employment but they have also brought into focus the urgent need for our workforce to have skills in information and communications technology, foreign languages, international business, engineering and technology. This is something we are all pushing for. Senator Jim D'Arcy referred to this issue earlier and I am aware from speaking with Louise Phelan that this is an issue. Senator D'Arcy was right to suggest that we need to ensure this is addressed for the next generation, and we need to put the emphasis on teaching foreign languages, especially Chinese, which is causing a problem at the moment. SOLAS will work with those experts who can forecast future skills needs in order that courses can be developed to respond to the needs of the economy.

As I stated earlier, the further education and training sector of the education system has been crying out for reform. There is no doubt that excellent work is being done by passionate and dedicated people in VECs, FÁS training units, colleges of further education and so on. The changes proposed in the Further Education and Training Bill will put learners at the heart of the process and ensure they are empowered to access the courses they need and that they can progress through the system and achieve their goals. I commend the Minister of State, Deputy Cannon, and the Minister for Education and Skills, Deputy Quinn, on the great work that has been done and on their implementation of the greatest change to further education that has taken place in more than 70 years and the greatest change in the training sector since FÁS was established more than 25 years ago.