Educational opportunities must be provided to all

In a speech to a Labour party conference in 1996, Tony Blair famously proclaimed: "Ask me my three main priorities for government, and I tell you: education, education, education." While our Fine Gael-Labour coalition wouldn't be advised to mimic Blair's administration in every respect, it could do a lot worse than adopt a similar mantra to this one on education. Ultimately, education is the torch that can guide us out of the present recession. A bright, well-rounded workforce is pivotal to attracting foreign direct investment to Ireland. That much was remarked upon by Tod Johnson, the American chief executive of market research firm NPD, when his company delivered a jobs boost to Athlone by opening its new facility here last week. Speaking at this event on Friday last, Mr Johnson said he had a chance to spend time with NPD's current staff of 20 people in Athlone that morning. "Hearing the level of education here and the number of languages spoken... that is just what we need to do our work correctly," he stated. While excellent work is carried out year-round by bodies such Athlone IT, Westmeath VEC and our local schools, it is vital that educational opportunities are out there for people of every background, age and level of ability. It's for this reason that the expected closure of the Shannon Bank Training and Education Centre on the Clonown Road, Athlone, is a worrying development. As we reported this week, the chairman of the centre's management committee, Cllr Kieran Molloy, described the imminent closure of the centre as "a retrograde step." The centre has provided courses to people of Traveller and non-Traveller backgrounds in areas such as literacy, numeracy, woodwork, metalwork, childcare, hairdressing and computers. Cllr Molloy highlighted the benefit of these courses to people who left school at an early age. New enrolments have not been allowed at centres such as Shannon Bank since the start of this year, and as a result student numbers at the Athlone facility have fallen from 32 to 15. The question now is: What will be done to ensure that the future educational needs of people who have might have used the centre are met? According to the Government, alternative education for those who used centres such as Shannon Bank will be prioritised within the Back to Education initiative. However, a 2010 "Teach" report on the progression of Travellers through the Irish education system found that following the closure of the Traveller training centre in Mullingar, in 2008, none of the 52 Travellers attending the centre entered mainstream adult education programmes. The Government must not pay lip service to this issue. It must show that it is committed to educational equality by announcing meaningful new measures to provide education for users of Shannon Bank and other such centres into the future. A failure to do so will only result in increased inequality and social disadvantage.