Ms Anne O'Mahony:

I thank the committee for the opportunity to speak at this meeting. One of the important issues in the context of a discussion on education is the need for a good quality education and I do not think any of us would be here today without having had the benefit of that. When we send our children to school we also expect that they are going to be educated in a safe environment. Data collected over many years have shown that school-related, gender-based violence has long-term impacts on the quality and uptake of education, particularly of girls, around the world. We have had our own history of this in Ireland and in the countries that Concern works in, this is an everyday occurrence. I worked in Kenya in 2011 and 2012. There was a one inch column in the local newspaper, on about page 15, that said the teacher in a school in Kisumu had fathered 11 children in one year in that school. It deserved and only got one column inch in the newspaper and nothing more, despite the impact of this on the girls' lives and future careers. At that stage, Concern began to look at school-related, gender-based violence and has since developed what we call a safe learning model.

We are rolling that model out in some of the schools and other education sectors we are engaged in around the world. We want to examine whether this model is working, and we have engaged with UCD to look at research relevant to how it is going to be tested and rolled out. That is intended to produce evidence of the consequences of school-related gender-based violence, which occurs in the very place where we expect our children to be safe, nurtured, educated and come out ready for life.

Sierra Leone is one of the poorest countries in the world and has a literacy rate of just 67% among those aged 15 to 24. The country has suffered from war, but since that has ended there has been a major increase in registration in primary schools. Research into how much had been learned during that education period, however, from an early grade reading assessment, EGRA, found that little had been learned by those children. Delving deeper into the research revealed many links to the education environment not being a safe space, particularly for girls.

One of the themes we are raising is the situation of girls, not just in the school but in the home and community as well. I refer to following through where violence occurs and examining the impact and outcome. Our programming revolves very much around creating those safe spaces within the home, the community and the school. We are engaging with UCD to determine how we can test and gauge this model. I think that it is going to yield good results, not just for Concern but for Dóchas members in general. We would hope to be able to roll it out then globally, and observe the cost, the effect and, more important, ways in which we can address and deal with school-related gender-based violence in the future. We are also seeking evidence that dealing with such violence in schools and communities before it becomes an issue can have a long-term impact on lives and education outcomes. We hope that will be especially the case for girls and that it will allow them to take their place in the world which we would expect them to, given their level of education and the time commitment parents put into keeping their children in school over a lifetime.

A key request from us, and this links in with what Mr. O'Brien and Ms Tunney said earlier, in respect of the committee is that there be continued investment in a holistic approach to education which focuses on access, quality and especially on well-being, particularly in respect of girls' education. That is the future of not just the countries we work in, but of the world more broadly. We saw that in the video from Plan Ireland International earlier. Another important aspect is the prioritisation of supporting the education system of the poorest and most vulnerable countries to ensure those furthest behind are reached first. There should also be investment in more comprehensive research and data collection so we can better understand what needs to be done to address the issue of school-related gender-based violence.

Years ago, we would have thought that the argument for long-term quality investment in education had been made. We are still fighting that battle, however, at every forum to try to get the required continued investment. That is not just in the education sector, but in the creation of safe spaces where people can and should be learning to improve the quality of their life outcomes.