Seanad Éireann debate -
Wednesday, 14 Jul 1982

Vol. 98 No. 10

Adjournment Matter. - VEC Adult Courses.

Professor Murphy

A Chathaoirligh, my concern in raising this matter is with the circular issued by the Minister F36, 1982. I am concerned about the social implications of this circular. I should be very glad to have whatever clarification the Minister can give, and whatever assurances he can give. The circular refers to the raising of fees for all categories of students attending VEC courses. I deplore the raising of fees for full-time third-level day courses and part-time courses for ordinary students, but that belongs to a wider argument about the cost of education. I do not wish to dwell on that point.

My concern is with the implications for adult and second chance education. The implications of the Minister's circular have given rise to very serious concern among the professionals in the field, the CEOs, other administrators, teachers and adult education organisers. They have also caused serious concern to the public at large, particularly that section of the public who are in the process of benefiting from the facilities offered by the VECs, or hope to benefit from them at a future stage. There is real public apprehension about the directive from the Minister that the fees should be increased.

Let me be more specific. What is causing real alarm is the radical change proposed in the payment of fees for adult education classes. Apparently there is to be a new system for September next, a system of hourly rates which will have the effect not alone of increasing significantly the cost of adult education classes but also of multiplying the cost.

Second chance education will be very badly hit under this drastic change. Adults who want to study for the leaving certificate and who expected their total fee outlay to be, say, £40 or so may now find themselves faced with a prohibitive three figure fee. Harassed housewives and, indeed, harassed husbands who want to get out of personal and environmental problems, and who already may be burdened with baby sitting and other incidental costs, will now be overwhelmed by the burden involved in the new scale of fees. If the Minister's directive is to be rigidly implemented, the fee increases can result in a substantial fall in adult education recruitment next winter. That has dangerous social consequences in the light of present day massive unemployment and increasing social alienation. I wonder does the Minister agree that what I am saying is a reasonable and non-alarmist forecast of what may happen?

Apart from the second chance leaving certificate course, the fear is that the most worthwhile sections of the VECs' work in the realm of adult education courses will suffer most, and the relatively luxury courses — if I may so style them — will be largely unaffected. The Minister's predecessor in the last Fianna Fáil Administration was responsible for instituting a number of posts in adult organisations under the VECs. Among the valuable work done by adult education organisers has been the arrangement of courses for the socially deprived, literacy courses, and so on, courses which have not simply an individual benefit but have profound community connotations.

I know of two such courses, taken at random in different VEC areas. One is in Kilmallock, under the auspices of the Limerick VEC. The other is in Tralee, under the auspices of the Kerry VEC. Both have brought into the net of the adult education system groups who would normally be deprived of access to self-knowledge about the tax system, their rights under the law, and so on. One cannot imagine any more socially significant courses than these. The question is: are these valuable community building courses to be threatened by a fee increase of twofold, perhaps threefold, significance? It seems to me that, even as a matter of enlightened self-interest, for our society to hazard such a consequence would be very foolish indeed.

Of course we are in bad times. Of course people should pay for the kind of courses which lead to personal fulfilment and personal enhancement. There can be no argument about the fact that, if under the auspices of any vocational education committee, people are given the opportunity of improving their proficiency in bridge, or golf — and apparently such relatively esoteric courses are available — then they should have to pay for them. There are in Cork and in other places courses in cordon bleu cooking. Anyone who aspires to such a skill, by definition, can afford to pay for it.

The point is that there is now genuine alarm among VEC people that they will not have the necessary discretion to make the distinction between charging a substantial amount to people who want to do this kind of thing, and not charging for socially essential courses. One of the questions I should like to ask the Minister is: is there to be an element of discretion available to the vocational educational committees within the overall imperative of observing that courses have to be as self-financing as possible? Can they load on the cost in certain areas? Will they have to observe an economic criterion in every single course, or can they use their discretion to charge a purely nominal fee in certain areas while making it up in other areas?

It is unacceptable that people should have to pay for courses like literacy courses, or the kind of courses that give their lives any basic meaning, when they feel threatened by all kinds of social and economic deprivation. It is intolerable that they should have to pay increased fees for these facilities. It would be rather as if the entitlements of the citizens to public library facilities were suddenly surcharged and people felt they had to pay a kind of economic cost if they wanted to go in to borrow books in the public library.

