Ms Lucianne Bird:

It is a privilege to address the committee. I am the director of the National Learning Network, which is the education and training division of the Rehab Group. I commend members on their work to date, highlighting the many issues affecting people who are disabled and achieving equitable access to education and training while on pathways to work, particularly in the context of the review of the European Year of Skills.

The European Year of Skills emphasises ensuring socially fair and just green and digital transitions and empowering individuals to participate fully in the labour market, society and democracy. When the year was first mooted, it was argued strongly by MEPs and civil society groups that skills should be understood in a more holistic way to encompass not only skills that provide for professional development but also the transversal and life skills required to strengthen sustainability, democracy and social inclusion.

NLN plays a pivotal role in equipping people with disabilities to develop both the skills to progress into employment or further and higher education and the transversal skills to manage the transition to work and engagement and community. Rehab Group as a whole provides services for over 10,000 adults and children and champions diversity and inclusion for disabled people in communities throughout Ireland. NLN is the education and training arm of Rehab Group and is a leading provider of inclusive education and training services across Ireland, with 83 locations in both urban and rural settings. We work with 3,500 students in our colleges across Ireland and support up to 4,000 students in higher education organisations each year. Our services are designed using universal design for learning, UDL, principles, ensuring accessibility and celebrating diversity across our campuses. Every student is supported to be their authentic self in psychologically safe learning environments. We work with individuals aged 16 and over with a range of disabilities, mental health conditions, neurodiversity and special educational needs, offering personalised support so they may achieve their education, training and employment goals.

Each year, up to 500 students find employment through NLN and over 1,000 progress to higher levels of training or education in either further education and training, FET, or higher education. We are funded primarily through the Department of Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science, channelled through SOLAS and the 16 education and training boards, ETBs, and separately through the Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth. Our funding rates remain at 2011 levels, which is a key challenge for us.

We offer a broad range of Quality and Qualifications Ireland, QQI, accredited training programmes, primarily between levels 2 and 5, spanning in-demand occupational skills. Courses in our portfolio include retail, horticulture, horsemanship, sports and leisure, computer programming, game design and multimedia studies. There are many more.

As we are here today to offer input into the review of the European Year of Skills, I want to highlight that all NLN courses include digital skills training. In 2024, we are introducing green skills and sustainability skills training at a level appropriate to all our courses. NLN has continued to improve and expand its virtual learning environment, ENLN. In 2023, coinciding with the European Year of Skills, NLN's commitment to delivering a first-class student experience was reinforced with the introduction of our tech wheel. NLN centres are now equipped with a diverse array of digital tools, such as Microsoft 365, Kahoot, Vocaroo and Minecraft Education, to name but a few, and continuous professional development in technology-enhanced learning and a community of practice have built staff confidence and competencies in technology-enhanced learning. It is an exciting place to learn, as Ms Healy will tell us.

Giving members insights into the work of NLN helps provide context to our perspective on the scope of the European Year of Skills, which we believe was too narrow. The focus purely on labour market schools is misplaced. For example, NLN is currently partnered with four European organisations in an Erasmus+ project called VOLT, which supports the cocreation of online learning materials with students. The VOLT project was showcased on the website for the European Year of Skills. We choose to showcase skills that are not considered vocational or occupational deliberately. For example, Julian is a student who is blind and learning how to use assistive technology to give him greater independence in the activities of daily living.