Rose Conway-Walsh on education access and missed Traveller targets

Geur maith agat, Chair, and thank you to Bernard and to Marie and Tracey for your contributions, I suppose to me, because I wasn't on this committee the last time around, I'm learning a lot from your contributions and what's clear to me is, as you have said yourself, Maria, the system needs to look at itself and I think that's the big message from today. And we need to look at the reasons why the previous strategy didn't get implemented, whose responsibility and why was it because it's doing a new strategy as it is now and then us having an implementation deficit, again, can't be allowed to happen. Congratulations, Tracey, on your First Class Honours degree and also to David Joyce, First Class Honours and his Masters. I think that's a fantastic achievement and I suppose the first, I might ask a couple of questions and then you might, each of you might come back and I just wanted to ask you, Tracey, was there one significant thing that was different in enabling you to reach your potential as you have done so far? I'm not sure what your plans are for the future, but in achieving what you have achieved so far, if there was one thing that made a difference, whether it be a teacher or a school or what was it? And what my area of interest was is a higher education in particular, and in response to a question of the Minister for Further and Higher Education of Simon Harris, he informed me that there were 48 new entrants of students to higher education who identified themselves as travellers in the academic year 2019 and 2020. And this is significantly below the 80 new entrants, a target that was set in the National Access Plan in 2015. Now, in that document, it states that the numbers of travellers progressing to third level was so low that they used numbers rather than percentage figures. So the target was to go from the 35 to 80 over the lifetime and plan that has now finished. Given that the Department is in the process of forming a new National Access Plan, what should those targets be? Maybe I'd ask Maria, apologies for that. And why do you think that we fell so short of reaching the last very modest target there? Maria, just in terms of your opening statement and your report to it a bit later on, to ensure the full access to education and lifelong learning grants should be made available to all traveller students. Maybe you could just elaborate on this and provide further detail on why you feel that the means tested SUSI grants are not working for traveller students. So I have some more questions, but maybe if I could give you time, maybe just to answer those. Thanks. Thanks, Rose Conway. And I'm really sorry, my Wi-Fi dropped as you were asking your question. So I'll answer best as I can, but I may have missed some of the context. Just in relation to the grants being made available. I mean, I think it was said earlier that over 80% of travellers are unemployed. And there is a real, you know, crisis in relation to, you know, the need for astrology to address that as well. But that aside, over 80% of travellers, you also have multiple intersections of inequality and disadvantage. And you have also the, you know, travellers are not common to the third level education system kind of from, you know, an intergenerational perspective. So when you have, you know, when you have decades of inequality and disadvantage in relation to education and when you combine that then with high unemployment rates and poverty, then, you know, you do need to put in place very specific targeted measures to ensure that, you know, the monetary factor will not be a barrier to travellers. And engaging in third level. Sorry. Maybe just a couple of examples. I just need to have in my head examples of, of specific grants that would be really useful, just tangible things. Well, I mean, obviously, in terms of grants that covers fees and registration, you know, if travellers, for what I will say, have survived second level education and primary and arrive at the door of a third level institution, you know, the worst thing you can look at is bogged down in red tape and all of the procedures and the hoops that they've jumped through. We know that there are grants available with regard to, you know, students who are coming from disadvantage and marginalisation. But, you know, a lot of those kind of, you know, those kind of hoops need to be removed from the system. And, you know, straightforward grants being made available that will cover, you know, fees that will also cover, if you're talking about more women going into the third level education system and, you know, family commitments, you know, so supports and resources that will allow that to be addressed as well. Particularly traveller women who are lone parents and, you know, engaging in the education system as mature students. There are significant financial burdens on them and a system that has easy, accessible resources or supports available, really important. And also, the final point I'll make on that as well is that, you know, for travellers who are in the third level system and it won't be for all of them, where there's need for support and resources around kind of the academia side of it, it's important that those are available as well. Thank you. Thanks. Tracey. Yeah, I suppose I'll get back to you. You were saying, like, let me calm down, to be honest, there's a very small number of us as our community within higher education. And you ask, like, a person that actually helped me to achieve, to get where I am today. It was two courses really that I'd done, like a train of trainers in Paddy Point. And I got a merit from that. And then I got an opportunity to do a community work in change in Ireland, which was a course called Rome Ed and was also a manual certificate. That was actually, there was 24 travellers in Ireland who participated within that course. It was from that course, really, that put the fire in my belly and empowered me to go forward. It gave me that taste of education that I missed out for so long and years. I went into my notes and what really helped me then to stay in the course and what really gave me that kind of