Ciarán Cannon (Galway East, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank Members for engaging so passionately on an issue they find exceptionally interesting. The reform of further education and training deserves the focus it is getting, having been conferred with a status under the SOLAS legislation.

I thank Senator Power for her kind words on my attendance at the St. Pat's For All Parade. I congratulate her, Senator Bacik, and Deputies Buttimer and Halligan on the video they put up on YouTube the day before the parade. I congratulate the people involved in the parade on its exceptionally open and inclusive ethos. The main point I made in my speech in New York before the parade began was that the Ireland of 2014 is evolving and changing and becoming a more caring, inclusive and equal society. The parade reflected the real Ireland with which we are familiar in this Chamber. That needed to be extended to other parades, which I am sure will happen over time as we engage with the diaspora worldwide.

All Members stressed the importance of giving the further education and training sector a unique identity, conferring that special status on it. The establishment of SOLAS and the education and training boards, ETBs, finally gives it that. It addresses what Senator Martin Conway described as the mishmash delivery in the past. I was surprised at the level of communication in the sector. If someone developed an excellent course on aquaculture, as might be appropriate for its location in County Donegal, the vocational education committees in other seaboard counties would not be made aware of the content of that course and would not be able to access it or deliver it. Significant public funds would have been expended on designing the course in County Donegal but no one else would have known about it. Under the umbrella of SOLAS, ongoing consultation and communication will now take place. This will ensure this will not happen in future.

Senator Power quite correctly raised the issue of relevant on-the-job opportunities for young people while they are engaged in further education and-or training opportunities. She is also correct to point out that employers have a responsibility to engage in that process and to be proactive in their engagement. Accenture published a report last year on the skills deficit and how we should go about addressing the skills deficit in the country. One of the conclusions it drew is that employers, as well as being consumers of talent in the country, need to play a proactive role in creating talent. That was a theme that emerged from much of the discussion today.

Senator Jim D'Arcy raised the issue of workplace training and the need to ensure those in work have as many high quality opportunities as possible to access training while at work. I commend the work of Skillnets. This is a very powerful tool of the State in aiding and abetting employers to deliver high quality workplace training opportunities for their own people. What we have seen emerging in the past ten to 15 years is Skillnets clusters, in which industries within the same sector come together, be it in pharma, food science, technology and medical device manufacturing, determining what their skills requirements are within their own cluster and then working hand in glove with Skillnets to deliver the training. Two years ago Skillnets was charged with expanding that provision not alone to people in work but to those who are unemployed. The curricula and workplace opportunities that were developed through the Skillnets model were equally valuable to those who were unemployed in the region. I am delighted to say this work is ongoing and Skillnets have been especially effective in reaching out to the unemployed as well as the employed.

I was at an event organised by Engineers Ireland, at which the head of Engineers Ireland stressed the need for ongoing workplace training opportunities. As he described it, the half life of an engineering degree is about a year and a half. As the sectors are evolving and moving on, once one is out of college a year and a half, the qualification is essentially out of date. If Ireland is to remain at the cutting edge of all these different technological opportunities, we need to update constantly the skills of those at work as well as those who are out of work.

How do we determine where the skills shortage will occur? The expert study group on future skills needs is still doing exceptionally valuable work, producing very valuable data and reports on the existing skills shortage and what they will be in five years or ten years. They are continually updating that information to ensure every piece of education and training provision in which we engage somehow ties in with their assessment of the skills environment of the future.

The education and training boards also have significant autonomy under the legislation, and rightly so, to carry out their own research at regional level to determine the skills shortages in their regions and how they can best respond to those shortages and encourage people in their area to take up the skills that are relevant to their region. I will give an example. In Galway some 8,000 are employed in medical devices manufacturing and it is rapidly becoming one of the world's biggest medical devices manufacturing clusters. Two months ago, I opened in the SOLAS training centre a new training facility for that sector in Mervue on the edge of Galway city. We have recreated at considerable expense, and rightly so, a fully fledged clean room, similar to where one would work in a medical devices manufacturing facilities. From the very first day, trainees will walk in off the street to receive the training in that environment. They will be fully gowned up to work in the clean room. Their experience will be the same as if they were in any one of the medical manufacturing facilities that are in Galway. We hope the training will ensure they have a long and sustainable career in that sector. It is an exceptionally important opportunity for them but it shows how forensic one must be in determining where the skills shortages are in each area and responding to them in a very meaningful way.

