Irish Vocational Education Association

An Cumann Gairmoideachais in Éirinn

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Investment in Education Vindicated
03 November 2009
The recent report (November 2nd) of the Expert Group on Future Skills Needs – “Monitoring Ireland’s Skills Supply; Trends in Education and Training Output” has confirmed the ongoing success of the education and training sectors, when resourced, to deliver on key educational and training targets.

• The share of school leavers progressing to higher education in 2008 was in excess of 60% which was a marked improvement of the 57% achieved in 2007.

• The lifelong learning agenda is being delivered with a considerable number of adults (one third of recipients) now achieving FETAC awards.

• The flexibility of the education and training system is underlined by the fact that one fifth of higher education awards were made to part-time students.

• Third level graduates in Ireland had increased from 55,100 in 2006 to 56,300 in 2007.

Commenting on the report the General Secretary of IVEA states “These welcome trends in the Irish education system are in line with the report of the Commission of the European Communities (COM 2008 868) which highlighted that the proportion of jobs requiring high levels of educational attainment in the EU will rise from 25% to 31.3% of the total jobs between 2006 and 2020. There will be a need for higher skills requirements across all occupations with a clear bias in favour of high-skilled jobs.

Ireland’s future prospects could well be threatened by the resourcing cutbacks in recent times notwithstanding the recent restoration of certain funding promised in the Renewed Programme for Government.

If Ireland is to remain competitive on the world stage and if our objective is to revive the economy then we must maintain investment in education and training”.

Mr Moriarty concludes “The future destiny of the country and it’s economy will be determined by the skills quality of the workforce and the level of educational qualifications of the students leaving schools and universities. Will this reality sink home as we face an uncertain future and a difficult December budget”?

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.
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