Aodhán Ó Ríordáin (Dublin Bay North, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister back to the House. He will be aware of the Labour Party position on the issue of assessed grading and school profiling. We are very much against school profiling. I have written to the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission, IHREC, to seek its viewpoint. The equivalent body in the United Kingdom has issued guidelines to the UK education department relating to assessed grading. The position of the UK body is that it potentially negatively affects minority children, children with additional needs, children from disadvantaged backgrounds and, specifically, high-achieving children in disadvantaged settings. I expect or hope that IHREC will issue the Department with some recommendations. I hope the school profiling element, which is so controversial and unnecessary, can be deleted from the Minister's assessment criteria, which he will publish tomorrow.

I refer to the issue of schools that may lose teachers. In September, schools get notification of appeals. I am going to mention a school but I will not name it. The Minister knows of the school because I sent the details to him yesterday. The school is going to lose a teacher because it has 200 students on the roll but it needs 201.

It is in a particular location that has suffered a huge incidence of violence in the past 18 months. The Government admitted a necessity to have a Mulvey-style task force for this area to identify reasons for the violence and to provide supports for the community, one of which would be educational supports. There was even a shooting there today, which was the second in a week in that postcode. This DEIS band 1 school is acutely disadvantaged and on the basis of one student, it is being told it will lose a teacher.

We would love the Minister to get to his feet today and tell us there will be pause or moratorium, and no school in the country will lose a teacher in September given the circumstances we are in. I appreciate that he cannot make that commitment, as it would be expensive and not every situation is the same. I ask him to look at it nonetheless or at least to have a sympathetic appeals process that would take into account schools like this going through such a position, meaning they will lose a teacher unnecessarily in September. I have sent him the details and I hope he or the Department will look on the case sympathetically. I know he has said the process is independent but he can start a new process so a school like this would not lose a teacher in September.

The Minister mentioned July provision and I appreciate a large element of his statement was about it. It will give much comfort to people who have asked me to raise the matter with him. I congratulate him and thank him but we need to know when dates will be known along with further details. Please get those to us as soon as possible.

On the matter of schools returning, there is much disquiet because the Government's messaging is so tight when it comes to matters of commerce, business or retail but with education, the messaging is sloppy. The Minister for Health can say in an interview in the Sunday Independentthat schools might go back in June, for example. In this very Chamber last Wednesday we had a questions and answers session but the Taoiseach was wondering whether schools or childcare facilities could come back more quickly because these might not be as high a risk as other areas. The Minister might have a different position. It is as if education is not important so people can talk off the top of their heads. We all know the difference between hardware and homeware stores, however, because the messaging is so tight.

Why is the messaging around education so loose? This is so damaging and causes much upset. We are getting representations from teachers and parents who are wondering what on Earth is going on. Are schools going back in June? Will they be held over until September? There are different views on that and nobody in the Chamber will demand that the Minister should bring schools back in June. Nobody would want to stand over a demand that may be regretted in a number of months. Will the Minister nonetheless give some certainty to the process, how the decision will be made, who will make it and what advice will be sought or taken on board if and when the decision is made? If a decision is made, will schools return on a phased basis?

I refer to the Teaching Council. I understand trainee teachers are having difficulty with the council, as are those who are currently registering. Those who have made approaches to the council as of 7 April have yet to get responses and those going through Hibernia College have been told they must plough on with their online teacher training course, including going to the Gaeltacht. Students feel that is completely unrealistic in current circumstances. The Teaching Council oversees the process so will the Minister speak to that?

Others have spoken about third level students. This pandemic has ripped open many issues that are live in society but now we have the opportunity to talk about them and perhaps do something. Students might partake in low-paid work over the course of the summer to survive their years in third level education.

A more robust and sympathetic SUSI system for one year would recognise those students who are trying to break out of disadvantage and, in many cases, become the first person from their households to attend third level or further education and prevent it from becoming a case of them telling themselves that they cannot do it now because they cannot get the jobs they would have got otherwise to be able to afford it and that they must drop out and think about doing something else.

If the Minister could speak to these issues, I would appreciate it.

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