Ms Maria Joyce:

I will pick up from where Ms Flynn left off.

We want to focus on the experience of Travellers within the education system. Earlier this year, we spoke to a Traveller woman who was making every effort to support her daughter in finishing her last two years of secondary school. Her daughter is bright and well able for the academic work, but was lonely as there were no other Traveller girls in the school with her. The advice of the principal at the time was that nothing could be done but that if she wanted, she could be put on a reduced timetable. The mother told us that schools need to have a real understanding of the ongoing racism and exclusion experienced by Traveller students instead of burying their heads in the sand and pretending they believe that everyone is treated the same when they know that is not the case. She went on to say that children respond well to honesty, so from the outset teachers should not be afraid to talk to Traveller children as Travellers. Traveller children should not have to hide their identity in school and should be made to feel that school is a safe place to stay. The context of that conversation and the statement from that mother was that three young Traveller girls that her daughter had been friends with at junior certificate level were put on reduced timetable. Within months of that happening, they had dropped out of secondary school.

Every child in Ireland has a right to education.

It is enshrined in our Constitution but what about every child's right to go to a school in a safe environment that is free from racism where he or she will be treated with dignity and respect and have his or her culture recognised and valued?

Every child should have an absolute right to equality of access, participation and outcomes. This is not so for very many Traveller children and we cannot say this enough. There needs to be equality of access, there needs to be equality in terms of participation and there certainly needs to be equality in terms of outcomes. We know from anecdotal evidence that there is no longer a 100% transfer rate of Traveller children from primary to post-primary education. We also know that the attainment levels of many Traveller children are lower than children from the settled majority. Only 1% of Travellers are in third-level institutions and 82% of Traveller women are unemployed. Our submission also references a range of statistics highlighting the inequality in outcomes from education for Traveller women and girls. Racist bullying from their settled peers and educators is a daily experience for many Traveller learners. Low expectations of Traveller learners on the part of teachers is a clear example of the bias and stereotyping that take place in our education institutions. Discriminatory practices are still evident, for example, enrolment processes that exclude Traveller children and growing numbers of Traveller children being inappropriately placed on reduced timetables, which significantly impact on their educational opportunities and outcomes. There was a real opportunity last year with regard to enrolment processes and the discriminatory and racist practice of giving a child first preference if his or her older siblings were in the school that adversely impacted some groups, including Travellers where there is no history of second-level education. Unfortunately, it fell short. All of these practices and more such as some schools' refusal to take Traveller children have a significant impact on the progression of Travellers in second-level education and engagement with third-level institutions.

Regarding recommendations, the Department of Education and Skills needs to develop an action and implementation plan for all 14 actions for which it is responsible under the national Traveller and Roma inclusion strategy in partnership with Traveller organisations. Outstanding recommendations from the education strategy that was launched in 2006 should be addressed in a similar manner. A range of stakeholders, including Traveller organisations, put significant effort and time into developing that education strategy and there were really high expectations that it would have brought change. Other than the fanfare on the day of the launch in the Department of Education and Skills in Marlborough Street, it fell flat and failed to address the failures of the system with regard to Traveller children in education. Efforts must be made to ensure that a strong and robust inclusion of Traveller culture is present in curricula and the whole school environment. The Traveller Culture and History in Education Bill should be passed without amendment and we hope it will. There is a need for compulsory anti-racism and intercultural training pertaining to Travellers as part of pre-service and in-service teacher training and there is a need for visibility of Traveller culture in curricula. Additional recommendations can be found in our submission to the joint committee, including recommendations on the use of reduced timetables in Irish schools made earlier this year to the Joint Committee on Education and Skills, about which we are still very concerned. We have written to the Department again as it is developing guidelines for schools with regard to reduced timetables. There are a number of key points in our submission that need to be addressed, including the role of the inspectorate, to ensure this discriminatory and racist practice with regard to Travellers is stamped out.

A final point I would like to leave the committee with is that while the Department of Education and Skills has made some efforts in the past two years, and I use the term "some efforts" loosely, to begin to address these issues, major institutional and systematic change is needed to ensure equality of access, participation and outcomes for Traveller children and learners in education. As Ms Flynn said, when we were developing this presentation, it is essential that Traveller women and girls have real opportunities for success and outcomes from education. I will leave the committee with that final thought.