We have, in theory at any rate, made considerable advances in our approaches to adult education in the past few years. I can remember in this House a very good debate, which I put on the Order Paper, on the importance of adult education, of second chance education The then Minister's response was extremely favourable. I remember on that occasion welcoming the Minister's initiative in providing adult education organisers whose work has spoken for itself. Against the evidence of forward thinking in all this, I hope we are not now moving backwards through this particular directive. I would ask the Minister seriously to consider the reactionary consequences of what is now proposed and at least allow the local VECs the discretionary authority in the areas I have mentioned.

A Chathaoirligh, if I have not taken up my full time I would be glad if Senator O'Mahony could avail of the remaining time to say a few words.

Mr. O'Mahony

I should like to thank Senator Murphy for allocating me a portion of his time to add my comments on the matter before us. I became aware of this circular and the increase in fees proposed under it some days ago when a group of adults from the north side of the city came to me and said they were doing their leaving certificate course on a second chance basis and that, on the basis of the fees proposed, if they were to do four subjects in the coming academic year the cost would be of the order of £280. That is, on the basis of 80 pence per hour, three sessions per week, per subject, over the academic year, a total of £72 per year per subject. If they were doing four the total would be over £280. I did not believe them when they said that to me. I did not for a minute doubt their sincerity, but I thought there must have been a mistake somewhere along the way. I made it my business to inquire from the Dublin Vocational Education Committee whether this was in fact the case, whether people who were trying to have a second chance in education and take the leaving certificate as adults in the vocational education system would be charged £72 per subject per year. The information I managed to glean yesterday was that a circular had come out which would have that effect. I was told at the same time that there was a possibility that that circular either had been or would be withdrawn, at least in so far as second chance education was concerned. I discovered today that there is no certainty at all that it has been or will be withdrawn in so far as second education is concerned.

Clearly if they are implemented the figures involved are outrageous and would effectively put off second chance education at inter cent and leaving cert levels for those people who wished to have it and who intend to engage in it.

In the area of adult education one can distinguish between so called hobby classes for which a reasonable sized fee can be justified in certain circumstances and second chance education, or community based education, where it seems to me the objective should be a zero fee rate if possible, or certainly something which is quite nominal because of the nature of the courses provided, and because of the people who are attempting to benefit from them.

I should like the Minister to clarify for us this evening whether Circular F36, 1982, will apply to second chance education, whether it is true that leaving certificate programmes will be charged at the rate of 80p per hour, or whether a mistake was made in issuing this circular in the first instance. If it is true the 80p per subject per hour is being charged for second chance education, or indeed for community based education, then it seems to me that the circular must be withdrawn. There is no possibility whatsoever that anybody wishing to benefit from these programmes can pay £72 per subject per year in the case of the leaving certificate.

I hope a mistake has been made, I hope the circular has been withdrawn at least as far as second chance education is concerned. It it has not, it is imperative that it be withdrawn forthwith. The scale of anger building in the north side of this city is very serious indeed, and rightly so.

Senator Murphy should be congratulated on raising the matter here, and the Minister has an obligation to clarify this as a matter of urgency.

Minister for Education (Professor O'Donoghue)

A Chathaoirligh, I share the interest of Senator Murphy and Senator O'Mahony in this topic. I recognise their concern for some of the consequences of the increased fees and charges contained in this circular F36, 1982. I want to say straight away that I do not think any Minister for Education likes to have to be the bearer of bad news in the sense of announcing increased charges along these lines. In effect, the financial provisions for 1982 do not really permit of much flexibility or much discretion in this area. One of the problems we face is that there appears to be a great reluctance on the part of the VECs to face up to the fact that they are expected to stay within their financial allocations for the year.

As the House will be aware, the financial Estimates for this year in the case of the VEC area were framed, in effect, on the basis that substantial fee increases would be needed for full-time students and, indeed, that was also the case at university level, and so forth. As Senator Murphy pointed out, that is part of a wider debate. The point I am making is that, given the difficulties of the financial situation, it was felt necessary to have the commitment to fee increases of that order. It crosses a very wide spectrum of the educational sector. Some of that increase was necessary also in the case of these adult education courses.

