Annie Hoey (Labour) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister to the House and welcome the Chair of the committee. I will only cover a couple of points from the report and the recommendations. It is a hefty report and the Deputy read out the ten recommendations from it.

I flag, first of all, the concerns regarding the ability of special needs assistants to maintain social distance. As I stated to the Minister previously, I am in a number of education chats and there are many issues coming up. That seems to be something that is still raising concern in terms of special needs assistants, SNAs, feeling constricted, conflicted and unsure of how best to protect themselves. They are doing their very best but it seems to be a conversation that is still happening in terms of special needs assistants and the additional personal protective equipment, PPE, they need to be able, as they sometimes do, to get down close with students. It seems to be a conversation that is still ongoing and I am wondering whether the Minister has had any further engagement or whether there have been further recommendations in that area in relation to SNAs.

There is much reference to online learning, how students are able to learn online and the need for online learning to be standardised throughout the country so that students have the same opportunity of learning. This is slightly outside the remit of the Department. We do not have a publicly owned national broadband service and there is disparity in connectivity. As I said, this is beyond the Minister's remit but this digital divide is inevitably, as we know now, affecting children and young people and their learning opportunities. Not that it is the Minister's problem to solve, but has she had any conversations with the Minister overseeing the broadband roll-out about her concerns? It is certainly something we have heard of in terms of students not being able to access the learning. Now students are back into schools, it is to be hoped it is not too much of an issue. It is something for the future. Students are learning online all the time now, not only, as we referenced, in the at-home learning that happened for a brief period.

It would be remiss of me, of course, not to talk about the leaving certificate and - something that has not a huge amount of airing - the junior certificate. Not to put another question on the Minister's plate, given she is up to her oxters with the leaving certificate conversation, but has there been a conversation around that? There is a big push, as the Minister will have heard from a number of people, around the hybrid leaving certificate and what that will look like. Has there been a conversation about, if there has to be a change, what that change will look like at junior certificate level? The Minister has indicated the option to sit examinations at a different period etc., but has there been any conversation along the same lines as that around the hybrid leaving certificate?

I will also briefly reference school bullying. We all saw that desperately sad video about Eden Heaslip. I was watching it on my way in this morning. It is dreadfully sad. This is somewhat tied to the digital issue. On digital literacy, there is a difference between the technical know-how of how to get online and how to do things and, without wanting to put too lofty a term on it, ethical know-how, digital literacy or digital skills that we simply must get to grips with. This is the generation that is growing up online. The proper training and support for teachers is important, as is that digital literacy education and how we are supporting, teaching and educating our young people on how to behave online and what to do online.

Senator Pauline O'Reilly mentioned the Yellow Flag programme and Senator Flynn talked earlier on today about the Yellow Flag programme and the Traveller mental health strategy. We have talked a lot in this debate about people falling through the gaps - disadvantaged students. There is no question about the impact Covid has had on the Traveller community, particularly young people in the Traveller community. A young girl who was only 12 years old took her own life in the past week in the Traveller community. I want to put to the Minister the importance of programmes such as the Yellow Flag because we are coming out of Covid, our young people's tensions are high ,and people are frazzled learning how to interact and behave online. All of these programmes or measures, such as the Traveller mental health strategy and the Yellow Flag programme, will be very important as we try to adjust to life post Covid and ensuring our young people are able to engage with each other in a mature and grown-up manner that is reflective of the diverse society we have today.

I note it is mentioned in the report that emotional counselling support and hot meals and services should be an integral part of the education system overall. I note that the pilot programme has been run, but will it ever be truly a viable option for every school to have a hot meals programme? Is that something the Minister would see the Department striving towards? Is it realistic given the physical constraints in many of the school buildings? That is not putting the Minister on the spot. Is it genuinely a goal of the Department to have that for every single school? To return to the issue of the leaving certificate, Dr. Niall Muldoon, the Ombudsman for Children, stated a few hours ago that he is fully supportive of the demand among leaving certificate students to a hybrid approach to assessment this year and indicated students must be listened to. Moreover, ISSU survey results indicate that two of three students are calling for a hybrid leaving certificate this year. It is important to reiterate these are not normal times. The leaving certificate is a two-year cycle. It does not include the junior certificate and cannot be shortened to one year or simply fixed with some additional tuition.

Despite the best efforts of the school community, the Minister and her Department, there have been high levels of disruption, mental health challenges and classes missed. Can we honestly say we can return to a "normal" leaving certificate, as if the past two years have been normal when we cannot honestly say they have been? Can we, therefore, with a straight face, look to young people and say we will go ahead with the exams as normal, even with the amendments the Minister has proposed? Either we have a student-centred approach or we do not. We cannot champion the idea students have a voice and then ignore them. The Minister will hold a further meeting about the issue tomorrow. Will she put forward that student voice such that two of three students have said they want the hybrid option, that is, a choice between calculated grades or going the whole hog, if that is what they wish?