Ms Moira Leydon:

Maidin mhaith. Táim buíoch as ucht an cuireadh a thabhairt dúinn. I commend the committee on examining this area because education is very often taken for granted in public policy. It is assumed the sector is doing its job of educating young people, but it is also doing the broader work of creating social cohesion in communities and contributing to local society. In a way, education is sometimes a little overlooked as a policy area so it is valuable to have this opportunity to go into the nuances. With regard to rural-urban issues in education at second level, our position is absolutely unlike that of our primary school colleagues. The INTO representatives will give a very full description of their position.

Unlike them, we do not have sharp rural-urban divides or trends evident in terms of educational experience of second level pupils. The dynamics of second level are quite different from the dynamics of the role of the local primary school in a rural community. Most of our second level schools are concentrated in mixed rural or small urban areas. Accordingly, what happens at second level schools in terms of educational outcomes and achievement is very much on a par with what is happening throughout the country.

We have a good research base of what happens in our schools. The Economic and Social Research Institute, ESRI, has done significant work on tracking the educational experiences of young people over a decade through the monumental longitudinal study, Growing Up in Ireland. This has been tracking several thousand young people from when they were born. They are currently at 15 years of age. We have a large amount of data on the educational experience of young people plus all manner of data on their well-being, etc. Having trawled through these data, it is clear there are no marked differences between rural and urban educational experiences. The evidence suggests - anecdotally we would all be familiar with it - that rural second level pupils are somewhat at an advantage in our education system. When one looks at participation rates in third level education, significant numbers come from the western seaboard and other rural areas.

If we want to look at the issues facing rural second level schools, we should not compare them with urban schools. We have to look at the broader issues which are impacting on what our second level schools can do generally in the country, as well as what we need to do with public policy at this stage of our economic recovery to ensure our second level schools are delivering for their communities, whether they are rural or urban.

Over the past six years, the ASTI, with Millward Brown, has produced a longitudinal study of the impact of budgets on second level education. The news is not good.