Niall Collins (Limerick County, Fianna Fail)

A proposal was issued to staff representatives last year to establish a new grade of adult educator, with a standardised pay scale aligned with the Youthreach resource person scale. A number of issues arose in subsequent negotiations with staff representatives on the implementation of the proposal. These issues have since been resolved and agreement reached on a revised offer to tutors employed by education and training boards in adult, community and further education settings.

Existing adult education tutors have the option of moving to the new incremental pay scale with effect from 1 April 2023 or remaining on their current terms and conditions. Assimilation to the adult educator scale will be based on the tutors’ current rates of pay and their full-time equivalence will be based on their current contracted hours. The contractual obligations of adult educators will be to deliver 1,044 contact hours and an associated 782 non-contact hours, equating to 1,826 hours for a whole-time post.

Tutors on fixed-term contracts will be issued with adult educator contracts on renewal of their contracts and all newly-hired adult educators will be appointed to the new grade and commence on the first point of the scale.

The education and training boards were notified of the implementation arrangements in April. With a view to ensuring implementation takes place this year, the ETBs were requested to issue offer letters to allow sufficient time for tutors to consider their options in order for contract changes to take effect from September 2024.

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