Seanad debates

Tuesday, 11 February 2014

Adjournment Matters

Further Education and Training Colleges

7:00 pm

Photo of Alex WhiteAlex White (Dublin South, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Senator for raising this Adjournment matter which I am taking on behalf of my colleague, the Minister for Education and Skills, Deputy Ruairí Quinn.

The PLC programme is a self-contained whole-time learning experience designed to provide successful participants with specific vocational skills to enhance their prospects of securing lasting, full-time employment or to progress to other studies. It caters for those who have completed senior cycle education, as well as adults who are returning to education and require further vocational education and training in order to enhance their employment prospects. There are 32,688 approved PLC places nationwide. The number of approved PLC places is set at its current level because there is a continuing requirement to plan and control numbers and manage expenditure within the context of overall educational policy and provision. For each approved place, the Department of Education and Skills provides a staffing allocation and non-pay capitation. The majority of PLC places are provided by education and training boards, ETBs, in recognised schools and colleges, with the remainder in voluntary secondary and community and comprehensive schools. Places are allocated to ETBs and other providers on an annual basis following an application process and ETBs are responsible for the further allocation of these places to schools and colleges within their remit.

Dunboyne College of Further Education is part of St. Peter's College, Dunboyne, which is managed by Louth Meath ETB. Louth Meath ETB has an allocation of 1,526 PLC places for the current academic year. Enrolment data indicate that the total PLC enrolment in Louth Meath ETB is 1,809. The only stand-alone PLC college in Louth Meath ETB is Drogheda College of Further Education which has an enrolment of 790 PLC learners. O'Fiaich College, Dundalk has an enrolment of 511 learners, with Dunboyne College of Further Education having 429. The other ETB schools offering PLC places are Beaufort College, Navan, which has 64 learners and St. Oliver's post-primary school, Oldcastle, which has 15. Sanction as a stand-alone PLC college would require additional financial and staffing resources in terms of teacher allocations and management structure, including a principal and other posts of responsibility. In the context of the current budgetary situation, the moratorium on public sector recruitment and the employment control framework, it would be very difficult to provide these resources.

In addition, the Government's medium-term infrastructure and capital investment framework, published on 10 November 2011, sets out the demographic challenge facing the education system in the coming years. To ensure every child has access to a school place, the delivery of major school projects, as well as smaller projects devolved to schools to meet the demographic demands nationally, will be the main focus for capital investment in schools in the coming years.

SOLAS, an tSeirbhís Oideachais Leanúnaigh agus Scileannathe, the new further education and training authority, is responsible for the integration, co-ordination and funding of the wide range of further education and training programmes available around the country. It is working on a strategy for the development of a unified further education and training sector. This strategy will form a framework for future developments in the sector, including the post-leaving certificate sector.

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