Much greater investment is required for the provision of English-language lessons for foreign nationals, according to a senior school manager.
Michael Moriarty, general secretary of the Irish Vocational Education Association (IVEA), said yesterday that this was the best means of building a fully-integrated society.
"The key to social cohesion is the use of a common language . . . resourcing English-language tuition to provide competencies in English as the common language of the State is imperative and absolutely essential," Mr Moriarty told the opening day of the IVEA conference in Killarney, Co Kerry.
Mr Moriarty said achieving social cohesion was the way to avoid ethnic conflict in the future and said the winner/loser dynamic, "where one group's gain is seen as a loss for another group", had to be avoided.
Mr Moriarty has raised the possible role of vocational education committees in school patronage in the context of increasing religious diversity in the country. He noted that because of their multi-denominational dimension, VECs were well placed to cater for the educational needs of a multicultural and multi-ethnic society.