Lynn Ruane (Independent) | Oireachtas source

Communities in poorer areas have suffered greatly in terms of mental health issues and the deaths of young people.

One aspect of the Bill is legislating for specific areas of training. How do we decide what is more important? There is child protection and anti-bullying measures and socio-economic sensitivities. There are many different areas. Is the list intended to be exhaustive in terms of how many things we include in the training of teachers?

Currently, there is only 18 hours of SPHE teacher training over a four year training programme. If this Bill passes, there would be no more hours in that course. How can work with the teacher training colleges to ensure that we ring-fence an appropriate number of hours in which the training would be provided because I want to see it introduced? I do not want it to be impractical. I want to see it introduced in the way it should so that it really serves the schools, the teachers and especially the young people. The fear expressed by some of the teachers and the training colleges, to whom I have spoken, is around where it will fit in in the school day. If they slot it into the SPHE training, one is taking up time in that space to which an extremely low number of hours are devoted. We should look at the layout of the curriculum for teachers and how we introduce this. While I support the Bill, I will consider an amendment on ring-fencing a minimum number of hours to be spent on first aid training and mental health training.

I have a concern about the first aid course being provided while students are on teacher training courses. If I am correct - correct me if I am wrong - first aid courses only last for two hours. By the time a student teacher finishes his or her training, he or she would be due to retrain in first aid when taking up employment in the workforce. Should one not carry out one's first aid training in the work environment where one would need the experience? We should look at how often such training is required.

Is there a minimum number of people who need to be trained in first aid in the school at a given time? In sectors of employment, there is a first aid officer and other people trained in first aid. If it is a legal requirement to train everybody in the school in first aid, it may be impossible to find the hours to train everybody. Is there an acceptable minimum number who could be trained in first aid?

I refer to the whole idea of what a teacher is. People will say teachers cannot be all things, which I understand. However, sometimes we have the idea that a teacher is the person at the top of the classroom who is there to fill up empty vessels with information and knowledge when it is more about the relationship with, the empowerment of and the engagement with a young person. Nobody expects a teacher to be a counsellor or to provide some sort of a service. Sometimes we think that when we train a teacher we are training him or her to recognise symptoms and signs but that is only one part of it. What we are missing is that sometimes the school setting and sometimes teachers are further compounding the mental health and anxiety of children. A level of training is needed in terms of having an awareness of one's style of communication with young people and whether one is adding to the stress, anxiety and everything else. That is an area we need to look at because teachers will not always be the saviours in this regard. Sometimes teachers need to recognise that the way they run their classroom or school and how strict it is or how they can shame children, especially in areas of poverty, affects children's mental health. We need to look at that to ensure the relationship between the teacher and the student is an equal one.

I support the Bill but I want to ensure it is meaningful and teachers can work it into their day. I do not see why we cannot achieve that between now and the next Stage.