JOINT COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION AND SCIENCE debate -
Thursday, 5 Oct 2006

EU Lifelong Learning Proposals: Presentation.

Chairman

We are here to discuss COM (2006) 236, a proposal for the decision of the European Parliament and the Council establishing an action programme in the field of lifelong learning, and COM (2005) 625, proposals for the regulation of the European Parliament and Council concerning the production and development of statistics on education and lifelong learning.

I welcome representatives of the Departments of Education and Science, and Enterprise, Trade and Employment, the Higher Education Authority and Léargas, who are here to discuss COM (2006) 236, and representatives of the Department of Education and Science and the CSO who are here to discuss COM (2005) 625. On behalf of the committee I welcome Anne Murray and Karen Tighe from the Department of Education and Science; Gerry O'Hanlon and Padraig Dalton from the CSO; Eamonn Kinch, Jim Mullin, Pat Halley, Fionnuala Broughan and Marie Heraughty from Léargas; Sheena Duffy from the HEA; and Deirdre O'Higgins from the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment.

Before beginning I draw attention to the fact that while members of the committee have absolute privilege the same privilege does not apply to witnesses appearing before it. Members are reminded of a long-standing parliamentary practice to the effect that they should not comment on, criticise or make charges against a person outside the House, or any official by name in such a way as to make him or her identifiable.

In the interest of efficiency we will have one presentation on each of the proposals.

Ms Anne Murray

I thank the committee for inviting us to speak about the lifelong learning programme. The programme will provide a more integrated approach in formal and informal education and training. It will help to remove barriers such as the movement from vocational training to further education and training. One of our key aims is to make lifelong learning a European reality and this new programme will go a long way towards achieving that goal. The programme will also contribute to the development of the European Union as an advanced knowledge society, which is one of the key aims, with sustainable economic development, more and better jobs and social cohesion. It will also help to foster interaction, co-operation and mobility between the education and training systems within the community with the aim of becoming a world quality reference.

Discussions on the lifelong learning programme commenced as far back as the Irish Presidency in 2004. The first information note on lifelong learning was submitted to the committee in September 2004. Since then there has been much discussion at the Council of Ministers and in the European Parliament, and a Common Position on the programme was achieved under the Austrian Presidency during the summer. The European Parliament is due to hold a second reading later this month and the final official version of the programme should be published in the EU Journal in December, which will allow for the programme to start in a timely fashion in January 2007. I will now hand over to Mr. Mullin from Léargas, one of the national agencies for the lifelong learning programmes in Ireland. He will outline in more detail the provisions of the programme.

Mr. Jim Mullin

I thank the committee for the kind invitation to speak here today. We have circulated for members' information a background briefing paper and I will highlight some of the main points in that paper. I start by clarifying our role as a national agency for the European education and training programmes. The European Commission asks national authorities to appoint national agencies to manage the Commission's programmes for education, training and non-formal education. In Ireland, the national authorities are the Department of Education and Science and the Department of Enterprise Trade and Employment. The national agencies are Léargas, the Higher Education Authority and the Department of Education and Science.

The three main programmes that Léargas is responsible for in Ireland are the Socrates programme — COMENIUS, Grundtvig and Lingua actions, the Youth programme and the Leonardo da Vinci programme. The HEA manages the Erasmus and Minerva programmes, and is the national contact for the Tempus and Erasmus Mundus programmes. The Department of Education and Science manages the Arion programme and CEDEFOP study visits. As national agencies, our primary tasks are to promote the programmes and to support applicants to access the funding available for their projects.

The revised proposal for the lifelong learning programme is very similar to the original proposal in terms of the programme structure. We have provided a diagram of the programme on page 6 of the briefing document. There are still four sectoral programmes: COMENIUS for school education; Erasmus which is oriented at higher education and advanced vocational training; Leonardo da Vinci for initial and continuing training; and Grundtvig dealing with adult education. There are also two horizontal programmes: the Transversal programme which deals with policy development, language learning, ICT and dissemination of the outcomes of the programmes; and the Jean Monnet programme which deals with European integration. While the programme is broadly the same as it was in the original proposal, there have been some changes in the detail. Some actions have been removed and the introduction of other actions has been delayed for budgetary reasons.

