Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I am glad to have this opportunity to address the House as Minister with responsibility for further and higher education, research, innovation and science. I will be sharing time with the Minister of State, Deputy Niall Collins.

Deputies have already received an update regarding the schools sector. It is a testament to the work of parents, teachers, principals, special needs assistants, cleaners, ancillary staff, boards of management and, of course, students that schools have reopened. The excitement on the faces of schoolchildren shows how much it means for them to be back to school. Indeed, it is a great relief for many parents to see their children back with their friends and teachers. As colleagues know, much work has been undertaken to plan and prepare the further and higher education sector for the new academic year. Colleges, universities and other settings closed their doors on 12 March, almost six months ago.

Thanks to the good work of staff and the patience of students, most of the academic year was moved online. I wish to pay tribute to the sector on the record of this House because a report issued by the Quality and Qualifications Ireland, QQI, last week notes that this move was certainly not without difficult and challenge for all involved. There was positive feedback that they managed to keep the show on the road, albeit in very different circumstances. While the report acknowledges that it was necessary, it was not easy for students and staff and what was done is a testament to their dedication.

In a few weeks' time, over 260 days after they closed, our colleges will begin the new academic year. It will not be possible to simply return to the way things were before the pandemic. We all wish it were, but it will not be. The college experience many students left in March will not be the same one to which they will return later this month but that does not mean it will be an inferior experience. The days of crowded lecture halls or crowded campuses must be over for the time being.

It is important that we acknowledge the impact that this pandemic has had on students and their well-being. They want and need to be back at college in a manner that is safe and they want to resume their studies. The resumption of the academic year is our most pressing challenge and ensuring that students and staff are safe is my number one priority.

The Government has allocated €168 million in funding to support further and higher education institutions in reopening their doors. This has been welcomed by students, staff, unions and many Opposition parties. This will enable our institutions to return to blended learning with some on-site campus learning in a safe and practical way. Crucially, it is not only about investing in Perspex, hand sanitiser or buildings, although these are important, it is also about investing in and supporting students. Therefore, included in that package is a €15 million fund to allow both higher and further education institutions to place bulk orders for almost 17,000 laptops for students. It is not acceptable to say to a student that the lectures are going online and that he or she must source a laptop if he or she does not have the resources or the means to do that. What is proposed will go some way towards bridging the digital divide - an issue to which I will return. Deputy Ó Ríordáin did much good work previously on literacy, and digital skills must be a priority for us in this House. I hope we can discuss that again. I also hope these devices will go some way towards ensuring equality of access to education.

This pandemic has had a disproportionate impact on young people. It is disappointing to see some people attempt to blame a younger generation in respect of Covid. As a House, we are much better than that. Young people have made incredible sacrifices. It has been difficult for them and, as I said, it has had an impact on their mental health. There have been concerns about mental health for a long time but these concerns have been compounded by the isolation and uncertainty brought forward by the Covid pandemic. For these reasons, the Minister of State and I sought to support student counselling services, key mental health interventions and the provision of a safe, respectful, supportive and positive environment in our higher education institutions. We are allocating an additional €3 million, on top of the additional €2 million in the budget, for student mental health support services and that funding is being distributed throughout all the higher education institutions.

We also need to recognise that this is a year when, perhaps, getting a part-time job will not be as easy as it was previously. This is a year in which families and students will have fallen on hard times through no fault of their own. For that reason, we are doubling the student assistance fund from €8 million to €16 million. As the House will be aware, this is a fund which students can access through their access office if they are in need of assistance because circumstances changed for many. In that context, we also need to make sure that the SUSI grant system changes. There is a commitment in the programme for Government to completely review the student support grant system and I have asked my officials to prepare an options paper on how best to do that. I will be back to this House in that regard. As a first step, we have made sure that the SUSI system can take on board whether a person's income has changed suddenly as a result of the Covid pandemic. We have now seen over 91,000 applicants to SUSI since it opened in April. This is over 2,000 extra applications compared to this time last year, reflecting the changes Covid has enforced on people.

