Michael Moynihan (Cork North West, Fianna Fail)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

124. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills his strategy to broaden access to further and higher education to traditionally less well represented groups; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [12773/22]

Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

Equity of Access to Further and Higher Education continues to be a national priority for the Government and the Department of Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science. Inclusion is a key goal in my Department's Statement of Strategy.  The Programme for Government also reflects the importance of supporting learners at risk of educational disadvantage and learners with special education needs in higher education.

The main support available to students is the statutory based Student Grant Scheme. Under the terms of the Student Grant Scheme, grant assistance is awarded to students attending an approved course in an approved institution who meet the prescribed conditions of funding including those which relate to nationality, residency, previous academic attainment and means.  

The eligibility criteria for student grants are reviewed annually by the Department and approved by the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform. All proposals made in relation to education expenditure, including student grants, are considered in the context of the annual Budget. 

As part of Budget 2022, I have secured an additional €15m to enhance the existing financial supports under the Student Grant Scheme for implementation in 2022.

For the academic year 2022/23 this will mean:-

- An increase to all student grant maintenance payments, including the special rate of grant, of €200 per year which will benefit all students entitled to receive a maintenance Grant. There are currently circa 62,000 SUSI grant recipients receiving maintenance support.

- The income threshold to qualify for the standard rate of student grant has been increased by €1,000.

- The qualifying distance criterion for students to qualify for the non-adjacent rate of grant has been reduced from 45km to 30km, effective from the start of the 2022/23 academic year.

I have prioritised these changes for the 2022/23 academic year and they will benefit thousands of students building on the improvements that have already been made for postgraduate students through this year’s student grant scheme. These improvements to the student grant scheme have been a priority for me since taking up my Ministerial appointment.

I am also happy to give an update on the review of the Student Grant Scheme.  This was a very important commitment in the Programme for Government, which will help shape decision-making on how we support students over the years to come. The draft report was submitted to me in late December 2021.  Given the inter-connectivity between strategic student support issues and other reform priorities (e.g. the expansion of supports to part-time and blended learners as an enabler of lifelong learning or enhanced postgraduate supports as an enabler to equality, diversity and inclusion in the R&I system), it is now my intention to bring the report to Cabinet shortly alongside the Future Funding Model report.

The vision of the Third National Plan for Equity of Access to Higher Education 2015-2021 is that the student body entering, participating in, and completing higher education at all levels reflects the diversity and social mix of Ireland’s population. The plan set out five goals and more than thirty actions, developed following widespread consultation with stakeholders, with the aim of supporting increased access and participation in higher education by six main target groups.  Those groups include entrants from socio-economic groups that have low participation in higher education; first-time mature students, students with disabilities, part-time/flexible learners, further education and training award holders; and Irish Travellers. The plan also indicated subgroups that require support, including lone parents, teen parents and ethnic minorities. Improving equity of access to higher education is an ongoing objective.

My Department is committed to the continued roll-out of supports for students and targeted initiatives to support delivery of the vision and targets within the National Access Plan. 

Work on developing the new National Access Plan 2022 – 2026 is underway.  Colleagues in my Department are working closely with the Higher Education Authority in developing priority actions and new target groups for the next National Access Plan.   I am looking forward to publishing this new and exciting Plan this year. We hope to have a more student centred plan that drives our strategic goal of inclusion which is a cornerstone of my Department priorities. Our new plan which is at an advanced stage of preparation will have an increased focus on student success.

I secured an additional €5m in budget 2022 to bring forward targeted measures to support the implementation of this plan when it is published.

The objectives of the National Access Plan are supported by a range of interventions and programmes:

The Programme for Access to Higher Education (PATH) which comprises dedicated funding to support access to higher education and consists of three strands focussed on increasing the participation of under-represented groups in higher education. The PATH fund has a current investment envelope of €42 million over the period 2016 to 2022, across the three strands which are currently supporting access to initial teacher education from the target groups identified in the National Access Plan (Strand 1), providing a three-tiered bursary system (Strand 2) to students who have been identified by their higher education institution, approved for PATH 2 funding, as being the most socio-economically disadvantaged students in the target groups under the National Access Plan, and supports regional clusters of higher education institutions with the aim of attracting additional students from groups currently under-represented in higher education (Strand 3). 

The full impact of PATH investment will be seen over the lifetime of this and subsequent national access strategies. 

Students in higher education institutions experiencing exceptional financial need can apply for support under the Student Assistance Fund (SAF). The annual Fund of €9.1m provides financial support to students who are experiencing financial difficulties while attending college. Students can apply for SAF to help with either temporary or ongoing financial difficulties and can be assisted towards their rent, childcare costs, transport costs, medical costs and books/class materials. It is open to both full and part-time registered students on courses of not less than one year's duration leading to an undergraduate or postgraduate qualification.

It is recognised that COVID19 has had a major impact on the financial situation of students and their families.  As part of my Department’s response to the issues affecting students arising from the pandemic, I have allocated significantly higher amounts to the Fund over the past two academic years.  For 2020 and 2021 I doubled the level of baseline core funding for the SAF by providing an additional €8.1m in each of those two years.

Also in 2021 an additional €1.3m was allocated to the Fund to meet the additional demands identified by the Higher Education Institutions arising from COVID19.

In total, €18.5 million was allocated for the 2021/2022 academic year.  In addition to this I also made available €1.9 million in Covid-19 funding to a contingency fund for HEIs to provide additional resources to access and support services to respond to the emerging needs of the COVID pandemic.