Undoubtedly, the committee is aware of the most significant change in the funding of the programme. The relevant figure has been reduced from the originally proposed €13.6 billion to €6.2 billion. The latter figure means that almost €7 billion, in current cash prices, will be available for the new lifelong learning programme. Léargas would like to draw the attention of the committee to the figures on page 14 of the briefing document, which compare the proposed funding for the lifelong learning programme to the funding allocated for the current round of programmes. Members will note that the funding for the Leonardo da Vinci programme has increased from €1.15 billion to €1.72 billion and that the funding for the remaining three sectoral programmes has increased from €1.85 billion to €4.52 billion. The first table on page 14 highlights the minimum allocations proposed for the different programmes. Léargas is happy to report that following discussions with this committee in 2005, and due to the support for adult education given by the Minister and the Department of Education and Science, the minimum allocation for the Grundtvig programme has been increased to 4% from the original proposal of 3%.

I wish to highlight some of the differences in the programme activities. Some of the activity changes have resulted from the changes in the funding structures which I already mentioned. The COMENIUS programme, for example, has been somewhat simplified. Different types of school projects will be merged into a single category called school partnerships. Such projects may run for two years. All teachers, rather than just language teachers, will be able to apply for assistantships. Individual secondary pupil mobility will be part of the COMENIUS programme from 2008.

Some fundamental changes will also be made to the Erasmus programme. It will include placements for advanced vocational training students. The placements are currently funded under the Leonardo da Vinci programme. Students will be permitted to have more than one Erasmus grant, up to a maximum of 24 months. The management of the intensive programme will be decentralised, which should lead to an increase in participation in Ireland generally. The experience in this country has generally been that participation increases when programmes are managed locally by national agencies.

There will also be some changes to the Grundtvig programme. It will be the subject of an increased allocation of funding, for example. Partnerships under the programme will run for two years. Training grants will be available for a maximum of six weeks, rather than four weeks as is the case at present. Adult learners will have access to mobility funding from 2008 and Grundtvig assistantships will be available from 2008.

The Leonardo da Vinci programme will see a key change in that advanced vocational training placements will move to the Erasmus programme. The programme will continue, however, with new partnership projects being funded from 2008. Trainees will be funded to do placements in training institutions as well as in enterprises. Transfer of innovation projects have been retained, although they have been dropped from the other three sectoral programmes.

Due to funding differences, some of the targets the commission has set for the lifelong learning programme have changed. The committee should note that these targets are still ambitious. The target for the COMENIUS programme is that 3 million pupils will be involved across the seven years of the new lifelong learning programme. It is hoped that the Erasmus programme will have reached a total of 3 million students involved in mobility during the lifetime of the programme. The Leonardo da Vinci programme is aiming to have 80,000 participants per annum by 2013. The target for the Grundtvig programme is to have 7,000 participants involved in mobility per annum by 2013.

In response to feedback from national authorities and agencies across Europe, the European Commission has proposed some simplification of the administration procedures associated with the new programme. For example, there will be two-year life cycles for partnerships, single lump sums will be provided for beneficiaries and simplified selection procedures will be introduced. Léargas welcomes the fact that the Commission is attempting to simplify procedures for beneficiaries and to lessen any negative impact of the new financial regulations. It hopes such simplification will encourage more applications for funding. However, it has reservations about whether it will lighten the administrative load carried by the national agencies.

Léargas would like to point out to the committee that while targets for participation are high and therefore increases will be seen across the lifetime of the new programme, it does not expect to see increases immediately in 2007. Next year will be a year of transition — some current projects and partnerships will start to wind down, but others will continue until the end of 2008. The national agencies will continue to work to complete the current programme until the end of 2009, at least. Léargas expects to see increases in participation and the introduction of new initiatives from 2008.

