Gary Gannon (Dublin Central, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

For the benefit of the next speaker, who may wish to make his or her way to the Chamber, I do not intend to take the full 20 minutes allocated to me.

I like this Bill. A large portion of what it seeks to do is to provide for better communication between students, parents, teachers and school staff, as well as embedding the student voice in every level of our educational system. My colleagues in the Social Democrats and I welcome it. However, I greatly worry that there is an appalling lack of self-scrutiny from the Department when it comes to better communication and transparency with stakeholders, including education leaders, students and parents. There is a danger of hypocrisy in that regard.

We are in a much better position now to appreciate the value and worth of having students' voices at the table. Prior to becoming a Deputy, I worked with schools via the Trinity access programme. Much of my work focused on supporting students to take on leadership and autonomy within their schools, helping them to ensure their voice was heard and aiding them in developing ideas they had to enrich their school experience, both for their own benefit and that of their peers, present and future. The evidence demonstrates, as does my own experience, that just knowing they will be listened to and heard has knock-on effects for learning, self-confidence and teacher-student relationships.

Over the past 18 months, with the closure of school buildings, disruptions to teaching and uncertainty around examinations, students' voices and experiences have been incredibly important. They have led us through this time, especially in regard to the State examinations, but we should always have been listening to them. I take this opportunity to pay credit and homage to the students who have been unrelenting over the past 18 months in holding us as legislators to account, both Opposition and Government, in terms of their experiences and rights and how they were assessed and examined. It has truly been remarkable and we cannot ever unsee it. In particular, I commend the continued work of the Irish Second-Level Students Union as part of the advisory group on planning for State examinations. We need student voices to be facilitated and firmly embedded at every level, both locally and at national policy level. Currently, while there is a student voice present at the table, which we are all grateful for and have seen the benefit of, it is only one voice at a table of many. We may need to look at how we can broaden the voices of students in discussions on issues affecting them. Indeed, the old line, "Nothing about us without us", comes to mind when considering the importance of the student voice.

In 2019, the Trinity access programme conducted research that involved gathering 3,863 student surveys. It found that first-year students in secondary schools self-reported the highest scores when it came to student voice, while fifth-year students were significantly lower than all other year groups on this point. While one might expect students to grow in confidence and self-esteem over the years, the research found that the sense of a student voice did not naturally grew over time in secondary school but, rather, contracted inward. Research set out in Jigsaw's report, The National Study of Youth Mental Health in Ireland, supports this, with first years reporting the highest self-esteem and life satisfaction, whereas sixth-year students had the lowest levels of optimism. We need to empower young people to feel they have a sense of control, ownership and optimism about their future. This needs to happen at all levels of their educational journey. It is not a coincidence that students in sixth year have the lowest level of optimism given the attention and stress that is placed on the manner in which they are assessed for the leaving certificate. That has implications for mental health, well-being and general life satisfaction for students. We cannot separate that issue out when developing a student and parent charter.

Recent research from the Economic and Social Research Institute, ESRI, examining the experiences of students and teachers at Educate Together second level schools highlighted the important contributions students can make when it comes to decision-making at school level and how this leads to students having greater ownership of their schools and schools being more responsive to local needs. The focus in this Bill on better communication between students, parents and schools in terms of decision-making, complaints procedures and general information on what can be expected from the school is undoubtedly a worthwhile development. There are benefits for the many schools in which this is already happening. I urge the Minister to ensure the Department is part of this culture of active listening, which is necessary if the aims of the Bill are to be achieved. How many times have we heard from school leaders and parents that important information from the Department came late on a Friday evening or just before the school broke up for holidays? This was a particular feature during the 18 months of the pandemic, when people in schools were waiting with bated breath for information to come from the Department. That information inevitably came after 4 p.m. on a Friday. This issue has been raised many times in the Chamber. It reflects a corrosive culture that has been damaging to the relationship between the Department, schools and parents. I hope we can address it as we move forward.

The past year and a half has been exceptional in many ways but that failure of communication is a well-established practice. The Department and the Minister cannot remove themselves from the culture they are aiming to foster between schools, parents and students. The Department is not a bystander without power or impact. For example, the details of the summer education scheme came too late from the Department for many schools that wanted to participate. The Department was warned about this happening and the information being needed as early as possible. Parents and students, particularly students in special schools, have again been left wanting. The media and Government spin is that one third of all special schools will run the summer programme, not that two thirds of children in special schools will not have access to it. That situation has arisen largely because of the failure by the Department to communicate the necessary information to schools on time. It is a really perverse form of public relations spin to say that one third of special schools will run a summer programme when we all know that means two thirds of schools will not participate. It is very wrong and it is something on which we can do better.

The Department of Education cannot act as if it has no responsibility when it comes to listening and communicating. This Bill cannot be a "do as I say, not as I do" attempt at legislation. How well the Department listens, operates and communicates is as important as the provisions this Bill is seeking to strengthen. I urge the Minister to reflect on that. The Bill seeks to instil a greater culture of listening between schools, students, parents and guardians. I respectfully ask that such a culture extend beyond that to include the Department. The schools for which it has responsibility need to be heard and supported by the Department in the same manner that those schools should listen to and support their students and staff.

