31 May 2000

Speech by Dr Sean Farren MLA

Minister for Higher and Further Education, Training and Employment

At the JIGSA Conference "Education: The Challenges to 2020?" Stranmillis College Belfast

I am delighted to have the opportunity today to address the challenges facing my Department which, as you are aware, covers further and higher education, training and employment.

It is a timely exercise since, after a short interlude in the political 'sin bin' local Ministers have again assumed responsibility for the governance of Northern Ireland. Collectively, perhaps one of our greatest challenges will be to ensure that the political arrangements, put in place as a result of the Good Friday Agreement, achieve the permanence which we all desire.

In my own area of responsibility considerable work has been done by way of analysis of the difficulties, problems and opportunities facing our new political institutions. These range across issues such as lifelong learning, basic skills, information age, research and development and the role of education in economic and social development.

All point to the need for bold initiatives to ensure that we will effectively and efficiently meet the challenges of the coming decades.

Let me set out my own view of the challenges over the next twenty years or so.

There are dramatic changes taking place affecting all our lives. The " Information Age" which now embraces us all is creating a whole new world of rapid communications requiring levels of skills, competence, adaptability and probably above all imagination, to ensure that we not only survive but make our own distinctive contributions to the possibilities it offers.

Those possibilities now seem to stretch and expand in such limitless ways that the human mind and indeed, the human spirit are being challenged as never before.

We are being challenged in our sense of justice and equity to address the spectre of a growing divide between those with knowledge of the new technologies and who are both competent and confident in using them and those who lack that knowledge, competence and confidence. These technological and communication changes are exciting for those who grasp their importance and who can prepare themselves for this new world. But they must be frightening and disempowering for those who feel themselves excluded from access to that knowledge. Those who educationally or socially see themselves disadvantaged or marginalised, who for whatever reason believe themselves to be excluded from this new source of power and this new means of maintaining control over their own lives, have therefore a special call on those of us exercising influence over and responsibility for education.

We are also being challenged to ensure that our people can adapt to changes evident in many communities in Northern Ireland where traditional skills and traditional enterprises are under threat. Such threats induce deep anxieties and apprehension in communities long accustomed to the opportunities afforded such skills.

How we address those anxieties and apprehensions poses a real challenge to our educational and training agencies.

In meeting all these challenges, I start from a position that believes education and training to be forces for positive change helping individuals cope with the unseen as well as the seen and powerful movements around them.

Firstly, education and training have an enormous role to play in promoting and sustaining social inclusion. To obviate the very real dangers posed by a world of "knowledge haves" and "have-nots", lifelong learning and training must provide opportunities fresh starts, for re-skilling, up-skilling and for progression routes to higher qualifications enabling all to take their place with dignity as informed citizens in a stable society.

Tertiary level education and training have profound contributions to make to meeting these challenges and in very many respects is already doing so. Our further education colleges and our universities are increasingly sensitive and responsive to local and regional needs, be these of an economic, social or cultural kind. New partnerships and forms of co-operation and collaboration across all of these spheres are emerging and must be strengthened to help create a workforce capable of adapting to new demands and beyond helping to strengthen our sense of community at local, regional and wider levels.

Secondly, our tertiary level institutions must enhance their contribution to local economic development through research, through technology transfer and incubation activities, through consultancy and advice and through engagement with industry and the various agencies of Government. In particular, developing enhanced opportunities for our researchers to make their own particular contributions to advancing knowledge will create a powerful foundation for further economic progress. We have much to do to enhance those research opportunities.

Thirdly, education and training must be of the highest quality. If we are to sustain and improve economic competitiveness; if we are to improve access to and increase participation in education and training; if we are to maintain social inclusion our education and training system must offer an experience of the highest quality to students and trainees, young and old. The institutions must be welcoming, caring, vibrant seats of learning accessible to the widest range of society. We cannot afford high drop out rates or high failure rates.

We cannot afford a population switched off by their initial or subsequent experience. Our education and training programmes must be of the highest standard and status.

In terms of our special needs as a society emerging from conflict and deep communal divisions, I would stress the need to infuse our education and training programmes with a deep sense of the values of democracy and of respect for human and civil rights. Too often we stress the goals of economic advantage and personal gain. But as we advance the objectives of the Good Friday Agreement we must never lose sight that the agreement is a deep response to our people's yearning for lasting peace, a peace based on a democratic partnership in which individuals and their communities are afforded full respect and dignity. Education for democratic citizenship should be central to how we meet the educational challenges of the next twenty years.

Education for democratic citzenship is also a concept which should embrace all the key relationships touched on by the Good Friday Agreement, not just those between our communities here in Northern Ireland, but also those between North and South and between all of the people of these islands.

I look forward to playing my small part in meeting all of these important challenges.