When Léargas last spoke to the committee in February 2005, it welcomed the coherent nature of the proposed lifelong learning programme and its increased emphasis on research, policy development and the dissemination of learning outcomes. It is pleased to report that they remain key objectives of the revised programme. Léargas believes that the programme continues to provide opportunities in education, training and cultural and linguistic exchange which are relevant to all of us in the rapidly changing employment and learning landscape. Léargas is clearly disappointed that the originally proposed sum of €13.6 billion has been reduced to approximately €7 billion, which is nonetheless a significant increase on the current funding level of approximately €3 billion. It will be a challenge to implement the accompanying new activities and high participation targets. Léargas looks forward to a busy and productive phase of its activities.

I thank the committee for the time it has afforded Léargas to present the details of the various programmes. If the members of the committee have any questions, the members of the delegation will be glad to respond to them as best we can.

Chairman

I invite Mr. Gerry O'Hanlon of the Central Statistics Office to address the committee.

Mr. Gerry O’Hanlon

A broad community statistical programme is being implemented through EUROSTAT, which is the European Commission's statistical agency. The programme has been developed over the years on the basis of a series of gentleman's agreements, whereby EU member states provide statistics on a voluntary basis. They submit statistics from their national statistical holdings so they can be aggregated into the overall Community figures. Statistics are now increasingly being produced on the basis of specific Community legal instruments. As the policies of the Community have widened to cover all the domains, Community framework regulations have been put in place for specific areas such as the labour force, national accounts and agriculture. The statistical requirements are now the subject of specific legal instruments.

The extent to which such changes have taken place reflects the extension of the Community's policy competencies to cover more and more areas. The current proposal is a continuation of that process. Many educational statistics which have been collected at Community level have been the subject of a gentleman's agreement. In other words, the member states have agreed to provide the necessary information on a voluntary basis.

The proposal will centre on three main areas. The first domain covers standard information on the functioning of the educational system. It will concentrate on the number of students at the various levels, their progress, the number of teachers and the other resources expended in the process. The compilation of such information currently involves a harmonised programme of statistics, covering not only the EUROSTAT requirements, but also the UNESCO and OECD requirements for statistical information. The demand for educational statistics from Ireland is mainly met by our colleagues in the Department of Education and Science, which has direct responsibility for collecting such information through the education system.

The second domain will focus on the issue of lifelong learning. In collecting such information, the main emphasis, from a statistical point of view, will be on household surveys. Specifically, an adult education survey will be undertaken every five years. The Central Statistics Office has some experience of such surveys. On one or two occasions, it has included modules dealing with the issues of adult education and lifelong learning in its quarterly national household surveys. This new proposal will give greater legal substance to the data collection programme, which is a responsibility of the Central Statistics Office.

The third domain is perhaps less specific and relates to what is almost a catch-all proposal whereby information on education would be collected in conjunction with information on other topics, for example, the labour market, social inclusion or poverty. A major survey on the labour force could, for example, collect information on the highest level of education obtained to allow analysis of the labour market by reference to educational qualifications and background.

The legal instrument takes the form of a framework regulation which sets down the broad scope of the requirements with the details to be implemented subsequently through the Commission legal instrument. In other words, the task of developing the detailed programmes will be delegated to the Commission using a comotology procedure, a well established process in the statistical area.

The proposal has been discussed at a Council working group and has been placed on the agenda of the European Parliament. In regard to the broad coverage of the programme, member states have not raised any objections on the working group. The programme simply regularises existing provisions under the legal instrument. There has, however, been unanimity that the scope of the programme should not be open-ended. In the third domain in particular, member states want to see existing statistical resources exploited and do not favour giving a blank cheque to develop new resources. While some problems or disagreements will arise between the Commission and member states, I believe the proposal will go through largely as presented, subject to the narrowing of its scope to take account of cost and other resource considerations.