Will the Minister indicate whether dedicated funding will be provided for any additional costs that may arise out of the provisions in the Bill, including mediation, training and additional administrative duties? Stakeholders are worried about facing additional burdens without corresponding resources. Reading through the Bill made me think of the assessment of needs process. As we all know, assessments should start within three months of receipt of an application and finish within a further three months. In fact, fewer than 10% of assessments are completed on time. We cannot allow a similar situation to arise in this instance. There is little point in introducing mandatory compliance if we know it cannot be achieved.

We all know language matters and I have grave concerns about how the Bill is couched in neoliberal terminology. We must resist any attempts to codify public services such as education. I cannot emphasise enough that our schools are not service providers, and parents, guardians and students are not customers. Far from it. The previous Minister for Education referred to school charters as being akin to customer service charters. Education is about empowerment, certainly in a republic, not a business transaction. Education is a public good and citizens of the State have a right to education. The language in this Bill should reflect that. Issues will inevitably arise and they must be dealt with appropriately, not through the lens of a disgruntled customer but in the context of students as rights holders and with all parties respected and treated as equals.

Let us not forget the 210 children who require but cannot get a place in a special school or special classes and are currently in receipt of home tuition, as reported in The Irish Timessome days ago. What will this Bill do for those individuals and families?

Will it treat them as disappointed customers or individuals who are not able to access fully their rights? Will it have any impact at all? It is an infringement of their human rights as citizens of the republic and that needs to be addressed very quickly. In this regard, I would like greater powers to be provided to the Ombudsman for Children. We must respect the expertise and experience of the office of the ombudsman, which should be empowered to work with schools when deemed necessary and ensure that recommendations are followed as directed.

A Barnardos survey on back to school costs in 2020 found that 65% of parents of children in primary schools were asked for a voluntary contribution, while 74% of parents of secondary school students were asked for a contribution. Although we do not know the extent of voluntary contributions, the Catholic Primary Schools Management Association estimated that they bring in €45 million annually. We are told that there is free primary school and secondary school education, but that figure reveals the fallacy of that lie. Education is free at the point of access to education, after which massive pressure is placed on parents, many of whom do not have the means to afford schoolbooks or school outings. That brings an inequality into the education system that has ramifications beyond the school gate.

The Bill originally sought for schools to be obliged to provide information relating to voluntary contributions to parents and the Department of Education, such as the amount collected annually and a breakdown of expenditure. This information would then be made available online by the Department of Education. The Bill was amended at the last hour during its passage through in the Seanad in 2019 by the then Minister for Education and Skills, Deputy McHugh. That small but crucial amendment removed transparency relating to the reliance on and use by schools of the so-called voluntary contributions.

Within the Constitution is a commitment that the State shall provide for free primary education but we know this is not the case. Every year, schools across the country raise funds to keep the lights on or to get much-needed laptops, technology or other essentials. A large part of this is parents and voluntary contributions. The level of technology inequality that exists was revealed during the pandemic and if it was not for parents, schools and related organisations such as the Trinity access programme, for which I previously worked, that work tirelessly to get laptops into the hands of students, the level of inequality would have been significantly greater. That should not be what education is about within a republic.

If we continue to let voluntary contributions be swept under the rug - I refer to the practice within the Department as a whole; not individual schools - then we will never know the extent to which we are failing our commitment to provide free education to children and young people. We do not yet know the extent of the underfunding as all we know for sure is that parents and guardians have to pick up the tab, with many getting into debt in order to cover all the costs. I will never forget the phone calls I got from people who were raising funds just to keep the heating on in schools. It is an extraordinary indictment of the State that parents have to raise funds to get the heating on in a school during winter. I welcome the Bill but much more conversation and scrutiny is needed and I look forward to time being made available for that on later Stages.

I and many other Members present in the Chamber took part in a discussion yesterday on the future of education, organised by the Children’s Rights Alliance. I refer to Kai, Darren and Sarahann, the youth representatives who took part in the event and asked very probing questions of us as public representatives. If the Bill helps to foster increased dialogue and communication with students such as them, we can only welcome it. However, we can go much further in the context of a student and parents charter, not just in the realms of education but beyond. Having student voices and those of young people present in our discussions at all levels of society can benefit us. In the discussion yesterday, the Children's Rights Alliance asked Oireachtas Members how the scope of the student voice can be widened, whether that be in the context of education or access to basic services or just in terms of what it means to have a voice for students and young people in this republic. My response was that, having spoken to the Irish Second-Level School Union and the students who engaged with us throughout the past 18 months on their learning experience and journey and how that was infringed by the pandemic and the absence of leadership at all levels of society, we need to lower the voting age to allow those young people to have a substantial engagement in society and then their voices will truly be listened to. In the meantime, the Bill is a good start. We have a way to go and I look forward to working with the Minister in order to deliver what is needed.

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