Mr. Michael Gillespie:

We have a lot of members in education and training board, ETB, and DEIS schools in the TUI. They are doing their best to try to look after those students, especially in the DEIS schools. Space has become a premium for a number of teachers but a big factor is that this is pastoral care and we depended on those in posts of responsibility to do this, namely year heads, care teams, tutors and so on. In 2008, one in two teachers had a post of responsibility. Following the moratorium and the cutbacks, we are down to one in four. The restorations were promised in 2016 and they have been tiny. It would be a great help to those marginalised people if we had people who were specifically assigned to do those jobs. Those are posts of responsibility and that was a massive cut from one in two teachers to one in four, as I said, and that cut has never been reversed. That would be a big move.

The infrastructure is a bit like the ventilation. What has been shown up is a complete lack of investment in infrastructure, not just in the schools but also abroad. The grants that were given were insufficient for the students who cannot afford personal devices. We saw in the lockdown in our schools that people were trying to access the classes but that they were doing it on their mobile phones. That was all they had and then the monetary value ran out.

As we said in our opening statement, society needs to share this burden. Perhaps the mobile network companies could have provided something without charge, such as an extension of the 4G, but it is not good enough that they do not have a device to access it.