The matter I am raising on the Adjournment is the need for a home school liaison officer between the travelling community and St. Anne's primary school in Rathkeale. I have raised the unique problems of Rathkeale on numerous occasions in this House. Rathkeale is unique in that almost half of the population of the town are members of the travelling community and there is also a large number of transitent travellers who come to the town regularly.
There are many social problems generated because of the presence of two quite different cultures in the town. It is imporant that there is more communication between those cultures and more understanding between the two communities in Rathkeale. The settled community works hard at this problem. It feels threatened at the moment by the growth of the travelling community in the town.
At present, St. Anne's and the boys' primary schools do everything they can to encourage the travelling community to educate their children. I am asking the Minister and the Department of Education to provide a home-school liaison teacher or officer to liaise between the school and the traveller families.
There are 209 settled children attending St. Anne's school and there are 18 traveller children on the ordinary role. However, there are on average 90 traveller children enrolled in special category classes in the school. Although, the average is 90 this figure increases to over 100 between October and Easter and is far in excess of 100 around Christmas. It declines after Easter because of the transient nature of the traveller lifestyle. Next year there will be 35 traveller children full-time in the school and on average an extra 70 from October to Easter.
The Minister should understand the special needs and problems in a school like this, the need for the school to encourage the traveller parents to continue with their children's education, and the importance of primary education to the travelling community. This is the reason I am asking the Department to appoint a home-school liaison officer to the area. When I mention this problem to people from outside my area, they think it is ridiculous that Senators have to make representations to the Minister to get such a service. I also think it ridiculous but, nevertheless, I ask the Minister for help.
The teachers are working hard liaising with traveller parents. If there is to be hope for the future of the town — and we do not want to destroy the travellers' culture — I believe that the travellers need to understand the difficulties which arise because of the two cultures. They should be more tolerant of the needs and culture of the settled community.
Every parent has the right to choose the education they want their child to have, and this also applies to traveller parents. However, they need a lot of counselling and help in the matter. Discussions with teachers of pre-school classes, special classes and ordinary classes, should determine when a traveller child is ready for ordinary class work. In other words, there should be counselling between the parents, the school and the child to determine when the traveller child should no longer be in the special category.
Traveller children usually cope well when placed in ordinary classes, especially in the junior classes but they begin to lose interest by the time they reach the senior classes. There are various reasons for this and some of them are cultural. One of the most important reasons is that the parents, who are often illiterate, cannot help their children with their homework. There is an obvious need for counselling in such cases.
If Rathkeale school had this service it would open up opportunities for full participation by the travelling community in ordinary classes or, at least, for integration in some subjects — for example, music, arts and crafts, physical education, reading, etc. There could be full integration with ordinary classes in selected subjects. Pupils from the senior special classes in the school who have achieved a good standard of reading might benefit from one or two years in the ordinary senior classes, even though they could be a bit older than the other pupils.
As a consequence of its unique problems, there should be a better teacher-pupil ratio in the school. There are 33 or 34 pupils per teacher and there are other deprived children in the school besides the travellers. As in other schools in similar towns, some of these children can be even more deprived than the traveller children. Rathkeale is unique and should be treated as such by the Department. In order to effectively carry out the integration I have discussed and to improve the standard of education, the pupil-teacher ratio in the ordinary classes should be reduced to 25:1. This would allow teachers to help deprived children from both the settled and the travelling communities to perform better.
As I said, a school liaison officer is badly needed to work with parents and children of the settled and travelling communities. They would also work with the staff of the two local primary schools, St. Anne's and the boys' school. Until now, St. Anne's has been the only school dealing with 50 to 100 traveller children at any one time, but the local boys' school will be in the same position from now on. The thrust of my request is to ask the Department to treat this request as a matter of urgency in time for the new school year.
On a final point, FÁS has refused to provide a training centre for travellers in Rathkeale where there are 700 or 800 travellers.