an insight and an in-depth kind of bit of knowledge around the education was, the department that I was under, which was the Department of Applied Social Studies or Social Science, who was over my course and they were all very friendly, very supportive, and kind of helped me kind of to get through that. Now, obviously, they didn't do the work for me in the lines of assignments and reports. I was left doing that myself and through COVID. But look, what I got through was fine. I am where I am today. But I have to say, if it wasn't for them courses that really empowered me and put that fire in my belly, I don't think, if I'm to be honest, that I'd be where I am today. I suppose another thing you were saying that I don't know where you're actually going to head like in the future, what my plans are. Being within college really opened the eyes and got me to kind of understand, getting actually other experience from other minority groups, other marginalised and disadvantaged groups. It made me realise, as a travel woman sitting here today, there's no better place to be than in your own corner, with your own community, challenging the inequalities that we face as a whole and fighting for our own basic human rights. But that's where, that's what I'd be planning for the future. Thank you. Thank you, Tracy. And I should acknowledge as well, I know Eileen cannot contribute today, Eileen Flynn, but I know she's questions submitted. But to acknowledge the difference that she has made on the committee here in education, and we are continuously learning from her and you have a great voice in her as well here in holding people to account. And that is just really, really important and will be so important as going forward with a new strategy or whatever as well. And I know the forthcoming legislation as well. So I just wanted to acknowledge that. My time is probably up, Chair. I wanted to ask around further education. I'll allow you a minute and a half, Deputy, because I have allowed latitude to other members, because other members have given up to slots. Oh, OK, great. And so I suppose my question is, and maybe this to Bernard, because are there any specific recommendations around the further education provision and how that can do more? Because I suppose I know indeed with further education, there's flexibility there that allows, say, the local colleges of further education to meet the needs of the communities that may not be there in higher education. But do you believe that strengthening the pathways to further education and indeed to higher education, as was outlined as well in terms of how that would benefit? So what can further education specifically done? There's an awful lot of money being put in now as well to the development of apprenticeships and looking at the broadening the range of apprenticeships and all of that. How do they meet the needs of the Traveller community or some of the Traveller community as well? Are there specific changes that need to be made there? Yeah, definitely. I think that's absolutely. I think there's opportunities to enhance the pathways in terms of further education. But I just want to come back to just in terms of the thresholds around the bursary and applications. And just to say the 1916 Bursary for Travellers and the Susie Grant, I think the thresholds could certainly be increased and the intergeneration and historical context of that around employment and social economic disadvantage. Also, you might be aware, but if you're a part-time student, come back to third level education, there's a really financial burden and challenge there. So, again, Marie was highlighting that, but that could certainly be, you know, given there's only one per cent of targets in third level education, you know, there really isn't an issue, there shouldn't be really an issue in terms of investment and targeted independence there to get us to a stage where, you know, we get, we increase the target up to 20, 25, 30 per cent over the next several years. And that could really be, you know, that could really help. But also in terms of mature students' participation in higher education, you know, the new National Access Plan, you know, I think that, you know, Travellers have been named within that and also those targeted supports. But what you have here today is the supports that are going in by the Traveller sector. And I think that should be complemented. So, we would obviously call for resources to support that work currently within the Traveller sector in terms of further progression into, you know, and supports in terms of primary and post-primary and third level education. Thank you very much for that. Minister, could I make a comment just in relation to apprenticeships? Because I think it's important that, you know, you look at all of the routes and I think across the board in terms of higher education and apprenticeships, having targets, setting ambitious targets and putting in place the measures underneath those to ensure that it's not just about mainstreaming, that Travellers are coming, there is a need to ensure targeted provision to get to the mainstreaming levels we need to be at. But in relation to apprenticeships, it is an important, another route in terms of young Travellers, in particular access and skills and trades and professions. But it's really important that, you know, that it's looked at from, you know, the gender perspective, that it includes Travellers in the design of the apprenticeships, that participating bodies and businesses are compliant with public sector duty, that there's anti-racism training. And also, the State done some work a number of years ago in looking at apprenticeships and looking at making them more kind of gender, you know, traditional apprenticeships that were more male dominated. How do you get more women into those? Well, when the State is looking at anything in the context of gender, it also has to look at it from an equality lens to ensure that all groups, all women from ethnic minorities, the most marginalised groups of women, can access to these problems. OK, thank you very much, Ms Joyce. Ms Joyce, I'm going to have to put you off there, but I have to be fair to everybody.