Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 8 March 2022
46. Deputy Ivana Bacik asked the Minister for Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science if he will issue a directive to further and higher education institutions to retain certain flexible teaching mechanisms post-pandemic to support disabled students, those who cannot afford to live in university towns and those who are immunocompromised. [12709/22]
View answerWill the Minister issue a directive to further and higher education institutions to retain certain flexible teaching mechanisms after the pandemic to support disabled students, those who cannot afford to live in university towns and those who are immunocompromised?
I thank Deputy Ó Ríordáin for the question. If we were debating this a couple of months ago the first priority we would have had was making sure we could get the college campuses reopened and get students back on campus in a safe way. We discussed this at great length in the House. I thank everybody who worked extraordinarily hard to do this, including trade unions, student unions and management bodies. The real collaboration we have seen in the further and higher education sector has resulted in our college campuses reopening. I also thank them for the work they did on online learning during that time.
The Deputy's question hits on a very important issue. There were things we learned as a result of Covid about how our education system can be agile and flexible, how there can be different ways of doing things and how we can have a university without walls. There is no doubt that while many people found it extremely difficult that college campuses were closed there were some students who said to me that by education being available online they were able to access it in a way they may not have been able to otherwise. We need to acknowledge this also. I am very conscious of the enormous efforts made by our institutions to respond to the various needs of learners during the pandemic. This was marked by a highly collaborative approach, consideration of those at risk or otherwise vulnerable and the adoption of innovative practices to support learners.
The Government is committed to delivering civil and political rights to people with disabilities and the realisation of social and economic rights as espoused in the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. Public bodies have obligations under the Equality Acts, the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission Act and other legislation. The Department is working with institutions to deliver on these obligations and to further embed policies in areas such as universal design for learning. It is up to everyone in the system to look at how we can retain and build on the innovations that we adopted during the pandemic. For example, we learned a lot about how the digital divide can affect people.
Institutions are autonomous bodies. They have academic freedom and responsibility for their teaching and learning activities. The question of me directing them does not arise.
At a national and institutional level, I now want to sit down with stakeholders and look at how we can embed the good practice we have seen and I want to do this in the context of the publication of the new national access plan before Easter.
I know the Minister cannot necessarily direct institutions but he does give them money and could attach a few conditions to that. I agree with him that we need to think differently about education and learn something from the pandemic. Indeed, the idea of having an institution without walls is something I am particularly attracted to. However, the fact is that issues in respect of renting, the accommodation problems students are facing and disability were overcome in a way which showed a lot of ingenuity, forward thinking and thinking outside the box. That is what we always want our institutions to do. Will the Minister proactively interact with all the institutions of further and higher education to ensure that they have thought about every opportunity to break down those walls and that they will not say, in a post-pandemic era, that those solutions are a thing of the past? They have to be brought into the next phase.
The short answer is "Yes". We should and will do that. I agree with Deputy Ó Ríordáin in this regard. I believe he will also agree with me that staff in our third level institutions, and across the public sector, changed their work practices and how they worked overnight. They did so in an emergency scenario. They showed great flexibility and I really respect and thank them for that. However, as we move from an emergency phase of the pandemic - and we all hope we are doing so - it is important that we have discussions about how to make these changes more sustainable and what is required to embed them. People did things on a one-off basis and went above and beyond but a precedent was not set. We have to sit down and engage with stakeholders if we want to embed these changes into people's work practices. We absolutely will do that. I have no doubt that there are people who have accessed third level education as a result of these changes who may not otherwise have been able to. I remember talking to Longford Women's Link and women in that group were accessing degree programmes in Maynooth University from rural Longford. That shows how we can bring education to people who may not otherwise be able to access it. While the Deputy is right that I cannot necessarily direct institutions, as part of the discussions on future funding, we have a list of reforms that we want to see from the sector. This is certainly one such area.
As the Minister will know, people with disabilities have lower rates of progression to third level. My colleague, Senator Hoey, has been speaking on this recently. They have lower progression rates to third level than the general population. The Association for Higher Education Access and Disability, AHEAD, reported that approximately 12% of students disclosed a disability in a recent survey. The true figure may be as high as 20%. With regard to access to third level, further and higher education, this could be a fantastic tool to use into the future. The physicality of a university campus or further education facility does not have to be any kind of barrier to people engaging in learning. Remote learning will be a very significant part of that. As the Minister has said, the walls absolutely can be broken down. Within all that, we also need to understand that these institutions will need funding streams to roll that out.
Absolutely. I acknowledge the work of the Deputy's colleague, Senator Hoey, who I happened to meet this evening. There is a lot we can do in this space. I am proud of the progress we have made across the education sector, including in early years, primary and secondary education, with regard to being inclusive of people with additional needs. We have made some progress in the third level sector and there are statistics to back that up but we have not made enough. In many ways, the cliff edge for many students has moved from second level to third level. We need to fix that. We are developing our new national access plan. I hope to publish that around Easter. I am pleased to say that we have €5 million to spend on that in 2022. I am now considering how best to deploy that. To give the House an indication of my plans, one of the areas I intend to focus on this year is the area of intellectual disabilities. This is an area we have been too silent on when it comes to disability in the third level sector and one in which we can make progress. I look forward to engaging with Deputy Ó Ríordáin and Senator Hoey as we publish the national access plan and then, crucially, as we implement it.
