The Post Leaving Certificate and further education sector are the "Cinderella" of the education system, Government backbencher Liz O'Donnell (PD, Dublin South) claimed.
The treatment of the sector "smacks of elitism" when compared to the status and funding enjoyed by the traditional university/third level sector. "Progress on helping the PLC sector is inert and lacklustre," she said.
Fine Gael's education spokeswoman Olwyn Enright said the Government had failed to recognise the full potential offered by the further education sector.
Ms Enright said that instead of concentrating on ways to support the development of the sector "previously the principal concern has been to cap places on PLC [ Post Leaving Certificate] courses, which restricts access to further education and affects funding to further education colleges".
The failure to implement the recommendations of the McIver Report into the PLC sector, published in 2003, was also criticised. "None of the extra funding announced in the last Budget went towards the implementation of the recommendations of the McIver Report," said Ms Enright.
"This was a huge disappointment and a missed opportunity."
But Minister for Education Mary Hanafin said the number of PLC places has increased by 60 per cent since 1997 and now stands at more than 30,000.
"Such courses provide an important supply of skills to the economy, with some 1,000 courses ranging across approximately 60 disciplines," she said.
Introducing a debate on higher and further education, Ms Hanafin said the PLC sector was "well positioned to make a major contribution to developing the future skills required by the economy and it already plays a key role in providing occupationally relevant education to a substantial body of school-leavers".
Minister of State Síle de Valera said "adult literacy is the top priority in adult education".
This followed the international literacy survey of adults aged 16 to 64 published in 1997. It found that approximately 25 per cent of our population, some 500,000 adults scored at the lowest literacy level used in the survey. Since 1997 the Government had "increased funding for adult literacy from €1 million to €23 million this year".
As a result 34,000 clients were now catered for compared to 5,000 previously.
Labour's spokeswoman Jan O'Sullivan pointed out that the unemployment rate among early school-leavers is higher now than in 1999 and therefore "opportunities must be offered to them.
"Opportunities must also be offered to adults who left the system without a proper education. Adult education should also fit this jigsaw."
Sinn Féin's spokesman Seán Crowe said the reality was that "most kids from areas of high deprivation will not make it to college". He pointed out that there were some areas in Ireland "where less than 10 per cent of young people go on to higher education". He acknowledged the improvement in recent years but said "there is a yawning gap to bridge before we achieve fair representation".
Tony Gregory (Ind, Dublin Central) said that nearly three years after the publication of the McIver Report "not a single cent has been spent and not one recommendation has been implemented".
