Irish Vocational Education Association

An Cumann Gairmoideachais in Éirinn

only search IVEA website

Text size:  Click to decrease font size Click to increase font size

Moratorium Discriminates against Cohort of VEC Students
31 August 2009
“The on-going application of the Department of Finance moratorium on appointments to educational posts in the vocational education sector is blatantly discriminatory,” says IVEA General Secretary Michael Moriarty.
“Despite IVEA arguments that the posts of education officer and adult education officer are self-evidently educational posts, the moratorium on appointments to such vacant posts continues to apply.
Surely if the post of school principal is exempt from the moratorium then the post of adult education officer must also be exempt?
IVEA has continuously contended that the adult education officer post is the principal of the adult education service in the VEC and is the equivalent of the principal in a school. In fact, a High Court judgement has determined that the adult education officer post to be educational in both context and function.
In one VEC, Co. Mayo VEC, both adult education officer posts are vacant, as well as the critical post of education officer. In this VEC therefore, the educational infrastructure has been practically dismantled by the application of the moratorium on the filling of these posts. This is both unfair and unsustainable.
VECs value all students equally whether they are attending the second level school or any element of the adult education service. It seems that the adult education service is expected to function, where vacancies arise, without the leadership of the AEO yet schools remain favoured with the leadership of the principal.
The adult student cohort deserves equality of treatment and this is blatantly not the case if the equivalent of the school principal posts remain unfilled, whenever they become vacant.
The Department of Finance on-going blocking of appointments to such senior educational posts in VECs seems to display a complete lack of understanding of the character, role and function of education officer posts and adult education officer posts. Common sense and a commitment to equity and fairness demands a reversal of this policy.”
The Irish Vocational Education Association (IVEA) represents the interests, at national level of Ireland's thirty-three Vocational Education Committees (VECs).

The VECs are statutory education authorities currently delivering educational programmes up to 100,000 second level pupils and 200,000 adult education learners. The day-to-day administration of the association is carried out by the secretariat, headed by the General Secretary, Mr Michael Moriarty in the IVEA's head office in Dublin.
Untitled Document

Piper's Hill, Kilcullen Road, Naas, Co Kildare, Ireland.
Phone: +353 (0)45-901070 / (0)45-901698
Fax: +353 (0)45-901711
© IVEA 2012