Catherine Martin (Dublin Rathdown, Green Party)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

I thank the witnesses for their presentations. I follow on from Senator Ruane's question to Ms Quinn on the expansion of the Education (Welfare) Act 2000. I have been pursuing the matter and have submitted questions to the Minister, Deputy Zappone. I do not know how we can expand something that is already overstretched. Mr. Noel Kelly appeared before the committee before Christmas. The answers I received from the Minister, Deputy Zappone, indicate that we have 89 education welfare officers. That seems pretty poor compared with the 120 in the Six Counties, as advised by Mr. Noel Kelly. Using the Northern Ireland figure for comparison, we would need 300 to run the service properly. At the moment according to the answer to the parliamentary question I submitted to the Minister, Deputy Zappone, I have been told that we have 45 schools per education welfare officer. It is not possible to deal with referrals; they cannot get to the students quickly enough with a ratio of 45 schools per education welfare officer. He reckons that will be 40 by the end of 2018. How can the system work with that? How does the Department of Children and Youth Affairs intend to address that?

Dr. O'Sullivan mentioned that leaving certificate applied students are more likely to be unemployed than those who leave school early. Surely that means there is something wrong with the leaving certificate applied. It is not rocket science, but the lack of a review since its introduction 1995 may be part of the problem. Perhaps the Department should learn from that; no programme should be in place for more than 20 years without being reviewed. I taught in a DEIS school and I taught leaving certificate applied for nearly 20 years. I was never surveyed on the course as to whether I was getting adequate resources and whether I felt students were benefitting enough.

However, I learned that the same teachers get assigned for 20 years. I loved teaching leaving certificate applied. If a teacher had good classroom-management skills and was seen as innovative that was the person who was assigned - and assigned for life - to leaving certificate applied. That is also something that needs to be examined.

There are weaknesses in the module descriptors for leaving certificate applied. It is a case of ticking the box at the end, getting the key assignment done and handing it in. Teachers are told at the September following the student's graduation that there is a possibility that those key assignment might be checked and told to hold on to them until the end of September. How often are they checked? If they are not being checked they may not be done well or extra help might have been given to those key assignments. There are tasks in leaving certificate applied, such as the personal reflection and practical achievement tasks. Sometimes I wonder if teachers are helping students too much, because those are the tasks that are being checked. When they are coming in, the teachers know that that is the one. A teacher wants to help the child as much as possible, but the child is not learning if the teacher is practically doing the task for them. Teachers talk about this frequently. Why are the teachers not being surveyed on this to ensure it is being done properly?

Dr. O'Sullivan made a recommendation on the transition year programme. Why has that programme not been reviewed? One finds that it is the same teachers who teach transition year. Has the Department considered making it compulsory for DEIS schools? I believe it should compulsory for all schools. There is an amazing difference in the maturity level of a child who has gone through transition year. In that break they get to experiment with so many subjects and get a flavour of everything. That difference can be seen in a child who has gone through transition year.

Ms McGovern spoke about the reform of the school completion programme. Some school completion officers have told me of their fear that there will be a move to a regional school completion officer. I do not know how that would work. The school completion officer and the home-school liaison work as a team. They have established trust with the families. They know the families and the families know them. To move to a regional officer would be catastrophic for that programme. It is central to the development of vulnerable children in DEIS schools. Can Ms McGovern shed light on that? There are concerns, which I believe are justified, but it may not be the intention; I hope it is not.