The Teachers Union of Ireland has accused the Department of Education and Science of "washing its hands" of adult education for those at work because it plans to ask Vocational Education Committees (VEC's) and Institutes of Technology (IT's) to compete with private operators.
President of the TUI Paddy Healy whose annual conference opens in Dublin later today, claimed the TUI had been officially informed that educational aspects of a new adult education campaign would be a matter for FÁS and the Department of Industry, Trade and Employment.
This would mean VEC's and IT's would be forced to tender for the provision of courses under the "One Step Up" campaign with serious consequences for the standard of education which students received, he claimed.
"If you want to retain standards you have to have publicly -funded schools and permanent teachers," he said."We want the "One Step Up" campaign to be run on a partnership basis between the VEC's, IT's and Fás, as has happened very successfully with apprenticeships."
"Clearly the Government intends to marketise and partially privatise a large section of our future education system. We learned informally that stage one of the "One Step Up" campaign is to be launched in May, concentrating on those who have no second level education. But TUI and the VEC's had heard nothing about it."
Meanwhile, general secretary of the TUI Jim Dorney also warned it would not allow teachers' conditions of service to be eroded as part of any future pay deals.
"We have conditions of service which we will vigorously protect. They were hard gotten and they will not be snatched away," he said in a statement.
"We are prepared to work smarter, we are prepared to improve the service. We are not, however, prepared to work longer and we are not prepared to work unsocial hours."
Teachers are "tired of and reject" the idea that they have a short working year which can be extended.
They are also concerned that some commitments made by the department during previous agreements have not been honoured, he said.
These included the future of the early retirement scheme and the provision of a welfare service for teachers. "We will seek through the terms of reference in any new deal, fair and equitable conditions for teachers," he said.