Jan O'Sullivan (Limerick City, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Chair. I will first apologise, as traffic was horrendous. I thank the Chair for the invitation to address the committee on the topic of education and the Traveller community, with particular reference to school completion rates and educational attainment compared with the settled community. There is no doubt that this is an issue that needs to be addressed urgently, given that statistics show that Travellers' progression rates from junior to senior level in post-primary school and from post-primary to further and higher education are well below the levels of their non-Traveller peers. The 2011 census was some time ago, but according to it only 8% of Travellers had completed education to leaving certificate level compared with 73% of non-Travellers and only 1% of Travellers aged 25 to 64 years had a degree compared with 30% of non-Travellers. These statistics are stark and need to be changed.

I will touch on what I consider to be the main issues. Since I am conscious that I speak as a non-Traveller, my first point is that listening to the voice of Travellers and acting on what they say are crucial and central to deliberations. I know that the committee is doing that.

As a member of the Oireachtas Committee on Education and Skills and co-chair of the cross-party group on Travellers' issues, I have had the opportunity to engage with Travellers in considerable detail, including in my community. The Committee on Education and Skills has produced a report on issues of transition in the education system and an interim report on reduced timetables, which we are working on progressing with the Department of Education and Skills. The issue of reduced timetables had been hidden. We were not, and indeed many people were not, aware of how much reduced timetables were being used in respect of Traveller children in particular, but also other children, in the education system. Since our interim report, we held a meeting on 5 November with the Department on the progress being made in addressing the points that we had made concerning reduced timetables. I am hopeful that there will be progress.

During the course of our hearings on progression, we learned that a proportionately large number of Traveller children were subjected to so-called reduced timetables, which effectively constitute exclusion from schools for long periods and have to date been at the discretion of schools, with little or no consultation with parents. We learned that children with special needs were also subject to such discrimination. They also presented to the committee. As a result of our hearings and recommendations, I am confident that there will be radical changes in how these measures are used or not used in future. Some of the issues that we raised were about not sending children home without full consultation and agreement with parents and only using reduced timetables as a last resort. Data must be gathered on this, given that it is a hidden situation.

The fundamental issue at stake is every child's right to an education, as guaranteed in the Constitution. A rights-based approach is fundamental to achieving the changes necessary to ensure that children in the Traveller community have full access to and full support in education. The other issue that underpins progress is understanding and validation of the Traveller way of life and cultural history so that Traveller and settled children and teachers understand one another's identities, have confidence in their own, and value diversity in the school and educational environment. As well as Travellers, this affects many other children who are at risk of misunderstanding.

I understand that the Minister has not published a report carried out by the National Council for Curriculum and Assessment, NCCA, auditing the curriculum on Traveller history and culture. It is important to find out when that report will be published. I welcome the Chair's Bill. I will work with her and others to ensure it progresses through the Dáil as it has the Seanad.

Many of the initiatives contained in the National Traveller and Roma Inclusion Strategy 2017-2021, NTRIS, have not been implemented since the strategy's launch in June 2017. These need to be tracked and followed through. The reinstatement of the Traveller education advisory committee would provide a mechanism for issues affecting Travellers' progression in education to be brought directly to the Minister by Travellers themselves.

Other points have been raised by previous speakers. Any initiative should especially recognise the importance of collating and monitoring data nationally as a matter of priority where Travellers are at risk of early school leaving and also establishing a Traveller-specific education strategy. The Department of Education and Skills or Tusla should collect data on the practice of reduced timetables, to which I referred. I believe there will be progress in that regard.

Intercultural awareness training should form a mandatory component of continuous teacher professional development. While it is already included in teacher education, it is particularly important that teachers who have gone beyond the initial stage of education should also have mandatory intercultural awareness training throughout their teaching lives.

There are some specific programmes that could make a real difference if they were provided nationwide. A young man from Galway addressed the Joint Committee on Education and Skills. He told members of an after-school programme he attended that gave him one-on-one support to deal with difficulties he had in achieving his potential in school. It helped him to progress to third level education. Programmes such as this, which have been shown to work, should be mainstreamed because they have the potential to make a significant difference.

I look forward to the recommendations of this committee across all areas. We particularly need to have mechanisms for monitoring to ensure the recommendations it makes are implemented. On the recommendations the committee will make on education, it will be important that the education committee work with this committee to ensure that the work of both committees contributes to positive change for Traveller children and their families.