Peadar Tóibín (Meath West, Aontú) | Oireachtas source

Many leaving certificate students have gone through fiercely difficult times in recent months. Many have been cut off from their social circles and many have gone through Covid-19 themselves and lost loved ones. Many are also going through serious economic difficulties brought on by the economic crisis caused by Covid-19. On 24 June, many of them still have many questions. I hope the Minister will be able to answer some of the questions I ask. This may be the last ministerial question time for Deputy McHugh while he is the Minister for Education and Skills. If it is not, I wish him luck with continuing with this work into the future.

Will the Minister tell students, who want to know, when the written leaving certificate will take place this year? What schooling, tuition and support will be afforded to students in advance to help them prepare? In addition, if the predicted results are in, they could be published by July, and that would allow for students to sit their written leaving certificate, if they wished, in August. That would mean they could gain access to third level education this year, and that is important because one of the biggest negative side effects of choosing to sit the leaving certificate this year is the threat that such students will not be able to achieve a college place this year.

My final question regarding third level education concerns the many calls I have got from parents and students who are in drastically different economic situations this year compared with last year in respect of SUSI grants. Will the Minister guarantee that people who find themselves in that different economic situation will achieve a SUSI grant this year?

I want to move on to July provision. I have been talking to teachers and parents, and there is significant worry regarding July provision. There is again a blinding lack of detail regarding this area. It is a week from July and no social distancing guidelines have been given to teachers. I spoke to a principal as late as ten minutes before this session started, and I understand that one of the insurance companies is now not willing to give employee cover to schools due to the lack of guidelines from the Minister. It was stated by that company that it does not know the parameters of the teaching services that will be provided and, as a result, it cannot give employee insurance. I understand as well that, as a result, many schools - maybe even a majority - will not go ahead and apply for July provision this year. There are two ways for the Minister to fix the situation. He could give clear guidelines regarding social distancing to these principals and teachers, or his Department could provide insurance for schools that hope to provide July provision. Will the Minister do that?

Regarding the return to school, and it does not give me any pleasure to say this, the truth of the matter is that some of the utterances that have come from the Minister and his Department recently have scared the living daylights out of parents throughout the country. There is the phenomenal level of speculation concerning how many kids can attend a school, for how long, and for how many days during each week. That speculation has done no justice and has not been of any help to parents throughout the country. That speculation and the lack of decision-making means that the Department and perhaps the Minister have been bounced into decisions at a really late stage, as happened with the leaving certificate.

We are two months from the reopening of schools and I understand there are no guidelines regarding a return to school. There are no guidelines regarding what to do with vulnerable staff and students, the wearing of personal protective equipment, PPE, school buses, after-school clubs, making schools available after hours for community groups, what to do if there is a case of Covid-19 in a school, the cleaning regime, access by parents to schools, non-contact drop-off and pick-up of children at schools, learning supports, and special needs assistants, SNAs, who move from class to class or even, in some cases, from school to school. There is also the question of what to do if a child who is sick arrives at a school. The biggest question affecting teachers and principals right now, however, is what to do in the case of the need for substitute teachers in the case of teacher absences. This is a major problem anyway in schools due to the lack of teachers currently in the system, and more so in regard to Gaelscoileanna and the lack of teachers in that system. How will it be possible to cover classes where teachers are absent?

The last issue I wish to touch upon is that of children with Down's syndrome and their experience transitioning from preschool to primary school. I am going to share with the Minister a letter I received from a distressed parent.

It states:

Our daughter Sinéad is five years old and has Down Syndrome. Like every child in the country she has been at home since March 12th. This has meant that she has missed out on the following;

- All the preparations carried out in preschool around the transition to ‘big school’.

- The classroom visit and stay, usually carried out by every primary school in this country in June, to introduce children to their school and where possible their class teacher.

- As Sinéad has level 7 AIM support in preschool there should have been an Access and Inclusion Model transition booklet completed to aid her move to primary school. There was no opportunity for her AIM transition booklet to be completed due to lockdown.

- She has also missed the support and preparation provided by her home tutor (funded by our branch of DSI).

- School readiness workshops provided by Enable Ireland have also been cancelled.

All of this, not to mention the structure, routine, socialising and learning missed through this unprecedented event.

July Provision is the only opportunity left to provide structured transition supports to our daughter, however we were informed yesterday by the Special Education Section of your Department that only children transitioning from a preschool into a special class or special school will qualify for July Provision.

It is our contention that this amounts to discrimination. Based on the school we have chosen for our daughter; a decision we put a lot of thought and research into. Her diagnosis, which has created many barriers for her, which she has tackled, is also somehow now hindering the Government's provision of support to her.

Discrimination has and will continue to challenge Sinéad, throughout her life. However the idea that the departments responsible for supporting, protecting, educating and providing for her, are where our energy is spent, challenging and fighting for her rights is shameful.

Will the Minister guarantee that this family, and any other family in the State in a similar circumstance, will receive July provision?

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