Dr. Patricia McCarthy:

I thank the committee very much for this opportunity. I am going to speak very briefly about the education experiences and transition opportunities of blind and vision-impaired people from my own research. I will start with access to the curriculum. We all recognise that education has a positive impact on employment opportunities and yet this cohort of the population is often under-represented within higher education in particular. The head figures indicate that, and those figures continue to show that we are under-represented in that area.

With regard to primary and post-primary education and access to the curriculum, the greatest challenges evident in my research were with regard to the mathematics curriculum. We can all understand why because it is a very visual subject. Other issues included the teaching and learning methodologies used, and access to appropriate formats with regard to how to access the curriculum. All of those posed significant challenges. My concern is that mathematics is often a primary subject when it comes to transition opportunities and if students are falling behind in those areas, they not going to achieve their potential. Other areas in which challenges arose were with regard to the Irish curriculum. Many who participated in my research had exemptions from Irish and while that may be a necessity for some, it should not be the default position for all with vision impairment.

In relation to access to the curriculum and those transition opportunities, we need to ensure that they have the full range of the curriculum available to them with the necessary supports.

In relation to access to technology, while access to technology has increased significantly, as Ms Walsh said, being able to engage with the technology right throughout their education experience rather than just it coming at phases is really important because, increasingly, as you go through education, you become even more reliant on technology as a vision impaired or blind person. That includes being able to access materials through the medium of Braille, if that is the preferred option.

In relation to other services, many of them who participated in my research recognised that they had access to supports but often those supports were only put in place as a reactive opportunity when something had gone wrong. We need to recognise that access to supports needs to be on a continuum. That is really where it is important that they have access to a quality core expanded curriculum, as Ms Walsh said, around things like mobility, orientation and general life skills to enable them to reach their potential, not only when they are in education but when they leave the education system and go out into the community on a wider level, because we have very capable young people who are blind and vision impaired going through the system and yet not achieving to their full potential.

What we are trying to say here today is that we need to see this. While they are a low-incidence disability grouping, we need to ensure that there are quality supports available to them across the life-cycle of education so that they are not falling through the cracks, as they currently appear to be doing. As I said, exemptions are necessities at times but should not be. Often what happens is it is seen as too challenging for the individual when actually the system has not been designed to work for those who are blind and vision impaired.

Another area that was obvious in my research related to career guidance. While there was very good career guidance in some instances, often it happened that the person providing the advice was not equipped to give the necessary support that they required and often discouraged them from doing particular courses. We need to consider how best we can ensure that this cohort have the best opportunity within our education system.