Vol. 506 No. 2
430 Mr. S. Ryan asked the Minister for Education and Science the schemes or financial assistance, if any, available to help people in low paid employment who cannot afford to give up employment to return to education, in particular to sit the leaving certificate. [15160/99]
My Department operates two schemes under which funds are provided, through the vocational education committees, to enable adults to pursue adult literacy and community education programmes without charge or at nominal cost. These are the adult literacy and community education scheme, ALCES, and the special initiatives for disadvantaged adults scheme, SPIDAS, which support second chance education provision for people who are disadvantaged by making funding available to the vocational education committees towards the cost of fees, books, materials, travel and meals. Application for assistance under either scheme should be made to the local VEC.
My Department's Green Paper on Adult Education entitled Adult Education in an Era of Lifelong Learning proposes the phased development of back-to-education initiative for adults who have not completed second-level education. This would entail expanding Youthreach, post-leaving certificate courses and the vocational training opportunities scheme and making them available on a part-time basis.