Deputy O’Sullivan

I welcome the delegation. Discussion of this topic is welcome because the approach to lifelong learning is fragmentary among Departments. It is important, therefore, that officials from the Departments of Education and Science and Enterprise, Trade and Employment are present. The perception is one of a system of silos, in that these Departments operate two distinct systems and movement between them is difficult. Ms Murray referred to integration. While this discussion centres on European programmes, greater integration is required in lifelong learning here because people in both the systems operated by the Departments have informed me that it is difficult to cross over from one to another. For example, they find it difficult to determine what would be their rights if they sought to move from a VEC course to a FÁS training programme. For this reason, I welcome the integration being proposed.

Why was the amount of funding proposed in the original plans reduced? Was this decision taken by the Council or Commission? It is a disappointing decision given the goals set out in the Lisbon Agenda and the European Union's desire to bring more people into the workforce and upskill and improve the qualifications of those already in the workforce. Funding in these areas should be increased rather than reduced. While I accept funding has increased when compared to the previous programme, the level originally proposed for this programme has been reduced.

The Lisbon Agenda, a significant part of the context, envisaged bringing a further 100,000 highly qualified people into the workforce within a certain timeframe. A large proportion of the workforce has low levels of education and achievement and many of them find it difficult to be upskilled. Statistics show that people with higher qualifications are more likely to receive further training and opportunities in the workforce than those with the lowest level of qualifications. Will these programmes offer greater opportunities for the lower skilled members of the workforce? Will they have access to these programmes? I am aware that this is a general question and the programmes are specific to certain areas.

Statistics show that the likelihood of being unemployed one year after dropping out of school has increased since 1999 despite current employment levels. I presume early school leavers fit into the Leonardo da Vinci and Grundtvig programmes. Is this the case?

The higher end of the programmes provide for a greater number of participants than the lower end. The COMENIUS programme, for example, has a target of 3 million people, as does Erasmus, whereas the Leonardo da Vinci and Grundtvig programmes have targets of only 80,000 and 7,000 participants, respectively. Greater emphasis should be placed on these two programmes. I am aware that it is easier to enter Erasmus than Grundtvig because the target group of the former, those attending university, are aware of it and wish to avail of it. To what extent will the European Union encourage more participation in programmes such as Grundtvig?

Is Ireland well represented in these programmes when compared to other EU member states? Mr. O'Hanlon indicated a survey would be carried out every five years to collect data. Is that a proposal or will it definitely take place? He also mentioned analysing the labour market on the basis of educational achievement. We need to ensure that those with low educational achievement in the workforce are targeted.

Deputy English

I thank the delegation for their presentations and welcome cross-departmental discussion of this issue. Lifelong learning is a buzzword. Everyone talks about it because many people must engage in it. The days when one had one job during one's career are gone. One must participate in further education to move into other jobs.

In terms of the participants in the programmes, are certain groups targeted? Apart from the economic incentives offered to attract people to lifelong learning, what other incentives are available to encourage and facilitate lifelong learning? Many of the people we encounter are prevented from taking part in courses because barriers are placed in their way.

In terms of the collection of data, is it intended to set various targets for different countries or has one target been set across the board? Mr. O'Hanlon indicated that the CSO will survey most people every five years. Could this survey be carried out with the census every four years or must it be undertaken separately? It would make sense to carry out both surveys together given that census takers must call at houses. What methods are used to survey and interview people? Many of the clients concerned may not be able to fill in the form and may need to be spoken to about this and other matters.

This may not be the forum to ask about career guidance and advice but there is a big question mark against the quality of career guidance and advice at the key time. This all links together. Career guidance personnel have a big influence on those taking a course or continuing with lifelong learning. We are not maximising on this.

Deputy Andrews

I welcome the visiting delegates. In regard to procedure, the committee is engaged in the scrutiny of EU proposals. Will the Chairman outline what stage the proposals are at? Are we being asked to collate a report on the basis of what we hear today?

Chairman

The report will be sent to the Department.

