Although many VECs felt threatened when the notion of regional education boards was mooted, Co Clare VEC joined forces with other educators in the county to form the Clare Education Forum. The Forum, Clare VEC's CEO Jim Lyons recalls, was prepared to serve as a local education authority in the place of a regional education board.

Clare VEC has the reputation of being one of the most innovative VECs and it runs a number of interesting programmes. The Co Clare Enterprise Development Programme is one of its initiative. "It's built on the VTOS scheme," explains adult education organiser Sean Conlan, "and is open to people on the live register."

The programme is aimed at encouraging unemployed people to start their own businesses. Participants spend half their week in class and the rest of their time in the market place. They carry out feasibility studies on their proposed businesses and, within two months, are in a position to decide whether they have viable projects.

The programme is now in its fourth year and Conlan notes that, typically, some six to eight successful businesses emerge from the process each year. Meanwhile, a third of students obtain employment as a result of their participation in the programme and the remaining one third go on to to some other form of education or training, Clare VEC's adult education organiser says.

Clare VEC's Family Learning Programme was developed on the strength of EU INTEGRA funding. It aims to improve literacy and educational interest among low-income families.

"A major motivation for people joining adult literacy schemes is that they want to help out their own children with homework," Conlan explains. "We've also noticed that many of the children requiring remedial teaching come from homes where literacy skills are low."

The programme, which is geared to help both children and parents, runs two days a week and offers parallel sessions for parents, children of school-going age and pre-school children and babies. Parents learn how to deal with schools, how to talk to staff, how to read with their children and how to use everyday experiences as a way of learning.

The programme is offered in Ennis only, but Conlan hopes that it can be made available in other areas. "We're trying to package it so that it can be moved to other locations," he says. "We're trying to graft it on to primary school facilities so that it becomes transferable."