Mr. Eamonn Casey:

We have looked at this, particularly in regard to girls. Safety in schools is a particular problem. In one respect, much of it comes down to teachers. Much of the time, there has been a culture where corporal punishment is accepted and acceptable. A big part of the challenge is to change this cultural attitude. While the laws or policies may change, the culture does not necessarily change. It is often about trying to bring the teachers and school leaders with us. That starts outside the school because the teachers are not going to change their cultural attitudes if they are in a community, district or region where the prevailing attitude is that it is okay to inflict corporal punishment on students.

A particular emphasis on safe schools would be tackling gender-based violence in schools. Other measures include addressing student-on-student violence, which can occur, engaging family support and communities, improving sanitary infrastructure for girls, which is often a flashpoint of difficulty that causes girls to leave school, and improving school infrastructure. There are times - this came up in a briefing we had with the committee in 2019 - where dormitories are necessary. While they bring their own challenges, both in terms of cost and protection, sometimes in the wider chaotic environment they are the only option. Much of the time, it depends on the context and changing attitudes, behaviours and policies with school leadership.

Misean Cara has a flagship programme in South Africa where we support a project through some of our members. It seeks to improve school behaviours and address violence across all the Catholic schools in South Africa and learn from each other about what works. Crucially, it does not stick only to Catholic schools but is also linked in with the ministry and its strategic leadership unit to see what kind of practices work best and in what kinds of locations in order that they can be brought in across the state system. That is the kind of strengthening of the educational system the project is trying to model in Catholic schools and then expand to all the schools.