I have welcomed the announcement yesterday by Minister for Education and Skills Ruairí Quinn that a new further education and training authority, SOLAS (Seirbhísí Oideachais Leanúnaigh agus Scileanna) is to be established.
The new authority,which will operate under the aegis of the Department of Education and Skills, will co-ordinate and fund the wide range of training and further education programmes around the country. It will help identify skills gaps, point to weaknesses and duplication in existing provision and link courses more closely to both the needs of the individual and the labour market. FÁS will be disbanded.
SOLAS will ensure that further education and training programmes provide jobseekers and other learners with the new skills needed for the new jobs in Ireland’s 21st century labour market. It will champion a greater emphasis on generic, transferable skills including people-related skills, thinking and problem-solving skills and digital literacy skills. It will also be underpinned by stronger quality assurance, occupational standards, international benchmarks and course content reviews. This is indeed good news for those looking to retrain and upskill, and I certainly welcome this move to improve the standards, as well as the content, of courses in response to growth areas such as the services and ICT sectors.
As Minister of State Ciarán Cannon mentioned, there are 2,500 training places available in IT. I met with a group today, FIT (Fast Track into Information Technology) located in Glasnevin, who are providing some of these places. They have a 70% progression rate which shows the impact that relevant skills development and training can have in getting back into the workforce and I look forward to the positive results that SOLAS will have in this regard.
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