VEC staff to fight paying wages through department

THE transfer of responsibility for payment of teachers in vocational schools to the Department of Education would be firmly resisted, Vocational Education Committees (VECs) and their support staff have warned.

Education Minister Batt O’Keeffe suggested recently that payroll for about 8,000 teachers employed in the 250 second-level schools managed by the VECs could be taken over by his department.

He suggested this might free up staff to take on the extra work arising from the transfer of all college student grant schemes to VECs from next year.