We welcome this opportunity to speak to the joint committee. The National Association of Adult and Community Education Directors is the representative body for directors of adult education in community and comprehensive schools. The association was founded in 1975 and has a wealth of experience in providing adult education programmes for the general public. The education directors who are members of the NAACED are teachers in schools, for whom the post of adult education director is one of responsibility.
The association provides support, guidance and training for members in a networking arrangement. We organise an annual conference which generally takes place on the last weekend of November. We make submissions to the teachers' unions, the TUI and the ASTI, and to our management body, the Association of Community and Comprehensive Schools, known as the ACCS. We have also produced a handbook for all members which is of particular assistance to those who are new to the job of adult education director. We have a website and produce a newsletter twice a year. We can send copies of our newsletters to the committee, if so desired. The executive of the NAACED is voluntary and all members are teachers.
Adult education allows people to continually develop their skills and capacities. Our courses give adults an opportunity to take up a creative hobby, learn a new skill, study a third level accredited course or simply enjoy the social aspect of an evening class. At our conference last year Ms Bernie Brady, director of Aontas, made a presentation. She had completed an ECDL course and an art course and had found the social aspects of the courses particularly beneficial. The social dimension of adult education should not be minimised. Evening classes nurture creativity and imagination and help people to live healthy and fulfilled lives. Investing in adult education makes sense for individuals, as well as for their families and friends. If adults are learning, they will pass a love of learning on to their children.
Adult education in community and comprehensive schools is self-financing. None of the money allocated for adult education in the budget is given to our sector. The NAACED receives State funding of €4,000 for its annual conference, but does not receive any other financial support. We estimate that our members are responsible for providing 40% of adult education courses in approximately 50 community and comprehensive schools.
The ACCS has two full-time staff to support 91 schools, 50 of which offer adult education courses. In the VEC system, by comparison, there are 26 committees, all of which have a supporting administration structure. As I mentioned, the executive of the NAACED is voluntary and comprised of teachers. Its members have an administrative role, an AEO role, are directors of adult education and also teach in regular classes. The State is getting great value from the community and comprehensive school sector. The schools are open Monday to Friday from 9 a.m. until 4 p.m for day classes and from 6.30 p.m. until 10 p.m for evening classes. Classes are also run on the weekends - for example, we ran a GAA coaching course for 40 coaches over a five-week period. Such classes, organised by the directors of adult education, are of enormous benefit to communities. This is especially so in respect of the huge numbers of young children receiving instruction in sport. There is huge demand for our courses and we are inundated with e-mails, telephone calls and letters.
Circular 46/00, which we have been negotiating since the early 1990s, is very important because it governs how adult education is run in community and comprehensive schools. It prevented the collapse of adult education in community and comprehensive schools by establishing the position of director of adult education and recognising the extra work and anti-social hours involved. Previously we were in the same category as a year head or a head of English. Everybody was getting out of adult education and principals would advertise posts for which nobody applied as they were too demanding. Whereas other posts would involve an early finish or working hours of 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., adult education positions were seen as impossible.
Since the publication of circular 46/00 we have been required to organise the management of school resources after school hours and to process finance matters for VECs. We have to cope with a changing Ireland and adults with special needs. We try to set up literacy classes but, to set up just one FETAC course, we have to put together nine policy and 43 procedural documents. Increasingly, the public expects to enrol for classes on the Internet and to pay by credit card, which adds another layer of work.
We are now at a crossroads and have become victims of our success. There is a conflict between our roles as teachers and adult education directors. We are all teachers except for Mr. Ciaran Flynn, who works for the management body. We do not have links with Aontas, the VECs or other organisations but, because we are self-financing, we try to offer courses that cover our costs. We now see ourselves as standing still and, as everything else in society is moving forward, that amounts to going backwards.
Our proposal is to change the number of teaching hours for members. The proposal has the support of TUI, ASTI, ACCS and school principals. Under circular 46/00 any reduction in teaching hours for a director of adult education reverts to the day school. In other words, if I get ten hours off to do my job in adult education the day school gets that back. If the hours increased to 22, the day school would get an extra teacher and I would have the time to deliver adult education to the standard required. We have made a rough estimate of the cost of our proposal for directors of adult education, which comes to €700,000. This is a very small amount and we note from the Internet that a recommendation in the McIvor report was for hundreds of millions of euros.
As members will see from the table, there are different categories based on enrolment. A director of adult education in a school in category A receives no reduction in time hours. In one example, an adult education director in Gort had no time off. She tried to secure enrolments on a full teaching timetable but could not do so and had to resign from the post. A replacement was found but that person also resigned and it was difficult to find another. The school had to consider a teacher who had only recently been appointed and we had to decide whether it was technically possible.
The table shows the proposed reduction in teaching hours, based on enrolment in the school. All we ask is that more time be given to directors of adult education. The director of a school in category A, with enrolment between 75 and 300, should have four non-teaching hours. The directors of the largest schools with 4,000 or more enrolled, of which there are only two or three in our group of 50, should have their non-teaching hours increased from ten to 22. This proposal would cost €700,000.
The Gort example illustrates the issue of survival for adult education. We represent a national network of centres of excellence. One of the banks was considered to have achieved a coup when it took over the ESB shops and acquired a nationwide network of outlets. We are here. We would like to co-ordinate and plan with other education providers. We would like to have increased participation in literacy programmes. We also note that in 2030, it is estimated that 18% of the population will be of non-Irish birth. We feel we can make a contribution in that regard. We want the time to provide a professional adult education service.
We are a close-knit group. We are a lean mean machine that can make decisions quickly. We do not have to go through a number of committees. If a policy is to be rolled out the directors of adult education can do it.
