Lynn Ruane (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Chairman for allowing me to come in. I do not sit on this committee but the topic and the witness brought me here today. Dr. Katriona O'Sullivan and I have worked together for some time in the area of access to education. When I heard that she was coming to the committee today to discuss labour activation, I was intrigued to come to the committee to hear the discussion. Our paths have been quite similar in the context of access to education.

Reference was made to the dream job. I remember being in school and my dream job was to be a vet, until I got to the age of eight and looked around at my neighbours and friends and asked how the hell I get to be a vet. That aspiration quickly disintegrates. I found that the education system reinforces inequality and belittles aspirations. Nobody empowers a person to continue to search for that dream job. Before second level school there is talk of apprenticeships and hairdressing but no mention of veterinary or medicine.

It reinforces inequality in society. I came in to speak about case workers. I remember being the student parent officer in Trinity before I was president of the students' union. Parents came to see me for that reason. Their case workers were trying to gear them towards degrees in science. These were mature students who were early school leavers. They barely had junior certificate level mathematics. They would never have managed to walk into a science degree given the high level of mathematics required. Dr. O'Sullivan will know from her experience with the Trinity access programme, TAP, how much mature students struggle with leaving certificate level mathematics. They have not done it for a long time. I want to draw this out because the committee has a role in social protection and how case workers can be better trained to understand individual cases. A philosophy degree can get one just as much as another degree. I am here today with an arts degree but case workers tell people not to study arts.

People see community education, higher level education and various levels of education as means through which needs in the market can be met and how people can be fitted into employment, whether it is in a factory or elsewhere. My very first introduction to community education was An Cosán. I could not tell the committee a single thing I learned. I did not walk out of there employable in any shape or form but I did learn the foundations of the skills I needed to understand my own value and worth and to be able to think critically and reason. This gave me the framework to set out a plan for the next ten years on how I would move through higher education and into employment. For people like me, coming from disadvantaged areas who have experienced hardship and an inadequate level of second level education, a healing process is needed prior to education as activation. There almost has to be a reintroduction in a light way to the education system. Over time people will end up in long-term employment with better well-being and health outcomes. It has many positive effects.

I have another meeting in a couple of minutes so I will have to leave. People speak about pathways. My pathway took 12 or 13 years but it was worth it in the end. It was not a quick fix. We have spoken a lot about pathways and it is not always through an access programme. People see an access programme as a route into higher education but some people are not at a level where they are ready for an access programme. There almost needs to be an access to access programme to get people to a stage where they can engage at a full-time level. We have spoken about pathways for prisoners and how we can introduce accreditation and link in access programmes with prisoner education and Traveller education. Will Dr. O'Sullivan expand on what a pathway would look like? Someone who does not understand the impact of low levels of education will think access is the most basic entry level with which people should be able to engage but in fact it is not. There are other steps below it. From Dr. O'Sullivan's work so far, and the conversations we have had over the years, will she identify what is needed in the pathway to reach the access level?