Vol. 885 No. 1
100. Deputy Charlie McConalogue asked the Minister for Education and Skills if she will address concerns that the combination of rising rental prices and lack of supply of accommodation for students attending third level institutions will prohibit a large proportion of students from living within a reasonable distance of their campus next year; and her plans to address the lack of supply of student accommodation. [26007/15]
As the Minister knows, there was a crisis in the provision of student accommodation last year and there is a bigger crisis this year. I hope she will be able to update the House on some measures she has taken or what she has done to help to address the crisis and increase supply.
I appreciate the concerns about the availability of accommodation for students and, for that reason, have asked the Higher Education Authority to report on the issue. The authority is working on a draft report on the availability of student accommodation which will be available shortly and give us an up-to-date picture of the situation. In that context, I will continue to work with Government colleagues and stakeholders to explore ways to increase the availability of student accommodation, where needed.
Many parts of the country are not experiencing the pressure on accommodation that we are seeing in Dublin and, to a lesser extent, Cork and Galway. Some institutions provide a range of accommodation and all colleges have an obligation to work with students' unions and other groups to provide students with details on accommodation options. Initiatives such as the USI's Homes for Study are of help to students and list suitable accommodation available to rent across Ireland. In the longer term the Government is committed to addressing the housing shortage through Construction 2020. While it will not solve all of our problems immediately, I am confident that the implementation of Construction 2020 will provide us with a sustainable housing stock in the medium to longer term.
The unfortunate reality is that the Minister, like her predecessor, has taken no action to address and introduce measures to improve the accommodation crisis facing students this summer. We had a crisis in 2013, another last summer and there is an even bigger crisis this year. Leaving certificate students are already in the cities, Dublin and Galway in particular where the crisis is most acute, scurrying around trying to find accommodation. Some have started to pay for their accommodation already so great is the fear that they will not be able to source accommodation later. While this has been happening under the nose of the Government, neither it nor the Minister has taken measures to deal with the issue. The Minister has referred to the fact that she has asked the HEA to put together a report. A report will not address the issue. This is a crisis of three years standing. In March the Minister indicated that the report she had requested would be available in April, but today she is telling us it is due in a few weeks time. Meanwhile, students are increasingly concerned as to whether they will be able to find accommodation and how on earth they will be able to afford to pay for it. Are there other measures the Minister could take at this belated stage to address the problem? At a minimum, will she try to ensure some steps are taken to ensure the crisis will not be even worse next year?
I have engaged with the HEA, the Union of Students in Ireland and individual universities and institutes of technology on the issue. While many of them provide extensive accommodation, I accept that the issue is particularly critical in the Dublin area and, to some extent, Galway and Cork. I am aware from discussions that some of the third level institutions are actively engaged on the issue of additional accommodation concerns. The HEA will report on the issue in the near future. The issue is under consideration in the context of the Construction 2020 strategy, but in the meantime there is active engagement with the higher education institutions to seek to provide extra accommodation for students.
All we hear from the Minister is that she is engaged with the students' unions, the HEA and institutions. She has mentioned that she is aware of some measures they may be taking. Will she enlighten us on what measures they are taking? If she is aware of measures being taken, I would like to know about them. I have no doubt that the students facing an accommodation crisis this summer would also like to know about them, but the reality is that there is nothing happening, apart from gathering reports to cover the Government's embarrassment about the fact that it has done nothing to try to address the issue. The figures show that the further away students are from a third level institution and the closer they are to the grant threshold and miss out on it, the lower their participation at third level. The chronic participation rate for these categories will only worsen as a result of the crisis. Added to this is the €1,000 increase in the student registration fee delivered by the Minister and the abolition of postgraduate grants entirely for postgraduate students. The Minister has come here today with nothing to tell us because the Government has done nothing to address the issue for the past three years. Unfortunately, many hard-pressed third level students across the country and the many leaving certificate students who have just completed their examinations will suffer as a result, yet the Minister can offer us nothing that indicates that she will take significant measures in the next 12 months to ensure the problem will not get worse next year.
I am somewhat surprised at the vehemence of the Deputy in his response because the collapse of the construction industry provides much of the reason we do not have accommodation available.
