The Government's Green Paper on adult education, to be published in September, will propose a national council for lifelong learning as an umbrella and fund-distributing body for the sector.
It is envisaged that the new council will be a statutory body.
The Minister of State at the Department of Education, Mr Willie O'Dea, told The Irish Times the traditional situation where the VECs were the only significant statutory body providing adult education had changed.
"Now there is a wide range of major players, many of them larger than the VECs. FAS's community education schemes, for example, far outstrip the VECs in terms of spending on adult education."
He said community and comprehensive schools were "relatively recent entrants to this field", but there were now about 60,000 people participating in their daytime and evening courses.
Government Departments such as Social, Community and Family Affairs, Enterprise and Employment, Agriculture and Health have all become adult education providers at local level.
Mr O'Dea also mentioned the EU-funded Vocational Training Opportunities Scheme, which provides Leaving Certificate, PLC and other courses for 5,000 unemployed people, and which is run by the VECs.
"The VECS are only one of a number of agencies with an adult education brief. New local structures should be based on recognition of this multiplicity of providers, and should avoid the notion of giving responsibility for the delivery of this kind of education to one provider over another.
"Rather it should emphasise proposals for partnership and shared responsibilities."
He said the Green Paper would also propose new models for accrediting adult learning.
Currently the main recognition comes from certificates given by the National Council for Vocational Awards.
It will also contain detailed proposals for training and accrediting teachers in the adult education sector, who have had very little of either until now. The proposals will include a central registration and accreditation system for such teachers.
Mr O'Dea said there was a need for a significant increase in investment in adult literacy.
This would be over and above the extra £2 million in the last budget for adult literacy programmes run through the National Adult Literacy Agency and the VECs.
Mr O'Dea said: "In a future dominated by communications, literacy will be as great a necessity for living as sight or mobility. Those unable to read and write will face the same difficulties as those today with physical or mental disability.
"Every effort must be made to combat the scourge of adult illiteracy. A modern, confident state cannot justify a 25 per cent incidence of serious literacy problems. A booming economy facing serious skills shortages cannot afford to exclude a quarter of its workforce."