Holly Cairns (Cork South West, Social Democrats)
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675. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills further to Question No. 139 of 4 February 2021, the status of the implementation of the recommendations in Framework for Consent in Higher Education Institutions: Safe, Respectful, Supportive and Positive - Ending Sexual Harassment in Irish Higher Education Institutions; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [9975/21]

Holly Cairns (Cork South West, Social Democrats)
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676. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills further to Question No. 139 of 4 February 2021, the higher education institutions that have developed and published specific institutional action plans on tackling sexual violence and harassment in accordance with the guidelines in Framework for Consent in Higher Education Institutions: Safe, Respectful, Supportive and Positive - Ending Sexual Harassment in Irish Higher Education Institutions; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [9976/21]

Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 675 and 676 together.

In August 2020, I wrote to all publicly funded higher education institutions (HEIs) requesting that they develop institutional action plans on tackling sexual violence and harassment, and report to the Higher Education Authority (HEA) on their progress on the implementation of the Framework for Consent in HEIs.

Since then, the HEA’s Centre of Excellence for Equality, Diversity and Inclusion has been working with HEIs and the sectoral representative bodies to support implementation of the Framework for Consent. For instance, in the 2020/21 academic year, the HEA has supported the national, sectoral and local roll out of online consent training and online bystander intervention training, as well as the development of a national Anonymous Reporting Tool for issues of bullying, harassment, and sexual harassment.

In September 2020, the HEA requested a progress update from HEIs on the Framework for Consent to assess progress and enable benchmarking and sharing of good practice across the sector. These updates revealed that much progress has been made in implementing the framework to date. Across the HEIs, 63% of actions in the framework have been implemented or are in progress, with a further 31% in the planning phase.

Ahead of formal reporting on the Framework implementation in Autumn 2021, the HEIs are to submit to the HEA, by the end of March 2021, specific institutional action plans around tackling sexual harassment.

In addition, the HEIs Annual Governance Statements submitted to the HEA require a statement confirming that an institution has applied the institutional processes which will support achievement of the objectives of the Framework for Consent.

In order to create a robust evidence base for further policy decisions in relation to tackling sexual violence and harassment in HEIs, the HEA is working with stakeholders to develop and commission national surveys of staff and students to monitor their experiences. These surveys are expected to launched this April.