As colleagues may be aware, I announced changes to the support scheme for students living in direct provision, with certain rules being relaxed and the scheme being placed on a long-term footing. I want to see an end to direct provision - so does the Government - but saying that is not enough. While we are bringing about an end to direct provision - this is a commitment in the programme for Government - we need to look at actions we can take today to support people in direct provision to access education. I hope that this will be of assistance. It is being welcomed by many of their representative groups. Hopefully, these changes in the student support schemes will result in more people accessing third level. I am pleased to say that we have seen more people who are seeking asylum in Ireland accessing supports as a result of this policy change.

The arrival of the Covid pandemic has also interfered with the normal means by which students complete their secondary education and move on to the next stage in their education or employment. The Minister for Education and Skills and her Department have undertaken enormous work - the Members have been debating that at length here in this House - in the context of calculated grades. I do not intend to go back through that. What I want to say is that I have done all I can to provide additional extra course places. This week I received Government approval to increase the number of places in colleges by 1,250. That is on top of 1,450 additional places we were already planning. When these are taken together, it means that over 2,600 additional third-level places have been made available. We are doing this while recognising that often a person coming out of sitting the leaving certificate might decide to take a gap year and go to Australia, America or travel the world but that this is not an option in a Covid pandemic. The person might also decide to work for a while and then go to college, and that may not be as much of an option. Providing more college places will, I hope, be of some assistance.

I want to say the following on the record of this House to the students of Ireland who will be getting their calculated leaving certificate grades next week. Whatever their results, whatever the outcome, they will never be judged by one grade, one mark or one piece of paper. There are many options, avenues and pathways. We need to drop the snobby attitude we have to the effect that the only way one can progress in life is to go from the sitting the leaving certificate to the university. Whether it is an apprenticeship scheme, whether it is the post-leaving certificate, PLC, courses, or whether it is using the further education and training infrastructure, there are many ways to get to where one needs to get and I do not know why we insist on narrowing the conversation so early. I hope that we can work on a cross-party basis to broaden that conversation.

While I have only been eight weeks in the role, I would like to think that we have made some important improvements. It must be recognised that we had a considerable amount of work to do. Last week, I also announced an allocation of €25 million for capital works and equipment in higher education institutions. This will provide institutions with the flexibility to address small-scale capital investment and equipment based on their own priorities so that they do not need to keep coming to the Department asking for permission. By setting up this fund, it will enable them to get on with making the improvements they wish to.

We reached a key milestone on a programme to deliver 11 new higher education buildings. This is not about investing in buildings. We can facilitate 8,000 additional student enrolments as a result of the delivery of these public private partnership developments. The first bundle will go to tender immediately and will include six projects in the eastern and southern region and in the midlands.

We are also making important progress on the issue of consent in our third level institutions. The issue of sexual violence and sexual harassment is not confined to third level institutions. This is a societal crisis and education needs to lead in respect of it. Education should be a place of safety, equality and inclusion, and it is not acceptable that we hear of so many students reporting sexual harassment and sexual violence in the third level institutions. That is why I have written to all university presidents and institute of technology, IOT, presidents asking them to provide consent classes for all first year students this year. It is why I have also mandated each of them, through the Higher Education Authority, to produce an action plan on how they intend for their specific institution to promote gender equality and tackle sexual violence, and that needs to be delivered by February of next year.

I want to come back to this House and have a discussion about how we rethink both the funding model for the third level sector and the correct balance between autonomy and accountability. I believe in the autonomy of our institutions. I believe in the autonomy of the education system, allowing people govern, think and do things freely, but there also has to be accountability and oversight. I believe the current governance structures are too archaic in that regard. I hope to bring legislation before this House in this regard.

We are entering an important time. I hope it will be an exciting time - the beginning of a new academic year. It is a time full of challenge, but the fact that we now have a dedicated Department, we now have a dedicated Minister and Minister of State and a Civil Service, may be shining a light on issues that perhaps got lost in the past or did not get enough attention. If one is the Minister for Education, whatever party one is from and whatever one's name is, one has a long list of issues to deal with. Sometimes, perhaps higher education was the poor relation. If higher education was the poor relation, further education was the Cinderella. We cannot allow that to continue. I look forward to trying to engage with colleagues across this House as we set out on what I hope is a new departure and a new beginning for higher and further education.

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