Irish Vocational Education Association

"Over 200,000 adult education students are being victimised by the blind implementation of the Department of Finance moratorium on the filling of vacant posts in the adult education sector," says Michael Moriarty, General Secretary of the Irish Vocational Education Association (IVEA).

"Adult students' life chances may well be threatened by the requirement to end fixed-term contracts of programme administrators, by leaving adult education officer posts vacant and by refusing to allow the filling of adult education director posts in schools. This moratorium is like the Black Plague sweeping through the adult education sector," Mr Moriarty states. "There is no sense in some of the decisions to continue to block the filling of posts, as these examples show:

A school's adult education director post becomes vacant. The school is prevented from filling the post, which delivered almost €400,000 in revenue last year. A post which has generated its own cost in earned income many times over is to be lost to the school. What sense or reason gives rise to the absolute application of the ban on filling that post?
Programme budgets are given to VECs each year, with provision therein for an administrative post. If the post becomes vacant, or a fixed-term contract ends, the VEC is prevented from filling that post by the moratorium, notwithstanding the fact that funding has been allocated. The consequence will likely be that the programme will be significantly curtailed, especially with the trade union ban on taking on extra duties ('go-slow').
While school principal posts are not subject to the moratorium (as they are essential to the administration of the school), the post of principal of the adult education scheme, the Adult Education Officer, is subject to the moratorium. The holder of this post is the administrative and educational leader of the VEC's adult education service and is unquestionably the equivalent of a school principal. Yet the Department of Finance moratorium is being applied, despite repeated appeals for equity and fairness."

"These actions bear all the hallmarks of discrimination against the adult education sector. Cutting off the leadership of the adult education service shows scant regard for adult education in Ireland. It is now time for the adult education sector and its students to be treated fairly," concludes Mr Moriarty.

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© IVEA 2012