Ms Shreya Chaturvedi:

I thank committee members for the opportunity to address them today on education. My input is as a development worker of the Yellow Flag programme. I am joined by Mr. Bernard Joyce, director of the Irish Traveller Movement. The Yellow Flag programme is an innovative whole-school initiative which supports schools to celebrate diversity, promote inclusion and challenge racism.

Pioneered initially by the Irish Traveller Movement as an intercultural innovative solution to address poor educational experiences and outcomes for Travellers, it took account of similar exclusion and marginalisation faced by other ethnic minorities and created a programme to encompass children from both majority and minority backgrounds, including Travellers. The programme is goal-centred and accreditation focused under which schools are obliged to meet targets over a comprehensive eight-step strategy. It is not an optional soft-choice programme but one that requires change to be monitored and visible both in the student population and among the staff and the community.

The Yellow Flag programme recognises the risk factors and the potential for Travellers and other ethnic minority children to experience disconnection and insecurity within schools and so the whole-school approach is vital to fostering positive identity among all pupils. However, even with efforts towards Yellow Flag accreditation, school bias and discrimination towards Travellers is so ingrained that in addressing racism among diverse groups, often teachers and school management are blind to the experience of Travellers and their and the school's unconscious bias. Factors such as identity-based exclusion, historical prejudice, conscious and unconscious bias, absence of Travellers in teaching and school management, institutional racism and poor awareness and knowledge of Traveller culture within teaching practice all have a detrimental effect on the educational progression and learning of young Travellers, and on their sense of identity and self-belief.

The National Traveller Survey 2017 revealed that four out of ten Travellers said they or their children were bullied in school. In 2017 the Department of Justice and Equality commissioned an ESRI report, A Social Portrait of Travellers, which found Travellers are more than 50 times more likely to leave school without the leaving certificate in comparison to the non-Traveller population. Even within Yellow Flag schools, racism towards Travellers dramatically increases in post-primary settings and it is not uncommon to find examples of Traveller students who are actively involved in the Yellow Flag primary schools who dropped out after their transition to a secondary school that was not involved in the programme.

Since 2009 the Yellow Flag programme has worked with 87 schools, 61 families and 26 post-primary schools. That is a significant number given the limited resources available to the programme. The programme has reached 33,535 students and more than 2,600 teachers, yet 53% of the pupils who took part in the intercultural surveys in 2009 as part of the programme recorded that they had witnessed racist comments or behaviours towards others in their school. That is the reason the following recommendations are very important. In order to be able to strengthen and secure the long-term impact it can have on the Irish education system, the Yellow Flag programme needs to be mainstreamed across all primary and secondary schools. In addition to addressing the demand that already exists, it is imperative to reach out to schools with very few or no Traveller students as well. To really impact Traveller participation, retention and progression in the education system it would be valuable to introduce a Yellow Flag model for preschool and third level settings as well. As part of the continuing professional development, CPD, for teaching staff, anti-racist and intercultural training should be mandatory to actively inform the school staff to be mindful of their behaviour towards students from minority ethnic groups, especially Travellers. Strong legislation towards a national anti-racism policy for schools is essential to encourage the Traveller community to remain in school and, therefore, reduce barriers to accessing second and third level education. Clear links with the Department of Education and Skills and the Department of Children and Youth Affairs would be critical in achieving a long-term impact. However, to date, no concrete connection has been established despite their efforts.

I am happy to answer any questions members might have.