Dessie Ellis (Dublin North West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I thank Ms Cregg and Dr. Doody for their presentation. I was curious about the work under way in the National Council for Curriculum and Assessment, arising from the audit of the curriculum, on Travellers' culture and history. Is there any scope in that for training for teachers, to teach them best practice in dealing with Travellers? Is that part of it? Many teachers are very well in tune but are there special training programmes for them to bring them up to speed on that? The other big concern I have had for a long time is the percentage of people going on to leaving certificate level. It is approximately 22%. It is not far off that in my area and it is very worrying. Do we envisage any better ways of increasing that? You see people who are going to higher education like that. Do we have programmes there to supply them with computers or otherwise? Is there any extra help? They would not use Zoom that much. However, if they were to use it for education, can we do something like that, when it comes to higher education or trying to bring people on? Maybe that would help. St. Margaret's has the homework club and it is going well, because I have spoken to them several times. That is an example of how well it is working. It is often difficult to gauge the outcomes but, by all accounts, they are quite good.