Dáil debates

Thursday, 3 September 2020

Back to School, Further and Higher Education and Special Education: Statements

 

5:15 pm

Photo of Donnchadh Ó LaoghaireDonnchadh Ó Laoghaire (Cork South Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I now have only have three minutes to contribute so, unfortunately, I will not be ceding time to the Minister.

While it is probably a crossover issue between the Minister and the Minister, Deputy Foley, CAO applicants from 2019 or earlier are seeking to access higher and further education and a solution needs to be found. I firmly believe that solutions can be found. It is about allocation and decisions to be made in that regard. There are ways to achieve this. I sent an email on the matter to the Minister, Deputy Foley, and I can send it to the Minister, Deputy Harris, if he wishes.

I acknowledge what the Minister said about further education. The attitude is really positive. Nevertheless, he is not the first Minister to have said what he said, and actions will necessary. It will not all be about policy, although an awful lot of it will be. Much of it is about communication. There is almost a propaganda element to this, to try to get the message out there and to challenge the culture that exists. That is vital.

Another crossover issue that falls within the area of the Minister's Department concerns student teachers and those in the second year of the professional master of education, PME, programme. Their training falls under the Minister's Department primarily. We presume that, during the course of the year, they will be deployed, but the manner in which they will be deployed to schools, which will be of great assistance to schools, is somewhat unclear at this stage because the institutions themselves are trying to get their houses in order. There is scope for a meeting between the Ministers, Deputies Harris and Foley, and these institutions to try to figure out how the process can be expedited, not least this year because there will be a great deal of remote teaching. Many student teachers and PME students could assist small rural schools that might not previously have benefited from them because the student teacher or PME teacher will be based at home, in his or her locality. There would be great benefit in that, but there needs to be a meeting and a discussion to try to expedite it.

My final point, which is a practical one, relates to Safe Pass courses. I have had some feedback suggesting that the guidelines that SOLAS has issued provide that no more than 11 people should be involved in a training course. Organisations are booking courses, however, and hotels are telling them there should be a maximum of six attendees. Whichever is the case, the public health guidelines have to be abided by, but if there is confusion and it is delaying Safe Pass courses, which are intended to facilitate people getting into work, that is obviously not desirable. It does not seem as though that should be too difficult to resolve but the matter needs to be clarified.

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