This is an auspicious time for FET. The progress made during the current strategy has put a strong foundation in place for SOLAS to lead the system into an exciting new era, working closely with ETBs and other providers to deliver real integration, reform, and performance improvement. This article looks at areas of current focus, challenges, and aspirations in the sector.

QQI was established in 2012 as a body straddling the further and higher education sectors. This article describes QQI’s integrated policy approach to quality assurance guidelines, provider re-engagement, and institutional quality review, and describes how QQI have been the first movers in an integrated tertiary education system.

This article argues for moving away from the narrow, instrumentalist employability approach to skill formation. It presents a competence model based on the three venues of learning: the classroom, the workplace, and online. The skill formation system, and its associated institutions and organisations, are crucial to ensuring that the skills of new and existing workers keep pace with the evolving needs of the economy.

This article shares the experiences of FET teachers who were forced, in many cases reluctantly, to engage in a process that transformed their perspectives on themselves, personally and professionally, and fundamentally changed their relationships with their teaching colleagues. It shares some understanding of the variables that influence how FET teachers perceive themselves: identities, work roles, professional learning and development, and the relation between all three.

This article provides an insight into aspects of career guidance in the Irish education and training system, in order to improve the existing career guidance tools and information and to enhance engagement with enterprise.

In 2018 SOLAS commissioned a comprehensive, independent evaluation of the Youthreach Programme. This article summarises and assesses the findings of the evaluation. It notes the importance of a positive, supportive learning experience and the value of providing career guidance, soft-skill education, and support for those with mental-health difficulties.

A fundamental prerequisite for successful implementation of national policy is to ensure there is sufficient local capacity to deliver. The FET college model, if developed, will re-engineer FET colleges so they can respond to the need of the Irish economy and wider society.