More education funding needed to boost labour skills

GREATER investment in all levels of education is needed if an ambitious plan to upskill the labour force for future economic needs can be achieved, the Government has been warned.

The skills strategy published by the Expert Group on Future Skills Needs (EGFSN) sets targets for 2020 of having almost half the labour force with a third-level qualification, increasing the rate of Leaving Certificate completion to 90%, and getting half a million workers to move at least one step up the qualifications ladder.

The plan would mean that just one-in-14 workers by that time would have a qualification lower than Junior Certificate.

Launching the report yesterday, Education Minister Mary Hanafin said it identifies central challenges in ensuring a continuing supply of the skills needed for our future competitiveness and prosperity. “It brings into sharp focus the long-term importance of many elements of the policies we are pursuing to advance access, participation, quality and attainment at all levels of the education system,” she said.

But the Government will face significant challenges reaching these targets, with Leaving Certificate completion rates almost unchanged at just over 82% for the past number of years.

In order to achieve the kind of third-level participation envisaged in the report, Government investment is needed from the earliest stages in each citizen’s life.

Institute of Guidance Counsellors president Frank Mulvihill said the numbers of college graduates sought in the report will require major investment to make third-level education accessible to all students.

“This should be the aim of the majority of those at second-level but, despite the wealth of the country, it is still not possible,” he said.

The Irish National Teachers’ Organisation warned that failure to increase investment at primary level will see Ireland overtaken in economic and social terms by other countries.

The Council of Directors of the Institutes of Technology welcomed the EGFSN report’s focus on continuous upskilling of the workforce, but said it is an area in which Ireland has a lamentable record to date.

Cork Institute of Technology director Dr Brendan Murphy said a critical step for the Government will be to set up an appropriate funding system for part-time education.

“This will ensure that those in the workforce specifically, and in society more widely, who did not get the chance to participate in third-level in the past, can do so in the future and be real participants in a knowledge society,” he said.

“Jobs are already being lost, competitiveness is being eroded. Further significant capital spending will be needed if the institutes can meet the challenge posed by the major increases in third-level numbers envisaged in the report,” Dr Murphy said.

The EGFSN report also highlights the need to integrate immigrants into the education and training system, to improve career guidance for those at work, to help people and companies identify their skills needs, and to develop education and training which is responsive to the needs of employers and workers.