The Action Plan for Increasing Traveller Participation in Higher Education 2019-2021 was launched in 2019 and its aim is to advance Traveller participation in higher education within the context of approaches on retention and transition of Travellers across the education spectrum.

In 2021, I secured ring-fenced funding of €300,000 for targeted supports to address the implications of COVID-19 for Traveller transfer to and progression within higher education. The funding will help ensure expected increases in Traveller participation in higher education remain on track.

I am pleased to announce an increase in funding for 2022, €450,000 has been secured which will help to safeguard the increases already seen in participation in higher education by marginalised communities and to mitigate against the risk of long-term damage arising from COVID-19.

The additional funding means that institutions can now broaden their reach to assist members of the Roma community and to do so in a community-led way.

The Fund for Students with Disabilities (FSD) supports participation by students with a disability in further and higher education. €9.6m is allocated to the Fund annually for both Further and Higher Education.  In 2019/2020, circa 16,000 students were supported through the fund.

In January 2021, I approved a number of strategic projects under the Fund for Students with Disabilities (FSD) aimed at supporting students with disabilities to access and engage with higher education. The initiatives, which involve 24 higher education institutions (HEI) and €5.8m in expenditure, are broad and are aimed at improving access to higher education for people with a disability, to improving college campuses and to assist staff with training and development. Among the projects are a number of projects for students with autism including the establishment of autism friendly rooms across nine different campuses, the development of assistive technology including for students with disabilities, an app to help students with visual or hearing impairment navigate their way around campus and specialist assistance for students who are deaf.

A study commissioned by the Higher Education Authority on the challenges facing mature students in participating in higher education was publish in June 2021– the findings will be considered in the context of the new National Access Plan due to be published in the coming months.

Persons in the protection process (asylum and subsidiary protection) or leave to remain process are not eligible to access the statutory based SUSI grant scheme. However, the administratively based Student Support Scheme provides supports along similar lines to the SUSI grant scheme and is available to persons in the asylum, subsidiary protection or leave to remain process. 

Fostering Inclusion is one of the three core pillars around which the Further Education and Training (FET) Strategy 2020-2024 is built. The FET sector is committed to increasing levels of inclusion through the provision of high quality, more accessible and flexible education and training programmes and supports suited to the identified needs of individuals, including those in traditionally less well represented groups. FET provision is largely free or heavily subsidised, and a number of financial supports may be available to learners to facilitate the participation of individuals who would not otherwise be in a position to take up training. I would encourage people to make an appointment with their local Adult Education Guidance Service (AEGS), available in each Education and Training Boards (ETB) across the country free of charge, to discuss what supports may be available to them.

Ivana Bacik (Dublin Bay South, Labour)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

125. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills his views on statistics released under freedom of information which reveal that 75 reports of sexual harassment were lodged by staff and students in Irish colleges between 2015 and 2020. [12712/22]

Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

I thank the Deputy for the question on this matter. Our higher education institutions have a duty of care to their students and staff, and a responsibility to foster a campus culture that is clear in the condemnation of unwanted and unacceptable behaviours, which act as barriers to their safety and their active participation in college life.

Significant progress has been made regarding the Framework for Consent in Higher Education, since it was first launched in 2019. The Framework aims to ensure the creation of an institutional campus culture which is safe, respectful and supportive.

In August 2020, I wrote to all the Presidents of the publicly funded higher education institutions, with a view to strengthening institutional action in the area of consent. Institutions were requested to produce individual action plans on tackling sexual violence and harassment and to submit these to the HEA Centre of Excellence for Gender Equality, whose responsibilities have been expanded to cover all areas of equality, diversity and inclusion, as well as oversight of the implementation of the Framework for Consent in HEIs.

As part of monitoring requirements moving forward, the HEA requires that institutions, in respect of both staff and students, report progress annually on implementation of the Framework for Consent.

My Department has provided support for a number of consent awareness raising and training initiatives in the HEIs, including the:

- UIG Active Consent Programme

- UCC Bystander Training

- Speak Out report and support online platform

- The ESHTE Toolkit and It Stops Now Campaign led by the NWCI in conjunction with USI.

My Department is partnering with the Department of Justice and the NUIG Active Consent programme to support the development of an online hub that will provide, for the first time, an integrated, publicly available resource on sexual consent awareness and learning, which will be an important resource for our further and higher education institutions and the wider community.

The IUA has published guidelines entitled 'Guidelines for Universities on How to Respond to Alleged Staff or Student of University Related Sexual Misconduct', which are available to assist HEIs in this area.

THEA launched their PROPEL Report (Promoting Consent and Preventing Sexual Violence), in March 2021, with funding from my Department.  The PROPEL report details key components and options for inclusion in institutional action plans, outline of best practice and guidelines for emerging policies and procedures in this area and a series of conclusions and recommendations.

With regard to the recently published surveys of student and staff experiences of sexual violence and harassment in higher education, I want to take this opportunity to thank students and staff across the country who took the time to engage with this survey and share their experiences with us. A total of 11,417 responses were analysed (7,901 students and 3,516 staff) and inform the findings.

The survey findings point to some positive developments in the higher education institutions that can be built upon in areas such as awareness raising and education. But there are also some deeply troubling findings, such as the levels of sexual harassment experienced by staff and students that responded to the survey and particularly the female students that reported that they had experienced sexual violence.

An Expert Advisory Group chaired by the HEA is currently reviewing the survey reports and will be submitting proposed actions shortly which will complement the work already underway on the Consent Framework in the higher education sector.

I will continue to lead the way on institutional change, championing the changes required to achieve a cultural norm where bullying and sexual harassment are not tolerated.