Closing date for applications for the Local Global Trainers Programme is Monday 7th October.For further information please go to http://www.ideaonline.ie

Please email Helena Mc Neill at [email protected] if you would like to apply. 

The Government has approved the membership of the board of SOLAS, the new authority that will be responsible for developing a world class further education and training system.

The setting up of SOLAS, the Further Education and Training Authority, signals the start of a new approach to the provision of 21st century high-quality further education and training programmes for jobseekers and other learners.  The establishment of SOLAS will also bring about the dissolution of FÁS.

The Minister for Education and Skills, Ruairí Quinn T.D., – who was one of the first politicians to call for the replacement of FÁS – said he wished the new SOLAS board well in its work. One of its first tasks will be to devise a strategy for the development of a unified further education and training sector.

The new statutory agency will operate under the aegis of the Department of Education and Skills. SOLAS will be responsible, in partnership with the 16 new Education and Training Boards, for the integration, co-ordination and funding of the wide range of training and further education programmes around the country

Next week Community Education Facilitators and guests are coming together to Celebrate 10 Years of Community Education. This event has been organised by members of the Community Education Facilitators Association to mark and record the valuable work of community education groups nationwide and the work of Community Education Facilitators based in Education and Training Boards. 
Guest speakers at this event include the following;
- Introduction & Opening Address: Nuala O Brien CEFA Chairperson

- Keynote Speaker: Professor Pat Dolan joint founder of the Child and Family Research Centre at NUI Galway & Chair holder of UNESCO Chair in Children, Youth and Civic Engagement 

- Kitty Flynn: A snapshot of a learner’s journey in community education    

- Fiona Hartley SOLAS:  Official Launch of the DVD 'Community Education in Action Celebrating 10 years as Community Education Facilitators' followed by a viewing of the DVD.

To register attendance at this event please email your name to[email protected]

A Uachtaráin, a Chomhaltaí de Pharlaimint na hEorpa, ba mhaith liom mo bhuíochas a ghabháil libh as ucht an deis a thabhairt dom labhairt leis an tionól seo ina dtugtar le chéile ionadaithe na saoránach, arna dtoghadh go díreach agus go daonlathach, ó na seacht mballstát fichead, ocht gcinn fichead go luath, den Aontas Eorpach.

- [Mr. President, Members of the European Parliament, Commissioner Geoghegan Quinn, may I thank you for giving me the opportunity of addressing this assembly which brings together the democratically, directly elected, representatives of the citizens of the 27 member states, soon to be 28, of the European Union.]

- I address you mar Uachtarán na hÉireann, as President of Ireland, an island that has always been connected to matters European; a country that has always looked outward; a people with a very strong connection with the cultures and learning of Europe in all its diversity from ancient times; and a nation that has valued that European vocation through every century into the present when Ireland holds, for the seventh time, the Presidency of the Council of Ministers in our fortieth year of membership of the Union.

- Be it in our ancient Celtic connections, in our continuous connection with European scholarship, or in our modern consistent support for European unity we Irish have been European in our consciousness and commitment. Europe has always had an existence in the Irish mind.