Senator Wilson as well as Senator Jim D'Arcy raised the question of how ETBs with no training centres will meet the needs in their areas. I assure both Members that as we speak, a unit in SOLAS is setting out to address that challenge and how we can ensure a child, young person or unemployed adult living in the areas to which they referred have an equal opportunity to high class training provision. I visited a wonderful campus that is being developed in Cavan- Monaghan which I would argue is a role model for other parts of the country. I agree wholeheartedly with Members that we do not want to see any degree of inequality creeping into the provision throughout the country because we are trying to shoehorn a new service into what was the geographical footprint of FÁS. We cannot allow that to happen. We must get it right from day one.

Senator Barrett raised the issue of apprenticeship opportunities in Germany versus Ireland, a matter I also raised in my contribution. In Germany one can take up an apprenticeship opportunity in 300 to 350 areas whereas in Ireland there are 25 to 26. We need to look at what Germany and Austria are doing. Senator Marie-Louise O'Donnell also raised the big question, and it is a significant one, of how we encourage people to become an apprentice. I argue this is a problem for parents, and we must figure out a way to reach out to them and convince them of the absolute merit of their children engaging in the apprenticeship process. We need role models who have been through the apprenticeship process and have gone on to long, happy, fulfilling and rewarding careers. I visited Dublin Aerospace recently, which is a wonderful organisation employing 250 people. Every single employee has a shareholding in the company and everyone is working towards a common goal. The CEO of Dublin Aerospace was an apprentice, starting out as an aircraft mechanic, and has risen to the top of the industry. He is highly respected not only in Ireland but worldwide for the knowledge and experience he has accumulated.

If one were to set out to have a person lead an organisation, I would argue that someone who has come up through all the different ranks of the company is exceptionally valuable at its helm because he or she is acutely aware of every single part of the process of delivery and makes him or her more than suitable for the role of chief executive. I am sure if one were to look deeper one would find many men and women throughout the country and worldwide who have taken a similar path. Senator Barrett referred to the role of Neven Maguire as a participant in leadership training.

We must find some way of ensuring people who have assumed leadership roles in their own sectors are part of the provision. I know that the Senator has raised the issue with the Teaching Council. Unless one is a member of the Teaching Council and stands over the quality of one's professionalism and delivery, one cannot technically be part of the delivery process of further education and training. We are looking at the matter but the question is how to incorporate industry expertise in provision yet stand over the quality of the delivery on a day-to-day basis.

Senator Barrett mentioned that we should use technology and perhaps we could. Neven Maguire does not need to leave Blacklion to be in every classroom in this country. He, and others like him, could dovetail into delivery at a local level and there is an opportunity for doing so.

I shall move on to Senator O'Donnell's contribution. I agree wholeheartedly with her that we must reach out to parents and convince them of the merits of the scheme. Quality and Qualifications Ireland can play a critical role as it oversees the national framework of qualifications. People need to see that there is a clear uncomplicated progression route that goes all of the way. There should be a clear progression route for someone who wants to progress all the way from a junior certificate to a PhD and it should be obvious, uncomplicated and straightforward. As the Senator pointed out, we must challenge the divide that exists. Why does it not exist in Germany and Austria? It is because both countries have provided a suitable path for centuries - not decades - particularly in Germany. My Department and I will work on the matter. The initiative will be part of the SOLAS vision for the future and the further education and training strategy. How do we convince people about the merits of this engagement? We constantly stress, as I do when I travel abroad to market Ireland as a destination for international education, that we have the highest level of third level participation in the whole of the EU. We have strived to reach that goal and parents have demanded it but we are faced with the challenge of convincing parents that there is another route available as well as third level.