Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

I am sharing time with Deputy Barry. The Minister may not know it but he has People Before Profit to thank for the opportunity to debate this issue. We specifically requested it at the Business Committee. Such is our commitment to this matter, we have also tabled a motion that will give the Minister another opportunity to discuss it tomorrow. I will have more time to set out our stall in that debate.

Covid has brought us to a moment when long-overdue, radical reform and overhaul of the further, higher and third level education sector and access to it is due. There are many different aspects to this. I agree with the point about the words "further" and "higher". There is an implicit class distinction there that we need to eliminate. That is part of the problem which starts with the leaving certificate. The latter creates stress, mental health pressures and a hurdle over which one has to jump at a young age in order to get to higher education. It is fundamentally perpetuating an inequality and a hierarchy and is limiting access to education in a way it should not. If we are serious about an overhaul, we have to get rid of all barriers. We would consider it unthinkable to ration access to primary and secondary education. Why on earth would we ration, through leaving cert exams, fees and other barriers, access to further and higher education, apprenticeships or whatever? It makes no sense. It creates competition, pressure and a hierarchy. It leads to people dropping out and it is bad for our society at every level. Those barriers should be removed and that starts with the leaving cert. It has no place anymore, as it is blocking entrance for some to further and higher education.

Fees in this country are now the highest anywhere in the European Union. There is no justification for that or for anything that puts pressure on people to drop out of education. Nor is there justification for the thousands of people working in higher education in temporary, insecure positions who would love to be working full-time in a better, radically reformed higher and further education system. Should we not, as an objective, say that all the barriers must go? Education to the highest level is a right for everybody and barriers, whether exams, financial barriers or others, must be removed.

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