Deputy Andrews

In that case the decision has not been taken. It is still at the level of a proposal. Is it the case that the OECD figures used up to now are not reliable? I am probably overstating the case but how unreliable are they? Are changes required? I direct this question to the CSO. The figures are usually relied upon to prove various points about investment in education and were then disputed on the basis of recent payments made into the education budget. Are we not satisfied with what the OECD has been able to produce in terms of literacy levels, access to higher education and overall spending as compared with the EU-25?

I am not sure what the phrase "individual secondary pupil mobility" means in terms of the COMENIUS programme. Will there be a way of comparing programmes in adult lifelong learning? For example, in certain countries, particularly the United Kingdom, tax credits are being examined as a way of encouraging people to become involved in lifelong learning. We have a free fees scheme to access third level education. By and large, the people concerned are in the 18 years to 20 years age group. These students benefit from Exchequer funding. People aged over 30 years who have never had the opportunity of accessing lifelong learning often have difficulty in getting to college from a funding point of view. Are we comparing internationally the inputs governments are making in these areas, whether they be tax credits, lifelong learning accounts or general funding? The committee has addressed this issue in our own case.

The grant allocations are listed for all of the programmes apart from COMENIUS. I am very interested in the work being done in secondary education but we are not told what the grant allocation is for COMENIUS as opposed to the ERASMUS and Leonardo da Vinci programmes. I seek clarification. I refer to page 22 of the background briefing note.

Chairman

I now invite the delegation to respond to the queries and observations of members. Any member of the delegation who wishes to comment can speak as he or she sees fit.

Ms Murray

I will begin by responding to the first series of questions about funding for the lifelong learning programme. The level of funding must be seen in the context of the overall EU budget agreed by the Heads of State and Government last December. In that agreement the level of overall funding for the entire EU budget was set. The funding for individual programmes such as the lifelong learning programme had to be revised in the light of that agreement. It was because of this that the funding level was reduced from the original proposed figure of €13 billion to the current level of €7 billion. As the Deputy rightly pointed out, this still represent a large increase over current funding levels. We welcome this as it will lead to an increase in participation levels in the programme in Ireland. It was an element that was somewhat outside of our control and we have to live with it and get on with the programme within the budgetary framework that has been set. The European Parliament was very helpful in this regard, in that it fought for extra funding specifically for the lifelong learning programme. Owing to its efforts, we achieved an extra €200 million for the programme. Thanks to it, we have the current funding levels of €7 billion.

What I can say on the international comparison of lifelong learning programmes is that this year every EU member state has been asked to put together a lifelong learning strategy. The strategies will then be submitted to the European Commission in order that it can gain an overall view of the strategies of individual member states. Ireland is currently working on its strategy. This involves the Department of Education and Science, the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment and the various stakeholders which will all be consulted in the course of establishing Ireland's strategy. Other EU member states will also be working in a similar manner on their strategies. We will be then in a position to form a basis for comparison such as the Deputy outlined.

Mr. Mullin

I will reply to the question on how the programmes respond to people with lower educational achievements such as early school leavers and those who have no qualifications. The programmes are more oriented towards dealing with organisations which mediate on behalf of individuals. One aspect of the answer is that if the people concerned are involved in community groups, adult education groups or institutions such as Youthreach, the programmes are readily accessible.

It is a fair point that the community sector is disparate and hard to reach in many cases but during the years we in Léargas have built significant databases of groups and individuals with whom we communicate. Part of our job in promoting the programmes is to make sure institutions and community groups are made aware of the possibilities. We do this through ICTs, publications and literally going to the far end of the country to hold information sessions. Access can be difficult at the level of the individual but through involvement in groups we do our best to make sure people can access the programmes.

Deputy O’Sullivan

Do organisations have difficulty with having to find matching funds for any of these programmes?

