Professor Kathleen Lynch:

I will address the Chairman's final point regarding a whole-school evaluation.

It is actually very important to have an index. At the moment, for example, we know that immigrant children are concentrated in a relatively small number of schools and in large urban areas. The same happens with a lot of Travellers. Some schools have no measures to take on children who are different, or outside the typical white Irish student body. They do not have to supply them and are not necessarily sanctioned for not taking them on. That would be a mechanism and it is certainly deployed.

Another point I mentioned in my submission is that to have a holistic approach, the Teaching Council should have a role to play as the body responsible for teacher professionalism and development. It should have a role in educating people and requiring that they are reflective learners through in-service training. Europe had a big project 25 years ago, in which I was involved. It recommended that all teachers would be evaluated on their classroom practice of equality and social inclusion as part of their evaluation as a teacher. I think that is highly salient. It is not about just one approach. I do not want to take more time, although of course I have a lot of comments to make.