The abolition of the VECs' remit in adult education, the establishment of a National Council for Adult Education/Lifelong Learning and a new accreditation system for the sector are among the proposals in the Green Paper on Adult Education, a draft version of which should be available in the next few weeks.

The Green Paper is a discussion document only. It does, however, give an indication of the way the experts see future development in the sector. So says Willie O'Dea, Minister of State at the Department of Education and Science with special responsibility for Youth Affairs, Adult Education and Transport.

The Paper was due out before Christmas, but the scope of the work proved to be much greater than expected. As a result, Professor John Coolahan and Tom Collins of NUI Maynooth have been brought in to work with officials in the Department.

"When I came into office I discovered that adult education had developed in a very ad hoc way and was totally under-funded," explains the Minister. The Green Paper was put in motion in order to facilitate debate.

Adult education, he says, is the final challenge. "We have to get it organised and into mainstream."

AONTAS, the umbrella body for the agencies involved in adult education, estimates that more than 300,000 adults take part in adult education every year. And the number is growing.

The adult education sector needs to be rationalised, says O'Dea. At the moment a myriad of agencies is involved - including the VECs, local community groups, the Department of Health and second-level schools.

"We envisage an umbrella body - a National Council for Adult Education/Lifelong Learning - which would be structured at local level," says the Minister. "At the moment adult education is handled by the VECs. This will have to change if we want to create an extra strand in the education system. Adult education will have to be taken out of the VECs' remit.

"This is no reflection on the work the VECs have been doing but, if we are serious about creating this new strand, we have to go in this direction. I want to see adult education developing separately. Ultimately we could have separate adult education colleges."

Accreditation is still a major problem, particularly among community education groups. The Green Paper will be proposing models for accrediting adult learning within a national accreditation system, says O'Dea. "The Green Paper will set out a detailed scheme of how this will be done."

The training of adult educators will also be addressed. Teaching styles in the sector are very different from those used in primary and second-level schools. "We need a formal education structure to enable adult education teachers to gain qualifications," the Minster explains. "I envisage a registration system for educators and a proper career structure."

The logistics are enormous, O'Dea admits, and will involve a reorganisation of the Department. "We will need sufficient resources and an administration to manage adult education. We need to beef up adult education in the Department to reflect the changes we think are necessary."

In Government, Fianna Fail has lived up to its pre-election promise to increase the adult literacy budget - this year £4.1 million was allocated. But, despite our much lauded education system, adult literacy - or rather the lack of it - is a major problem. The National Adult Literacy Association (NALA) estimates that upwards of 100,000 people in Ireland have poor literacy skills.

A 1996 ESRI report, meanwhile, estimates that seven per cent of young people leave school with poor educational attainments - this would include low-level reading, writing and comprehension skills.

"I see the £4 million as a base on which we can build," the Minister says. "I intend to make a strong cases for a substantial increase this year." It's vital that the number of professional literacy organisers is increased and that the courses are more comprehensive and more widely available.

"We hope to reduce dependency on volunteerism. At the moment most courses are only two hours per week and are often held at awkward times - we need more comprehensive courses held at more convenient times - at weekends for example." Family literacy programmes are also on the cards, he says.

O'Dea believes that a major PR campaign is needed to encourage people to embark on adult literacy programmes. "We have to encourage people to come forward. At the moment there's a stigma attached to adult literacy; we have to use a different type of language to get our message across."

The Minister has also set up a committee chaired by UL's Professor Noel Whelan to examine the possibility of establishing an education bank which would fund job reskilling and training.

"We are entering an era when people need to change careers a number of times in their lives," he says. "Retraining is expensive and there's a question mark over who will pay for it. We would like to establish a fund to which the State, employers and employees would all contribute, which could be used to finance retraining and upskilling.

"I want Ireland to out in front on this one. We need a system which will enable people to adapt to changes in the workplace."