Let us deal with the Minister's role in the matter.
Up to a few years ago students were able to find accommodation, but the construction industry collapsed because the economy had collapsed. As a result and as the Deputy is well aware, funding had to be cut and the student registration fee had to be increased because of the state of the economy. I am aware that some institutes are engaged in seeking to find a solution. We also have, for example, the strategic investment fund set up by the Government which is one possible source of funding that is being explored. There have been schemes such as the one to which I referred, the USI's Homes for Study scheme and there are others that we have discussed with the USI.
A practical response is what is required, but also a more medium-term strategy, which the Government has announced in terms of the housing 2020 strategy, which includes student accommodation.
101. Deputy Jonathan O'Brien asked the Minister for Education and Skills if she will provide an update on the administration of her Department’s primary online database project, involving the collection and storage of information on children in the primary school system, including her plans to defund schools if they do not co-operate with the project, and her consultation with parents on information that is to be collected. [25912/15]
The intention is to ask the Minister to further elaborate on her proposal to collect and store data on primary schoolchildren, and the fact that there is a proposal that non-co-operative schools may be defunded if they do not co-operate with the primary online database, despite its changes.
The primary online database was rolled out across the primary school system during the 2014 to 2015 academic year. The primary online database, POD, will allow the Department to more closely monitor and evaluate progress and outcomes of pupils at primary level, to validate school enrolment returns for grant payment and teacher allocation purposes, and to follow up on pupils who do not make the transfer from primary to post-primary level.
A revised fair processing notice was issued in April 2015. The fair processing notice outlines the legal basis under which schools can ask parents or guardians for information and share it with the Department of Education and Skills. The fair processing notice is available on my Department's website.
The vast majority of schools have now entered their pupil data on the POD. The POD will become the basis for grant payments and teacher allocations from 2016 to 2017 onwards. The primary school annual census return will continue to be the basis for grant payments and teacher allocations for 2015 to 2016. A mechanism has been put in place already to allow for schools to create non-identifiable records for currently enrolled pupils whose parents object strongly to providing data for the POD. This means that those pupils will continue to be counted for teacher allocation and grant payment purposes.
Throughout the process consultations have been held with the education stakeholders, including the National Parents Council Primary. The feedback from schools and parents has been very positive since the reissuing of the POD fair processing notice and the issuing of Circular 0025/2015 which provided further practical information for schools about the POD.
I do not know whether the Minister is aware that the Data Protection Commissioner's office confirmed only two weeks' ago that even after the changes she introduced in April to the primary online database, that it still might not be legal. Could the Minister confirm whether further legislation is required to underpin her proposals on the primary online database, if a further review is to take place, or if she expects to again change some of the proposals contained within a system, which, as the she said, is already up and running? It is a major issue for the Data Protection Commissioner's office to raise concerns about the information that is being collated by the Department. Unless legislation is introduced, the data that are requested to be transferred might not be taken, stored and retained on a fully legal basis. Could the Minister elaborate on the legal basis of the information and its storage?
We have responded to all the concerns of the Data Protection Commissioner and the April memo was prepared partially as a result of that. In response to the specific question of whether amending legislation is required, I wish to inform the Deputy that my Department is engaged with the Department of Social Protection, under whose remit the making of the necessary regulations fall, to make the agreed amendments to the Social Welfare (Consolidated Claims, Payments and Control) Regulations 2007 to bring the particular data fields in issue, including mother's maiden name, enrolment date, enrolment source, leaving date, leaving destination, integrated indicator, indicators for receipt of learning support, pupil type and special class type within the scope of regulation 189. That is expected to be concluded in the coming weeks.
I do not know whether that captures the concerns of the Data Protection Commissioner's office which were outlined on 18 June.
Having investigated the primary online database, POD, the Data Protection Commissioner's office still had concerns, as did parents who had objected to the storage of sensitive data, that were valid even following the changes made in April. That is the key point. While they acknowledge that the Minister made changes in April, major changes are still required. I do not know whether the changes will be fully captured in the legislation to which the Minister referred which will not be brought before the House before the schools return after the summer break, which means that some of the data will still be online. Some parents who have asked what data are being retained have been very surprised and concerned at what has been and is being retained about their schoolgoing children.
