Sir, – Members of Isme, which represents small and medium businesses, agree with your call for adequate funding for Ireland’s third-level sector, but the notion that the National Training Fund (NTF) should provide this is misguided (“The Irish Times view on the funding of third-level education: fundamental issue must be addressed”, August 27th).
The NTF was set up in 2000 specifically to raise the skills of workers in employment and to those who wish to acquire employment skills. The NTF is funded by a 1 per cent PRSI levy on employers’ payroll. It was not set up to fund third level or tertiary education, which is a matter for the Department of Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science.
Many training providers under the NTF, including Isme, had their training budgets cut in 2024, despite the massive surplus in the NTF. This is inexcusable. We and other training providers have fully allocated our training budgets to the end of 2024, and have been turning down requests for employee training since June or earlier.
The OECD Skills Survey for Ireland noted that while the educational performance of Ireland’s school leavers and young adults is significantly above OECD averages, this performance level declines with age.
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The Survey of Adult Skills shows that only 25 per cent of adults had problem-solving skills at Levels 2 or 3, meaning their digital and problem-solving abilities are well below the OECD average of 31 per cent. The priority destination for training funding is therefore in life-long learning and in-work training, where Ireland performs most poorly in OECD terms against peer countries.
Isme and other colleagues involved in workplace training need to see our funding restored from the massive surplus employers have generated in the NTF. Any attempt or proposal to divert NTF funding into areas not intended by law would be seen as bad faith by employers, and would provoke a call for the removal of the 1 per cent training levy.
While we wish all those students well who have won CAO offers this week, we implore Government not to fall into temptation to pilfer the NTF, but to recognise the need to apply funding where society most urgently needs it. – Yours, etc,
NEIL McDONNELL,
Chief Executive,
ISME,
Dublin 2.