Ms Jane Hayes-Nally:

Good afternoon. I am president of the Irish Second-Level Students Union. We are the umbrella body for second-level student councils in Ireland and we aim to represent and connect second-level students, ensuring that the voice of the Irish student is heard and striving for equality and democracy within the education system. As a national student representative, I am delighted to present to the committee and to discuss and consider an item of legislation which serves, as the name implies, to define the rights and privileges of students as well as parents.

The principles of the legislation for the parent and student charter bring to the forefront the principles and priorities that the organisation for which I work and the students I represent have always exemplified. We were delighted, therefore, to watch the progress and advancement being made to further the involvement of and respect for two essential stakeholder groups in the school community. It is true, though, that students are affected more than any other cohort by the management of a school. Students are the main beneficiaries of the second-level education system and it is paramount that their voice is heard in order to ensure that any decisions made are in the best interests of the student. The only way to ensure that the decisions made are of benefit to students is to ensure that students maintain meaningful participation and consultation in any development or evaluation of such decisions. The only way you will know what it is like to be a second-level student in Ireland is if you are a second-level student in Ireland. Things change so quickly and the experiences of young people in terms of their education are vastly different with every couple of years. It is important to stay cognisant of this fact as we move forward to create a better education system in Ireland.

I believe in the ability of this Bill to change the way schools serve their students. The end product of the Bill will help to establish a structure where students are recognised and, most importantly, supported as equal partners in education. However, we have massive reservations and concerns regarding the proposed plans to develop guidelines for this Bill. As it stands, the Minister will invite the partners - the national parent councils, school management bodies, teacher unions and the school principals networks or associations - to participate in a working party. To quote the

explanatory documents, “Part of the preparatory work will involve capturing the voice of the child particularly through engagement with student councils and national associations representative of students.” This effectively excludes students, even though the aim is to recognise them as equal partners in education, by letting us only be part of the preparations but not an equal stakeholder on the working party. We would like to be recognised as equal partners and have the opportunity to work with other partners in education in order to examine and influence how the details of this charter will look when finished.

Applying this integral principle to the entirety of the process of this legislation, it makes sense that, under head 3, the associations representing second-level students should be included in the group of educational stakeholders, rather being consulted on the sidelines. We welcome the amendment to section 27 of the Education Act 1998 to change the requirement on a student council from one of promoting the interests of the school to the promoting of the interests of the students of the school. The interests of the students will be better served if the student council is supported to promote the interests of students as we believe the student council is best placed to do so.

There are often conversations regarding representation of student councils. We are fully aware that the most vulnerable, the student most in need, will not often put themselves forward for election to a student council but a student council is still the most important element in ensuring that the voice of those students are heard.

Last week we were in Cork to consult with second-level students as we plan to create our own mental health strategy. Students at this event, my peers, stated they are more likely to turn to a friend or a fellow student for help than they are to a teacher or parent. These were young boys from all-boys schools in the surrounding area and while they would be hesitant to talk to anybody in regard to mental health, they said it would be peers to whom they would turn.

Having a structure of peer support, where students can support one another in ensuring their voices are heard and issues that are affecting them are raised, is absolutely integral to ensuring the needs of our most vulnerable students are brought forward. This is even more crucial in schools in disadvantaged areas where it may be more difficult to involve parents.

The training offered by the Irish Second-Level Students Union, ISSU, aims to improve student councils in their ability to carry out their functions. We aim to train as many students as possible to engage but we are also bound by our limited funding.

As we review the amendment to section 27 of the Act, we are faced with another basic operational change, which would transform student voice. Unfortunately, in too many Irish second-level schools, student councils are subject to the approval of the board of management, which are currently given the liberty of dissolving the student council in the Education Act. A few days ago I received the e-mail below from a student describing his experience with student voice:

I am in transition year and I am writing on the behalf of the students at my school as we do not have a student council.

Early last year our student council was disbanded quite suddenly. As you can imagine this shocked and annoyed a lot of students as we felt we were not represented fairly. This year our transition year co-ordinator put the challenge to us to restart the student council, so we wrote a letter to our principal. Myself and several other transition year students then met with our principal to talk about the issue. She told us that the student council, as well as the green school committee and other committees, had been disbanded because of the current teachers’ union conflict. I am, however, not satisfied with this answer as I have spoken with students and teachers from other schools and they all have student councils. She did however suggest that we could have an unofficial "student's voice", but this has not really worked out. I was wondering if we have any rights as students to be represented by a student council and if there is anything the ISSU can do to help us.

If students really do have the right to be included in decisions which affect them, as the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child declares, then students should be fully entitled to have a student council, regardless of any issues with other stakeholders in education. If student councils are an option which are at the discretion of the people who happen to sit on a board of management, this right cannot be fully realised.

To further this important aspect of school management, we very much welcome the ability of the Minister to issue directives to boards of management as part of head 4. However we believe, as was mentioned the last time this committee sat, that there are fundamental difficulties with regards to the composition of the board of management. The management of a school should be a process where students, teachers, parents and patrons work together to continually examine and solve the issues and problems facing any one school. Students should be aware of the issues being discussed and have an equal vote to the rest of the stakeholders. Currently, there are a bare few second-level schools where a platform for this kind of partnership is encouraged or supported. From a democratic perspective, this badly needs to be addressed. We support the principle of participation of children in decision making but to fully implement this principle, students need to, first, be included in a real and tangible way, by sitting at the table where the decisions are made. It has always been one of our core beliefs that a student representative should sit on the board of management and we will continue to advocate for this opportunity until it is practice within every second level school in Ireland.