Mr. Mullin

That is not really the case at this end of the market. If one is looking at some of the very significant projects in the Leonardo da Vinci programme, for instance, co-funding is an issue. The Commission has moved to try to simplify the funding of projects through the provision of lump sum grants. The funding situation has been simplified from the perspective of participants. Much of the matching funds are matched in kind, through the contribution of labour or facilities, etc.

We were asked the extent to which there would be encouragement for programmes such as GRUNDTVIG and why the targets set for it were smaller than those set in the COMENIUS programme. One of the problems in quoting figures and targets is that they are crude; it is not possible to compare like with like. The target of 3 million is a target of participation by young people in schools involved in COMENIUS projects and it does not necessarily mean they are involved with mobility. It means they may have been involved in a classroom situation that is part of a COMENIUS project. The target for the Grundtvig programme is a target for mobility and is set at 7,000 adult mobilities per year. It is not as high as we in Léargas would like and would have hoped for. However, we recognise that Grundtvig is a relatively young programme and it is really only in the past seven years that it has come on-stream. It has been building up fairly slowly in Ireland but current participation rates are much higher than they were in the early years. The programme will continue to grow. The figure of 7,000 mobilities per year might be higher.

A feature to which we have not referred is the capacity to shift funding between the sectoral programmes depending on spends in a given year. There is some flexibility and if we in Ireland were to discover there was greater pressure to fund Grundtvig or adult education activity rather than Leonardo placements, for example, it would be possible to move funding from the latter to the former to respond to demand. This could ease the pressure somewhat but we must recognise there are still some barriers to overcome for adult learners. These barriers include issues associated with child minding and, for those involved in adult education, finding cover for trainers to go abroad.

On lifelong learning and the question of who comes forward and how we target people, we target extensively. As I have stated, we have extensive databases and we e-mail all the people therein. We produce publications, flyers and advertisements and we are represented in all the relevant literature, including the magazines of teachers' unions and community group newsletters. We trawl extensively as well as conducting public information sessions and piggybacking on other organisations' activities to get the message out. There is a restriction in the sense that those who are involved with organisations find it easier to access the programmes than individuals.

The major incentive to encourage participation is the European grant for participation. We are giving out money each year and in the first year of the new programme, grants totalling approximately €8.5 million are to be donated. Another incentive involves telling the organisations and institutions of the outcomes of projects that have had an impact for individuals and other institutions. These programmes present a marvellous opportunity for individuals and agencies to develop. We can provide many case studies that give examples of positive outcomes from involvement.

On guidance, there are two levels of response. One of our jobs as a national agency is to promote the programme but we also regard it as very important to ensure that the nature of one's involvement in a European programme is explained. We must also help people ensure that the programmes through which they are accessing money are actually relevant to their needs. People have long thought that it is easy receiving European money but it is arduous work reporting to the Commission on what precisely one has done with it. People should not become involved unless they have a real need. We take time to work with individuals to ensure that what they are getting into is relevant to the needs of their project or organisation, or their personal educational development needs.

At a more formal level, the Commission funds, through the Leonardo programme, the transnational information element of two guidance centres, one in FÁS and the other in the National Centre for Guidance in Education, which deals with European-level guidance information for individuals so they can access information on courses in other member states.

On COMENIUS and individual pupil mobility, this is a strand of activity being piloted in 2007 by Deloitte & Touche on behalf of the Commission. It is to involve groups of young people, together with their teachers, spending time in another member state. Issues concerning child protection and the preparation of teachers and parents who are hosting pupils are being explored in the pilot phase. In the pilot phase Deloitte & Touche will develop an underlying set of rules and guidelines for the operation of a mobility programme for pupils, and it will also develop child protection guidelines and teacher and pupil preparation guidelines.

Mr. O’Hanlon

I propose to divide the questions posed into two categories, the first of which concerns the frequency of the surveys and the question of how they might be collected. The current proposal is to have a very detailed adult education survey every five years. Assuming the proposal will be agreed at Council level some time next year, after which the implementation measures will have to be discussed, it is anticipated that the first year of this very detailed survey will be 2010.

