I bid the committee members and my colleagues from the ISSU a good morning. I thank the committee for the opportunity to participate in today's meeting and to be involved in the discourse regarding the citizens' assembly's recommendations regarding gender equality in Ireland. I would also like to offer the apologies of my colleague, Dr. Aiden Carthy, who is unable to attend today due to prior commitments.
By way of a brief introduction, I believe it would be helpful to start by outlining the context that informed our thoughts and reflections regarding the assembly's recommendations. My colleague, Dr. Carthy, is a psychology lecturer with more than 20 years' experience at TU Dublin-Blanchardstown Campus, formerly the Institute of Technology Blanchardstown. He is also pursuing a research agenda focusing on applied education and is currently leading a number of research projects examining the implications of emotional intelligence, EI, in an educational setting.
I am a research scholar conducting doctoral research at TU Dublin under the supervision of Dr. Carthy. The aim of my research is to examine the attitudes and opinions of post-primary educators regarding the promotion of students' social and emotional well-being. I am also currently involved in research being conducted at the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, where I am examining psychometric models of depression. Our reflections regarding the assembly's recommendations arose predominantly out of my doctoral research and are informed by considerations for student, and indeed, educator well-being. It should be noted that this research was conducted at post-primary level and so our reflections should be considered in this particular context.
I will begin with recommendation 28. We strongly support the recommendation to provide appropriate initial education and continuing professional development, CPD, including specific gender-related modules, to educators at all levels. As many as one third of post-primary teachers delivering the social, personal and health education, SPHE, curriculum, within which RSE resides, have received no training in this curriculum or related pedagogies. Worryingly, it is also apparent that SPHE may sometimes be assigned to a teacher based on their balance of available teaching hours, as opposed to their expertise in the subject. Although it is arguably the keystone subject in the well-being curriculum, SPHE currently does not appear to be recognised on the Teaching Council's registration for curriculum subject requirements, which outlines the requisite skills and accreditation to deliver each subject of the post-primary curriculum. We propose, therefore, that appropriate subject requirements be established for SPHE, which prospective teachers would be required to meet in order to register with the Teaching Council to deliver this subject. This would oblige all consecutive and concurrent teacher-education programmes to offer a learning pathway that would lead to an accredited qualification to teach SPHE. Appropriate CPD should also be developed in order to afford accreditation to current teachers. The introduction of an accredited SPHE learning pathway would potentially reduce the propensity for untrained teachers to deliver lessons in sensitive topics such as sex and sexuality, consent and sexual or gender-based violence. Emphasising pre-service training would also help to circumvent documented barriers to teacher uptake of CPD, such as work-related time constraints.
More broadly, we suggest that the implementation of recommendation 28, which determines that a base-level gender knowledge and gender-sensitive teaching methods skill set be mandatory for all educators in order to register with the Teaching Council, regardless of their chosen subject. Again, we would emphasise pre-service training, with equivalent CPD developed for current teachers. This training could take the form of a mandatory gender in teaching module, which could be offered on all consecutive and concurrent teacher-education programmes and could encompass indicated areas of concern, such as theories of gender, gendered student-teacher relationship styles and gender-sensitive teaching methods. Mandating a requisite base-level knowledge and skill set for all teachers would be advantageous in addressing known concerns among teachers that may implicitly reinforce undesirable gender norms or stereotypes and achieving a reality whereby all educators would be confident, capable and comfortable in addressing the day-to-day needs of their students.
There is evidence that recommendations 26, 27 and 28 and many of the issues discussed in chapter 8 might be best addressed in a co-educational setting. For example, recommendation 26(a) would arguably be best actioned in a co-educational setting, where gender-typing of curriculum subjects can be less likely to occur. With regard to recommendation 27(b), again it is arguable that these important issues would be best addressed in gender-inclusive environments, including LGBTQI and non-binary identities, where students can learn of and from one another. In the context of recommendation 28(a), the cessation of single-sex schooling would allow for these gender-sensitive teaching methods and pedagogies to be developed specifically for a classroom environment that encompasses all gender identities. Perhaps more pertinently, the societal implications of these recommendations can be highlighted when considering the assertion of educationalist, John Dewey, who proposed that school is a microcosm of the society in which it exists and which it serves. With this assertion, it stands to reason that these recommendations should be considered in light of an examination of how well our schools reflect our society. While Ireland has unusually high numbers of students in single-sex schools when compared with the international community - at 17% and 30% at primary and post-primary level, respectively - sex-segregation ends at post-primary level. There are no single-sex third level institutes and no single-sex places of work. There appears to be no analogue in our society that replicates the single-sex context that can be found at primary and post-primary level. Therefore, in line with the Bill put forward by Deputy Ó Ríordáin of the Labour Party, we recommend that the committee consider promoting what we argue is the most appropriate context within which to address gender norms and stereotypes by moving to end single-sex schooling.
The recommendations being considered by the committee have the potential to be highly conducive to the pursuit of sex and gender equality in Ireland. Actioning and monitoring the outcome of some of these measures would precipitate a significant expenditure of effort and resources and would most likely lead to an increase in teacher workload. Teachers have an extraordinarily difficult and, I would argue, underappreciated role in our society. It is imminently clear that they have a very full workload in terms of delivering the curriculum, let alone the accompanying administrative duties. While the importance of monitoring and reporting on progress as we move towards gender equality is arguably self-evident, we would caution against over-burdening teachers with excessive administrative work and urge that any additional tasks rendered unto teachers as a result of the implementation of any of these recommendations be carefully considered and weighed against their already busy work day.
