FAS came in for criticism at yesterday's session of the TUI's annual congress in Tralee. FAS had run out of apprenticeships like rats out of a sinking ship, one delegate declared. But now that there was money available for the sector, they wanted to get back in.
Delegates believed that FAS was blaming the education sector for the apprentices' shortage. In fact the reverse was true. The real problem was that FAS was failing to deliver enough students to fill apprenticeship courses in the Institutes of Technology.
"FAS won't fill classes," said Tony Farrell (Cork colleges). "When you add up all the unfilled places we have had, you have the equivalent of seven or eight empty classes, yet they talk about a crisis."
The DIT, a delegate remarked, had some classes of only three apprentices when they should have 13. A number of delegates feared that the introduction of the voluntary fourth term for apprenticeship training during the summer could have serious long-term ramifications.
Delegates, too, were concerned that the union had sold them short in its negotiations on pay for the extra term. The would get £6,000 for the summer term as opposed to £10,000 for a regular term. The Department's stance on the issue was that teaching staff were already being paid for a 52-week year.
Ms Joan Kavanagh had been teaching at the Ballsbridge College of Business Studies for 39 years - initially in the secretarial area and more recently in Information Technology. Despite the fact that she worked 21 hours a week and also worked seven hours each week in evening adult education, she still earned the lowest basic salary of £14,000 annually.
Ms Kavanagh was fully qualified with a teaching diploma and a Department of Education typewriting teaching diploma, but she had no degree, she told congress.
This meant that she could not qualify for a permanent position, which would entitle her to an annual salary of up to £28,000 a year and pension rights. Delegates voted in a favour of her motion that long-term secretarial teachers be appointed to permanent positions as a once-off solution to the situation which has left up to 30 teachers in similar positions.