Mr. Bernard Joyce:

This is our second time before the committee. As the director of the Irish Traveller Movement, the national Traveller-led organisation, I welcome the opportunity to present on the matter of reduced timetables.

There is an urgent need for a review of the widespread use of reduced timetables, as there is no requirement to monitor the practice by the Department of Education and Skills or Tusla. There are also no supports to monitor at local level. Members may be aware that there were 87% cuts to Traveller-specific educational supports in 2011. Since then, there has been an increased use of the practice of withdrawal of the visiting teacher service and resource teachers for Travellers.

Approximately 42 visiting teacher services were cut along with 500 resource teachers. That plays an important role in the context of the reduced timetables that were put in place.

Another obstacle relates to monitoring and the lack of Government support for the work of national Traveller organisations to progress Traveller education. Reduced timetables are of concern and represent an unacceptable practice to manage poor behaviour, in particular for pupils at risk of exclusion, including members of my community. It is critical that other approaches be considered and adopted. Where mitigating issues affect students' ability to engage, other options should be explored with all parties involved, including school personnel, students, Tusla and DEIS. A reduced timetable should never be used to improve behavioural, special and additional needs or on the basis of identity. The emerging practice of reduced timetables for Travellers, in particular, stems from low expectations for Travellers and feeds into the narrative that our young people will not, and cannot, accomplish their aspirations to become teachers, doctors or, indeed politicians. Our young people have always had these aspirations and we need teachers to believe in their aspirations and dreams for the future. There is also a potential for legal action arising from the misuse of the practice for Travellers under the Equal Status Acts and their provisions regarding "any practice that might be concluded as being discriminatory in nature". The Equal Status Acts cite four areas in which a school must not discriminate, three of which are relevant in this regard. These are access of a student to a course, facility or benefit provided by the school, any other term or condition of participation in the school and the expulsion of a student or any other sanction.

There are alternative approaches to the use of reduced timetables. In the UK, there is a comprehensive objective to apply stringent standards across schools on the use of reduced timetables. These criteria may apply for a proposed Irish model: only in exceptional circumstances should there be occasions where it is in the best interests of the pupil to have a temporarily reduced or part-time timetable to meet individual needs for a time-limited period, for example where a medical condition prevents a pupil from attending full-time education and a reduced timetable is considered as part of a re-integration package; a reduced timetable cannot be implemented without written agreement from a parent or carer and should only be used as a short-term measure. In the Irish context these criteria should also apply; information about children missing from education is essential and all schools should notify Tusla and DEIS of any reduced education arrangements; and Tusla and DEIS teams should monitor and review these cases. A further UK requirement is that an online procedure to report on the arrangement should be in place in each case and as it happens, with a proposed timeline agreed between parents and schools.

Among our recommendations, the Government should introduce legislation to control and monitor the use of reduced timetables and adopt mandatory protocols and guidance for all schools, including primary and post-primary schools. It should monitor and audit current practices across all schools with regard to reduced timetables or shortened days and refine the use of school attendance records as a means to shield transparency on the matter. It must monitor complaints taken under the Equal Status Acts related to the practice and report on its findings. The Government should introduce ethnic identifiers in proposed future regulated practices in schools and in respect of reporting and monitoring mechanisms for DEIS and Tusla. Education welfare services should have a monitoring role. This would be a welcome additional force to recommendations accruing where there might be greater monitoring applied. In their own guidelines to schools on behaviour, the education welfare services ask, "Does the school have a standardised way for staff to record matters to do with student behaviour?" However, this is discretionary. Finally, we recommend the reinstatement of the Traveller education advisory committee whereby issues affecting Traveller progression in education could be brought directly to the Minister with responsibility and the relevant Department. I thank the committee.