Reduced school hours important in Traveller Education Strategy

Pavee Point welcomes the publication by Minister for Education Norma Foley TD and Minister of State for Special Education and Inclusion Josepha Madigan TD of the reports on reduced school days, which Pavee Point has been calling for some time.

“As a Traveller mother and education worker it is very unsettling to see that Traveller children are 4 times more likely in primary school and 12 times more likely in secondary school to be put on reduce school hours,” said Tracey Reilly, Pavee Point Education Worker.

Pavee Point notes that Tulsa Education support services has included an ethnic identifier in their forms regarding collection of the data. This data confirms that reduced school hours are being used at an alarming rate for Traveller and Roma children compared to use for their peers from the settled community.

This echoes our concerns and concerns of other Traveller organisation in relation to reduced school days and other educational issues affecting Traveller and Roma children and young people.

Pavee Point in previous a meeting with Minister Foley asked that the Department to analyse this data together with representative civil society organisations and use the findings to further inform measures to address the practice and its implications for the education of Traveller and Roma
children.

The use of reduced school hours clearly needs to inform and be included as one of the important themes in the current development of the National Traveller and Roma Education Strategy now under way.

For further information on reduced school days please contact karen.fenlon@pavee.ie/tracey.reilly@pavee.ie

For RTE Report Click Here.