Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 7 July 2022
13. Deputy Cathal Crowe asked the Minister for Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science if there are plans to increase the availability of third level courses for the study of educational psychology. [36581/22]
View answerI wish to ask the Minister, Deputy Harris, if he has intentions to expand the availability of places in third level courses that provide training in the realm of educational psychology.
I thank the Deputy for the question. My Department, the Minister of State, Deputy Niall Collins, and I are strongly committed to supporting the well-being of the population through the provision of graduates with the key competencies and skills to be effective in health and education workforces and to support a range of public services, including educational psychology.
While colleges are absolutely free to provide whatever courses they want, it is right and proper that when it comes to the public service provision, we have a very active interest in how we workforce-plan. We do many things well in this country. However, one thing we do not do particularly well is to engage in workforce planning properly in terms of public services, which goes back many years. This is something we need to fix.
In this context, my Department in its still relative newness is now engaging with other line Departments on their workforce needs. We are engaging on an ongoing basis with the Departments of Health and Education and other relevant Departments, including the Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth, with regard to how the further and higher education system can best support workforce planning for the delivery of essential public services.
The national health and social care professions office in the HSE has advised my Department that the psychology project team completed a report in 2021 which recommended the development of a workforce plan for psychology, including educational psychology. My Department understands that implementation of the recommendations is now being examined by the HSE. My Department is also engaging with the Department of Education on its workforce needs, including for the National Educational Psychological Service, NEPS.
Progress on workforce planning in this area by the Departments of Health and Education will inform the funding for future reform process for higher education, a key focus of which, in collaboration with professional regulators, is on ensuring that appropriate pipeline of suitably qualified individuals to enable the delivery of essential public services. A good example of workforce planning is the work that the Minister for Health, Deputy Stephen Donnelly, and I did this year in relation to medicine places. We sat down as two Departments with the HSE, others and the deans of medical schools and identified the need. We now have seen a very large increase. We want to replicate that process across health, social care and education. I have written to all Cabinet colleagues on this. Educational psychology is certainly an area I will pursue.
The housing crisis can only be fixed by building houses, the hospital crisis can only be truly fixed by more hospital beds and, indeed, the incessant problems we are having with children waiting for diagnostic tests and psychological screening can only be rectified when NEPS and the child and adolescent mental health services, CAMHS, have an adequate capacity of educational psychologists.
It just struck me many times over. When I was at Mary Immaculate College, there was a course, a bachelor of education in education and psychology, MI008, with an intake of 33 students per annum. Their career progression is not clear. A small cohort goes into educational psychology and most go into primary school teaching. They have qualifications in educational psychology, but they teach maths, English and Irish all day long. They never get into the realm of screening and diagnostics. I acknowledge there will be a top-up required in order to do that. One cannot just become clinical the minute one graduates from college and diagnose children. However, surely that in-house capacity needs to be looked at, rather than referring the children off onto a NEPS list, where they might not get an appointment for 18 months. Surely, the in-house capacity, namely, the teacher down the corridor who has this qualification, needs to be activated. However, that can only happen if there is an adequate intake.
Absolutely. The role of our Department is to provide, working with our sector, the capacity and pathways for graduates, as well courses and upskilling and reskilling across a range of public services. When the HSE and the Department of Health complete their work on their psychology review with the Department of Education, we stand ready to do more on this.
The Deputy is entirely right. I saw this during my time in health and I see it now in this Department. There are many times where it is not just funding that is constrained, it is actually the availability of a skilled professional to carry out a job within the public service. To share the most recent data I have available with the Deputy, which are for the year 2020-21, at Mary Immaculate College in Limerick, the Deputy’s alma mater, there were 168 people registered on educational psychology courses. Forty-one were on the bachelor of education in educational psychology, 19 on the doctorate in educational and child psychology and 108 on education and psychology courses. There were also 41 people engaged in educational psychology courses in UCD. I will share the data with the Deputy.
I thank the Minister for his reply. There are two parts to this problem. The first is that we are not churning out quite enough graduates. However, more importantly, those graduates who emerge from these courses are not going into educational psychology. Rather, they are back down in classrooms. It makes no sense for someone with an educational psychology qualification to be filling out a referral form for somebody to NEPS, which will not see them for a year or two. That is absolutely illogical. There needs to be a new pay grade in teaching and a new incremental point in order that somebody exiting the college system with this qualification is actually put to practice. The children could bypass NEPS and CAMHS and go down the corridor to Ms Ryan, because she is qualified in this area. In a week's time, a diagnostic report could be prepared by a teacher who knows and understands the child and sees that child playing in the yard.
We need to get that competency in-house. That submission has been made by the Irish National Teachers' Organisation, INTO, for budget 2023. Let us activate it. We need to consider the teachers down the corridor who have this skill set, and activate them. We need to get more graduates. We can solve this in-house. It is not a massive thing. This will not take four years of graduates exiting. It will require the activation of those within schools who have the necessary skill set.
I thank the Deputy for his well made and passionate points. The points made by the INTO are valid. I will convey the Deputy's views on the matter to the Minister, Deputy Foley. I am sure he has already done so. My Department stands ready to work with the Departments of Education and Health to increase the graduate supply. The other matters are for the Department of Education but I will speak to the Minister on them.
