FG: Cut number of vocational committees
While the plan would only save between €4 million and €6m a year on the VECs’ 1.2 billion annual budgets, the party’s education spokesperson Brian Hayes claims the restructured system would lead to better cohesion in the delivery of programmes.
As well as running around a third of the country’s second level schools, VECs oversee most of the further education system, as well as managing adult education structures, Youthreach programmes for teenagers who leave mainstream education and a range of community education and other lifelong learning services.
The possibility of reducing the number of VECs, whose boards comprise local council nominees and other representations, has already been suggested by An Bord Snip Nua and is likely to be the subject of formal government plans to be announced early next year.
Mr Hayes said having 33 separate administrative structures to run one sector of education is a luxury we cannot afford in the current climate: one VEC per county, city VECs in some counties and three in Dublin.
“This is excessive in terms of the level of administration and replication involved,” he said, in advance of the publication of the policy document today.
“Is it really necessary to have a separate chief executive and administration for a VEC that has three secondary schools and just 100 teachers, when other VECs have 20 schools and 900 teachers?” he asked.
Under his proposals, city and county VECs would be merged in Cork, Galway, Limerick and Galway, with two maintained in Dublin, while smaller VECs would be amalgamated in: Louth and Monaghan; Carlow and Kilkenny; Laois and Offaly; Longford, Westmeath and Roscommon; and Sligo, Leitrim and Cavan.
The Irish Vocational Education Association (IVEA), the VEC’s umbrella body, said it appreciated the need for restructuring, but questioned the savings suggested by Mr Hayes’s policy.
IVEA general secretary Michael Moriarty said, “There is a lack of appreciation in the proposals for the social value of having local VEC offices which are accessible to the people we serve, particularly the marginalised who need our support most.”
