Marc Ó Cathasaigh (Waterford, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

Like Deputy Cathal Crowe, I am not long out of the classroom myself. As such, the topic of education is of special interest to me. I welcome the chance to address the challenges posed in the sector by the current health crisis. In the first instance, I commend the efforts being made by teachers and other educators throughout the country to help parents structure the work they can do at home with their own children. In my home, the padlets sent out by Ms Power and Ms Walsh from Glór na Mara are a great resource. My household faces the same challenges as those faced by the households of every other parent in the country in getting our boys to sit down and do some work.

I acknowledge the ongoing work of our special educational needs teachers and special needs assistants, who are keeping in contact with some of the most vulnerable cohorts in the education system. Their role in maintaining a link with the school will be so important come September, when we hope to reopen the school gates safely and have a return to the classroom. I very much welcome the announcements on the summer provision in that regard. It is intensely important, particularly for the cohort affected.

In many cases, school principals have been busier than ever before in the past few months, even if they have been walking up and down empty corridors. Front-line workers have been praised consistently during this crisis and rightly so, but it is right too to acknowledge the many people in our public sector who are working quietly behind the scenes to make sure that when the country does recover from this Covid crisis, the State schools and structures will stand ready to resume their important work.

I would like to begin my questions at third level and then work backwards. Our third level system already looks quite different from what it looked like even in January of this year. We are all acutely aware of the funding challenges to be faced at third level in the short term as well as the long term. The sector has shown its flexibility in how it has adapted to the challenges and to the possibilities of remote working, in particular, and there may well be work practices that will never revert to those that existed before the pandemic.

While significant changes such as we are seeing can be difficult, I am hopeful the system will be open to making permanent some of the positive changes it has made in response to the health emergency.

This question pertains to students who may find themselves in financial difficulty in the year ahead. As Teachta Ó Laoghaire said, we know that many households have experienced a sharp drop in income due to Covid-19, but I wish to refer specifically to students' own income. As we know well, many of the summer jobs students traditionally have had and worked at over the summer in order to save for the academic year ahead will not be available this year. These jobs are traditionally in hospitality and tourism, which are the obvious examples. Has the Minister made any provision to alter SUSI grants or the supports available to third level students that might be available to take account of this loss of summer income?

Returning to the issue of the leaving certificate, I know that the Minister has answered a number of specific queries from the Green Party on this before. Like Deputy Ó Laoghaire, we in the Green Party have ongoing concerns in particular about school profiling and the lobbying of teachers regarding calculated grades. These issues are already on the Department's radar but I ask that they are again given every due consideration. I would like the Minister to address the suggestion I have seen in the media that this year's leaving certificate cohort may be in some way treated kindly when it comes to grades awarded. I absolutely understand that on a human level, and the leaving certificate class of 2020 has had a year like no other and marked by uncertainty and unexpected anxiety. I am also, however, acutely aware of others who may have taken a year out from their education after their leaving certificate, for example, people who did the health professions admission test, HPAT. They might find that grade inflation has eroded the value of their results from previous years. Can the Minister give those students assurances that this will not be the case and that they will not find themselves excluded from courses for which they would have qualified under normal circumstances?

On a different note, I wish to ask the Minister the situation pertaining to students studying a subject outside of school, often another language, or students being homeschooled. I understand that these present a particular difficulty when using calculated grades. Has the Department worked out yet how these students are to be awarded their leaving certificate grades? Could the Minister provide some details on this?

B'fhéidir nach luíonn sé seo faoi chúram na Roinne, ach maidir le coláistí samhraidh sa Ghaeltacht, is léir go mbeidh droch-thionchar orthu an samhradh atá romhainn de réir Covid-19. Chun sampla a thabhairt ó mo dháilcheantar féin, meánscoil San Nioclás, Gaeltacht na Rinne, tá a fhios agam go mbreathann siad go mór ar an ioncam a dhéanann na coláistí samhraidh dóibh. Is amhlaidh go mbeidh tacaíocht de dhíth ar gheilleagar na Gaeltachta go ginearálta, ach an mbeidh aon tacaíocht speisialta ar fáil do na coláistí samhraidh sin?

The primary school classrooms, the space I know best in the education sector having spent 15 happy years there, is the space in which I find it most difficult to imagine social distancing working in a real sense. I do not know how I would correct a homework copy, tie a shoelace or put a plaster on somebody's skinned knee from a distance of 2 m. The Minister is well aware that we have some of the most crowded classrooms in Europe and the built fabric of our schools is often dated. I accept that he has laid out some of the steps to be taken to reopen our schools, but I know that school principals are crying out for more details so they can begin to formulate their plans ahead of time. In particular, I wonder whether staggered class times have been taken in as part of that consideration and the work ongoing.

On a specific issue of staffing levels and teacher retention in school, I have been contacted by a number of principals who are concerned about the number of children who may not return in September, owing either to underlying health conditions, perhaps of a fourth or fifth class child, or parents who might decide to defer their child's entry to junior infants for an additional year. As the Minister well knows, primary online database, POD, returns on 30 September each year determine staffing levels for the following year. There are up to 400 schools in the country that may be on the borderline for recruitment and retention of staff and may find themselves adversely affected if even a small number of parents make legitimate health-based decisions to keep their children at home for the course of September or into October. Is this issue on the Department's radar at all? Are there any plans either to have a moratorium or to adjust the student-teacher ratio, as suggested by Deputy Crowe, to take account of this concern and allow schools to keep the number of staff that their pupil numbers deserve?

Finally, I wish to comment on the subject of the junior infant intake in September 2020. It is important to acknowledge the positive effect that early childhood education and the early childhood care and education scheme in particular have had over recent years on children's school-readiness when they arrive in the junior infant classroom. Next September will look markedly different with many of the children having spent nearly all their time at home since March. I believe there is a good case to be made for extra supports to be made available to the junior infant classroom, even if it is only for the first term of the next school year. They would help us to answer the concerns of social distancing, which is particularly difficult in an infant classroom, and help with what would be a turbulent settling after a long period of unusual circumstances at home. Has the Minister or his Department made any such plans in this regard?

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