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to over 12,000 full-time students and 17,500 part-time adult students. It employs over
4,000 staff and has an annual expenditure of €147m.
While the population of the greater Dublin area exceeds 1.5m, the population of Dublin
City, where CDVEC is responsible is 500,000. The 15 – 24 age group represents 18 % of
the overall city population. Fifty four per cent of the population are at work, 6.3 % are
unemployed and 23.4 % are retired or on home duties. However, there are 88 electoral
divisions nationwide which are considered unemployment blackspots, ie unemployment
exceeds 20 %. Of these, 15 are in Dublin City. In the City of Dublin, 38.9 % of the
population have not completed upper Second Level Education. In the context of national
skill priorities outlined above, this represents a significant challenge. There is a need to
develop basic or fundamental skills such as literacy, using numbers and using technology,
people-related skills such as communications, interpersonal, team working and customerservice
skills and conceptual skills such as collecting and organising information, problemsolving,
planning and organising, learning-to-learn skills, innovation and creativity, systems
thinking. These are needed for employability but they are also needed for a person to
function successfully as a citizen in a developed economy.
The City of Dublin VEC operates ten centres serving 546 young people. They are
staffed by a total of 10 Centre Co-ordinators, 35 Resource Staff and over 50 Part time
Staff. Within this provision a number of challenges can be identified – to find an
appropriate programme balance between formal qualifications and essential life skills, to
meet the requirements of the National Skills Strategy objective of ‘One Step Up’, to
increase retention levels and, as regards progression from Youthreach, to provide
educational progression paths within the VEC’s own system. But in mediating these
national preoccupations into local reality another challenge can be identified, to maintain
the individuality and creativity of each centre, to resist the ‘pull’ to become small schools.
The process of evaluation and quality assurance is welcome as a means of establishing the
effectiveness of what is being done. It is also challenging and incorporates learning for all
involved, in the centres, in the VEC (local management) and in the Department of
Education and Science. Another challenge is to do with the effective use of targeted
financing, for example a new initiative responding to Special Education Needs.
One of the CDVEC centres is in Crumlin in the southwest quarter of the city. It
experiences high levels of disadvantage. In addition to what might be called ‘normal’
patterns of substance abuse there is also a significant local problem with heroin and
cocaine.
The most important issue is, of course, whether it all works for the learners. The
evidence from annual surveys is that Youthreach is extremely effective at recruiting its
target group and at addressing soft skills development. However, significant numbers of
young people find themselves unable to commit and drop out early. In general, these are in
the engagement phase. On a positive note, 50 % of these ‘early leavers’ return to other
education or training or enter employment. The others, in general, have problems of such
intensity that they may need a more focussed inter-agency programme before coming to
Youthreach. It is an identified goal to find out how arrangements might be made to retain
these young people.
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