Mr. Martin Marjoram:

We are working with the most crowded classrooms as has been pointed out. We are battling this on the back of several years of underinvestment. That is actually the biggest challenge. That is the common thread running through nearly all the problems we mentioned today.

Before Covid-19 we were already struggling with the system we have. As somebody said when asked for directions in the countryside, one would not start from here. Similarly, one would not have started with the most overcrowded classrooms, the worst pupil-teacher ratios, a demoralised teaching force and a recruitment crisis caused by unequal pay. Those problems need to be fixed and we also need ongoing monitoring of what has been put in place to date. The committee needs to meet on this issue again in a little while because these are still early days and we are only starting to piece together the picture of where the difficulties lie. We will obviously continue to make representations on those difficulties but this is a picture that will become clearer over time. The committee should also meet again to discuss the other areas of education in which we operate, namely, higher education and further education, because we have equally strong concerns about reopening in those settings.