Up to now there was a dedicated module in the programme of the community labour force surveys in the second quarter of 2003. It dealt with the issue of lifelong learning and attempted, in particular, to obtain information on the extent to which individuals, mainly those aged between 25 and 64, were participating or receiving formal, non-formal or informal education. One of the problems in such a survey is defining lifelong learning and its scope. The module covers most of the main elements now seen in the adult education survey but it is intended that the five-yearly survey will be a dedicated survey resulting in much more detail.

Deputy English mentioned the collection of information. Having a census in 2002 and 2006 was a total exception because of the postponement of the 2001 census. Our census is conducted every five years. We include a question on completed education and the qualifications attained. This is about the extent to which one can delve into the issue of education in the census, which must cover a large number of topics. Individuals must fill in the forms themselves and this obviously sets a limit on what one can cover.

We make use of the quarterly national household survey, the large-scale survey mainly oriented towards obtaining information on the labour market which also includes information on a wide range of other areas, not least on education and lifelong learning. We include the questions on education levels in that survey on an ongoing basis and in our main release we now include information detailing the labour force according to educational attainment. We can see the numbers who only have primary level education, where they are working and their nationality. A lot of information can be derived in that way.

Building on the module undertaken in 2003, we also now include questions on the extent to which people between the ages of 25 and 64 are currently engaging in formal or non-formal courses. We do not attempt to measure informal courses, which could be anything, but formal courses include third level courses in established areas while non-formal courses would be less structured but of a similar nature. That will continue.

We must ensure we cover all sections of the population. Luckily the labour force survey and the quarterly national household survey enjoy response rates in excess of 90%, which is as close to full coverage as one will get in an ongoing sample survey. We even make adjustments for non-coverage so we are satisfied that we cover the full range of the population, particularly from an educational point of view. The results bear out people's intuition — people with primary or lower secondary level education have significantly higher unemployment rates than those with higher education.

All of our interviews take place face to face, which is important in these areas. In lifelong learning, in getting people to understand what we are covering, we must be able to probe, with a trained interviewer taking the respondent through the various options to get an accurate answer.

Other questions were asked about the extent to which the survey may be indicator driven. Deputy Andrews asked if there is a problem with the current range of information that is supplied to the OECD, mainly from the Department of Education and Science. I would not say there is a problem but when there is a programme across an increasing number of countries on a voluntary basis, there may be issues of comparability in terms of how one country collects information relative to another. It might not be as comparable as we like. Placing it under a legal instrument will ensure a greater onus on countries to follow the agreed definitions and programmes on a harmonised basis. My colleague from the Department of Education and Science could address specific problems with the current statistics.

Where is the proposal now? The European Parliament special committee will complete its deliberations on the programme by the end of December and it will be considered in plenary session in January. It has already been considered at two meetings of a specialist working group at Council level and the Commission is studying the attitude of member states. The Austrian Presidency put forward a compromise text and I expect the proposal should go ahead on a consensus basis in the middle of next year.

Mr. Mullin

The COMENIUS financial statistics are on our website. On average the figures are €960,000 per year but we will supply the committee with that information. Its absence is an oversight for which I apologise.

Most of the activities of the programmes are operated through decentralised structures, envelopes of money entrusted to the national agencies by the Commission under the financial criteria. Those envelopes provide for the participation of Irish people. The distribution of that money is worked out at European level and either is written into the decision or forms part of the annexes to it. Our level of participation is fixed by the financial envelop available.

The Commission allocates resources to another class of activity, known as centralised activities. Ireland has done reasonably well in punching above its weight in terms of participation in some aspects of these activities. The Leonardo programme is the clearest example, where we have done well over the years in terms of funding for large-scale multinational projects because of the intervention model used in Ireland, where support is given to agencies and organisations to take part in the programme.

Chairman

I thank everyone for appearing before the committee. This has been a worthwhile discussion.

The joint committee adjourned at 12.35 p.m. until 11.30 a.m. on Thursday, 19 October 2006.