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.