Dr. Teresa O'Doherty:

I totally agree we need some sort of structure, like the visiting teacher, that liaises with families right through and supports Traveller children through communications with schools and accessing the curriculum. Parents will not realise it is important for their child to do honours Irish, for example, unless someone communicates that to them. We need the visiting teacher structure right through the system but we must assist the children in schools and their parents to get through into second level and through the process. We must also provide assistance all the way through to employment. One needs a whole support system wherever that employment is whether it is an apprenticeship or higher education. I say that because we have found that even with the students who have come through higher education are now postgraduates in teacher education. They had negative experiences of trying to get jobs once they were qualified with a degree. Assistance is not just needed at primary and post-primary levels, there must be structures right through.

I would also like there to be some sort of targeted entry route to professions, whether through apprenticeships or higher education, outside of the mainstream. In our proposal, we suggested a structure whereby at junior cycle, if a student is identified as being high achieving and capable, he or she will be nurtured throughout the next two or three years, with a promise of a place in college if he or she satisfies the minimum entry requirements. It would not be a matter of taking a place from another candidate. They would be ex quota places dedicated to the Traveller community. We need something as targeted and specialist as that now, which we did not have in the past for working class students. Such special support will be necessary for the next five to ten years in order that in ten years, a greater number of successful candidates will come through the system and be able to become the bearer of that torch for their communities. Currently, however, it is difficult for anyone with a degree to return to the community and say that, having done well, he or she cannot get a job, or that, having done well in the leaving certificate, he or she cannot get into college. It would be useful to have a visiting teacher at primary and post-primary levels, right through to career support, identifying the career trajectories people might want, whether that is in the Garda, the Civil Service, nursing, the legal profession or teaching.