I should, perhaps, make it clear at this point that it has been the long settled practice that, as far as possible, adult education should be self-financing. There is no acceptance of the notion that there should be any form of general subsidy or underpinning of these adult education courses.

Unfortunately, the trend, as indicated by the financial data from quite a number of committees in recent years, suggests that many of these courses have not been paying their way, so that there was an element of subsidy creeping in. If one were to set about correcting that, it was necessary not only to have a fee increase but also to try to bring home the point that these courses were required to be self-financing.

The basis for introducing the idea of some minimum charge for each category of class was that it was noticed that there were quite wide variations in the level of charges as between different committees. Whether or not that is desirable could be debated in some wider context. On the face of it, until we have some more comprehensive review of education in general and adult education in particular, it seems fairer to try to introduce some degree of uniformity into the level of charges as between one part of the country and another, so that we do not have the anomaly of people in neighbouring areas facing fees of the order of three or four times those in the county next door. That is the underlying rationale for this attempt to specify minimum charges per hour for each course.

On the point about drawing the distinction between what we might call the more leisure or hobby oriented classes and second chance ones, I am very sympathetic to this. We have been exploring what is feasible in the context at this juncture. I cannot really come forward with a very substantial easement in the situation because of the lack of apparent response by the committees to putting their financial house in order for the year as a whole despite the fact that they have been receiving letters from the beginning of this year from my predecessor as well as myself saying there simply could not be any supplementary estimates for their activities for this year because of the budgetary situation. Despite that we are still receiving requests for very substantial supplementary funds for this year. The requests already received amount to something over £6 million, and that is with quite a number of committees still to come. I have no idea what the total additional funds requested will be.

In those circumstances I had no option but to say to the committees, as has been said to them many times already this year: "There is not the slightest possibility of you getting £6 million or anything like it. Would you please, therefore, try to take some action and demonstrate that you are taking some action to adapt your behaviour to the funds that are available to you? Do not just carry on as though nothing has happened, and as though you can simply provide whatever courses you think best and send the bill in to the House, not just to the Government". I would want to see some evidence from the committees of action on their part to adapt their overall finances to what has been provided for them this year, before I would be in a position to try to cater in any substantial way for a particular area of need. I would have to see evidence in the area of adult education that there would be sufficient funds raised from charges for leisure or hobby-type courses to help to finance any reduction or any easing in the charges for second chance education.

It should be feasible to offer a reduction of 50 per cent for any courses over and above the first two hours per week. This would tend to introduce some element of discrimination as between people turning up for one or two hours for a leisure type subject, and students who embark on a more substantial programme of second chance education or whatever, which might entail seven or eight hours or more of class work per week. That is the sort of suggestion I would make. I recognise that it will not go all the way towards meeting the points that have been raised, but the possibility of going further in that direction would have to await some response from the committees to the overall question of staying within their budgets for this year.

I do not feel happy at having to be the bearer of these sort of tidings, but, unless and until the financial situation improves, the limited funds available for education must be allocated with some sense of priority. In so far as pressures have come on from all levels, I tend towards the view that there is a greater degree of priority attaching to the need for additional funds at primary level and, to a lesser extent, in some sections of the post-primary attaching to the need for additional funds at primary level and, to a lesser extent, in some sections of the post-primary education sector. I am not saying that everyone would share that view. I do not even know the extent to which it would be possible to adapt further funding to meet that shift in emphasis. Those would be my first concerns, and it would be only when progress had been recorded in that area that I could contemplate any easing in the situation for Vocational Education Committees.

Specifically in the area of adult education the House will be aware that a commission are examining this subject. They are due to report in October. I have been in touch with them, and I am assured that they expect to adhere to that timetable. I would expect that they will come forward with some fairly practically based proposals for tackling second chance education, and so forth. It would be in that context that we could come forward with what might be a more acceptable pattern of charges in future years. As of now, the situation for this year is very much one that does not give me any real flexibility in the budgetary constraints already established.

Professor Murphy

May I thank the Minister and hope that the vital distinction between hobby and survival courses will be pursued in all future discussions?

The Seanad adjourned at 8.30 p.m. until 10.30 a.m. on Thursday, 15 July 1982.