Aideen Hayden (Labour) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister of State to the House. When I started looking at the literature on this area, I was quite surprised by the extent and importance of the further education and training sector. It is worth ¤900 million per year and there are approximately 270,000 places in it in both part-time and full-time equivalent courses. There are four full-time further education courses and five part-time courses. In total, there are nine programmes and in the region of 192,741 participants. Therefore, this is an important sector of our economy. One of the things that most surprised me about this sector, apart from the range of programmes and the numbers participating, was the value for money. It was quite surprising to see that in 2012, provision under Youthreach was ¤70 million for 3,700 places and that under the vocational training opportunity scheme, VTOS, ¤80 million was spent in 2012 for 6,000 places. This represents good value for money.

Today, we must accept the reality that many of these courses grew, like layers of an onion, one on top of the other. We must all accept that FÁS has become a damaged brand and that it is necessary, in order to maintain confidence in the area of training, for FÁS to move on to another existence. During the Celtic tiger years unemployment remained stubbornly high, despite the fact the economy never had it so good. Therefore, there is an issue in terms of the effectiveness and reach of our further education and training programmes. If they did not achieve that reach when times were good, we must look strategically at how they can achieve that reach when times are not so good.

I fully accept what other speakers have said, in particular Senator Quinn, with regard to the challenges facing modern society. I was struck by something I read in the book The Empty Raincoat by Charles Handy a number of years ago. He said that in the future people would have to deal with the idea of a portfolio of careers. He suggested the job for life was gone, as was the idea that one could stay in one occupation, even with different employers. He said we would all have to be a lot more adaptable.

I want to address some remarks to the Minister of State in regard to the further education part of this debate. While people constantly applaud this country on its high overall skills profile in the context of school leavers who participate in higher education, which is something of which we can be proud, these figures mask an underlying difficulty. The CSO indicates that 52% of the population over 18 has not achieved more than secondary school education. Also, our universities and ITs have a weaker adult education profile than, for example, their UK counterparts. Further education has a critical role to play in addressing this problem. The further education sector in Ireland is more fragmented and marginal than it is in the UK. The areas covered under further education in this country come under a number of umbrellas, whereas in the UK there are specialist further education colleges. As a result, our sector is weaker and less able to compete and engage with employers.

My final point relates to the move to integrate FÁS and the VECs under the umbrella of SOLAS. This is welcome, but rather than running the whole provision through a centralised agency, with little local accountability, consideration should be given to the structure of SOLAS. It should be structured through the establishment of local autonomous bodies with their own locally appointed boards. This is critical for real engagement with local employers and communities.