Childcare cash cutbacks blow for women students

HUNDREDS of women could be prevented from returning to education and training because of cutbacks in childcare funding for students.

Some of the country's 32 Vocational Education Committees (VECs) have already told students they can no longer offer crèche facilities at colleges. The crisis has arisen because of a 37% cut in the VECs' budget for childcare provision from the Department of Education.

A grants scheme was introduced five years ago to encourage people to take part in the Vocational Training Opportunities Scheme (VTOS), Youthreach and Traveller Training programmes by offering childcare facilities at colleges and education centres. Last year, 1,338 students benefited from the programme, catering for 1,257 children in full-time childcare and 415 on a part-time basis.

More than two-thirds of the 5,000 participants on VTOS courses, which give unemployed people a second chance at education, are women. The country's Youthreach centres give alternative education to early school leavers, including young mothers, up to the age of 21.

The Teachers Union of Ireland, whose members work on these courses, said it was a cutback by stealth and demanded the cut be reversed.

"Equality of access to the education system is being undermined once again for the educationally disadvantaged, especially for women," said TUI assistant general secretary Annette Dolan.

The Department of Education has told the VECs umbrella body, the Irish Vocational Education Association, that the provision of €2.9 million this year is of the same order actually €35,000 less than the initial allocation in 2002. But additional funding last year gave VECs a total of over €4.7 million to spend on childcare.

A number of them have already spent their allocation, only notified to them last week, because they were expecting an increase in funding over last year.