Dr. John Bissett:

Senator Ruane's question addressed a very important point concerning whether the Irish educational system can address inequalities in Irish education. These are important questions. The Irish education system cannot address many of the issues because it is part of another institutional system, which is the economy. I refer to how our economy is structured in respect of jobs, job opportunities, zero-hour contracts and the collapse of the apprenticeship system. I ask the committee how it is going to understand the connections between the two things. There is a continuum from the local within the education system.

One of the dangers when we have conversations like this is that we all become sectoral very quickly. That is fair because everybody has a view that the work they do is important, and I accept that. Key texts written by people like Michael Apple say that is important to understand. If that basic point is not taken, it means we assume the education system will fulfil all of these functions. It just cannot do that.

Our egos get the better of us. We think we are supermen and superwomen and can sort it all out. That is not to say the education system does not have other important functions to fulfil and things it can do. The education system should be built around the radical equality of condition idea, based on radical education models like Paulo Freire, Jacques Rancière and other people who argue we should reconceptualise how our education system is structured. We need to think about that. Why do we have DEIS schools? Why do they exist? They exist because we accept the inequalities and stratified nature of Irish society is somehow the best we can do. It is not the best we can do. We can abolish the inequalities. That has to be the goal and the education system has to part and parcel of abolishing the inequalities at a global level and not just at a sectoral level.

We are counter-intuitive in the community sector sometimes. We argue for the sustaining of structures which perpetuate the problem we want to get rid of. We need to think at a radical level to reconceptualise. That is the problem with the idea of equality of opportunity. I said at the start it is not just. The education system is just for a talented few. Who in their right minds in the past ten years would think there is a good reason to stay in education except people who really benefit from the system? I refer to the collapse of all of the infrastructure throughout the State. We are talking here after eight years austerity. I refer to all of the programmes that were cut and all of the things that were taken away. Are we delusional to think that this never happened?

At a foundational philosophical level, I am asking the committee how much of a vision it is going to have when it sits down to write its document or report. I am not sure of its journey or where it is going. Are we talking about small bits of sectoral change? Will it be a bit of revision to this and another bit to this or is the committee thinking at a really deep and profound level about what is necessary, to understand what the education system has the capacity to do and what it does not have the capacity to do, and that we are going to take on the broader economic issues, really go after them and name them?