Mary Seery Kearney (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I am sharing time with Senator Conway.

I welcome the Minister and Deputy Kehoe. I congratulate the committee on a fine report into which, clearly, a lot of hard work went. In anticipation of the motion, I canvassed the views of principals and deputy principals in my home region of Dublin South Central in light of the recommendations in the report to ascertain their feelings and experiences. The replies summarise both primary and secondary schools and offer some feedback.

The first issue on the minds of all the secondary school principals and deputy principals relates to exams. A timely decision on the leaving certificate and accredited grades, including in respect of the junior certificate, needs to be made, but it cannot be something that has flexibility and uncertainty. There cannot be a plan A and a plan B. At this point, we do not know for sure that a new variant will not arise and the scientists cannot reassure us of that, so we have to make one plan that anticipates that as a possibility given we are still at a precarious stage of Covid, even if it is, as I hope, the tail-end of that. If the decision is that we do not provide a hybrid model, although I acknowledge all the indications from students are that this would be their preference, an amended curriculum and sample papers need to be provided immediately. We cannot delay on that. We have to remove all this additional Covid-related uncertainty and allow students to sit down and get stuck into doing what they are supposed to be doing, namely, studying for this big, final exam. That is the most important issue to highlight.

The circumstances of living with Covid in classrooms and minimising risk are less than ideal. Ventilation funding has not been sufficient. Some principals feel there is no clear guidance on HEPA filters and at this stage it is entirely unsatisfactory that there still are not enough CO2 monitors to provide for every classroom. Students cannot be expected to endure cold classrooms, sitting there in their coats. That is just not acceptable as an ongoing plan. There is a dearth of information regarding the current self-isolation periods. As of Monday night this week, which is when I last spoke to people who are informed on the matter, no up-to-date guidance on self-isolation periods had been sent to schools. One principal reported that 9% of her student population were out with Covid and she had seen a stark increase in Covid numbers.

With regard to the recommendations on online and blended learning, other Senators have spoken about them in the context of those who are socially and financially disadvantaged, who have been disproportionately affected. In many instances, they did not have adequate technology to get involved in online learning and this learning deficit has to be addressed. We need to improve teacher ratios and concentrate on delivering equality of opportunity in schools, DEIS, schools and the disproportionate effect there has been there. Special education teachers have been diverted into mainstream classes when there are staff shortages and that needs to be addressed urgently. Their students, who were already disadvantaged and needed additional supports, need to get double the additional supports to make up for all they have missed. There have been high numbers of absences among students, and given the continued precarious nature of attendance among teachers, schools cannot schedule work in the way they would have done in order to catch up on this important material. We need to consider special education teacher, SET, hours assigned to schools and see either a reduction in class sizes or an increase in the number of SNAs. While we are at it, we should thank SNAs for their truly heroic work during Covid. They were out there in the classrooms, not always with the ability to social distance given the nature of the support they were giving in some instances. It is important we recognise them and acknowledge the fantastic hard work they have done.

Finally, in the context of this motion, we could not but remember and think about the family of Eden Heaslip. My question on everything that is being brought forward and done relates to where the accountability is for the barbaric treatment of that boy, and of others throughout the school system, who have been bullied and are bullied. Who knows about it and what is being done in real time by the adults in schools? A boy does not come back to class having had his head pushed down a toilet without that being noticed. An accountability mechanism for the adults who know needs to be built into the system.