We have agreed, in association with the Office of the Data Protection Commissioner, on the creation of non-identifiable records. My officials have had extensive and ongoing communication with the Office of the Data Protection Commissioner on the issues it has raised and we accept their validity. The Data Protection Commissioner is satisfied that we have responded to the concerns, including the one to which I referred in my reply regarding our interaction with the Department of Social Protection.
The next question is in the name of Deputy Michael Fitzmaurice. Given that he is absent, we will move on to Question No. 103.
103. Deputy Charlie McConalogue asked the Minister for Education and Skills her views on the recent survey (details supplied) carried out by the Irish Heart Foundation which researched the state of nutrition standards in post-primary schools and which found that 40% of the schools surveyed did not offer free, clean drinking water; and her plans to reform dietary and nutrition standards in secondary schools. [26008/15]
In the question I ask the Minister her views on a recent survey carried out by the Irish Heart Foundation which researched nutrition standards in post-primary schools and which found 40% of schools did not offer free, clean drinking water; her plans to reform dietary and nutrition standards in secondary schools and if she will update the House on her approach to the issue.
I welcome the valuable findings in the Irish Heart Foundation survey of 39 post-primary schools published in April. The Government has published Healthy Ireland - A Framework for Improved Health and Wellbeing 2013 - 2025. Healthy Ireland aims to improve the health not only of students but also of the nation. Education has a key role to play in the Healthy Ireland agenda. My Department, having consulted the Department of Health and the HSE, will in September issue guidance for post-primary schools initially on promoting healthy lifestyles. At the same time, the Department of Health will publish updated guidelines for post-primary schools on the development of healthy eating policies. Data from my Department's life skills survey, 2012, indicate that almost all post-primary schools provide information for students on the importance of a balanced diet. Some 325 post-primary schools responded to the 2012 survey. Data from the 2015 survey are being analysed.
I thank the Minister for her response and commend the Irish Heart Foundation for its work on the survey and its valuable work in trying to promote healthier lifestyles and awareness of how to ensure people look after their hearts. As I indicated in the question, the results of the survey of food provision in post-primary schools, in which 39 schools were surveyed, showed that 40% of secondary schools did not provide free water for students. Students have to fill an empty bottle in the bathrooms or buy water from a vending machine where the price of a bottle of water is approximately the same as that of a sugary drink available alongside it. This is unacceptable. The survey also showed that 47% of schools had vending machines and that the gross annual income from each school was €2,000. We do not need to elaborate on the increasing obesity crisis. The Minister said policy advice would be given to schools on the promotion of healthy lifestyles and healthy eating.
What policies or requirements will the Minister put in place to ensure healthy foods are available in schools, which the survey indicates is not the case in the majority of schools?
Drinking water should be available in all post-primary schools. If a problem is identified with a school's water supply, it can submit an application to my Department for emergency funding to correct the problem. I am aware of some cases in which drinking water is supplied from machines. I drink water from my tap at home and, I am sure, most people in this House do likewise. The water that comes out of the tap is supposed to be drinkable other than in some exceptional circumstances. The board of management of a school can apply to my Department to address problems that might arise in such circumstances but I do not envisage bottled water being provided in every school. That is how I interpret the Deputy's question but perhaps I misunderstood him. Only where a problem arises in respect of water supplied through the taps should we supply water by alternative means.
I have strong views on healthy eating, healthy living and active schools. The Minister of State at the Department of Education and Skills, Deputy English, and I have engaged with our colleagues on this issue because we want to drive the healthy eating agenda in schools. I have outlined the measures that are being taken in this regard. National policy on healthy eating is led by the Department of Health but my Department is also very active in this area.
I am not sure how the Minister got the impression that I was advocating for bottles of water to be supplied free of charge. I was referring to accessible and clean drinking water. The Minister may be able to fill a glass of water at her kitchen sink but students at school do not have access to kitchen sinks. If fresh water drinking points are not available, the only way the students can get water is by filling up their bottles in the bathrooms. I do not think that is acceptable. The survey by the Irish Heart Foundation found that 40% of schools do not have clean drinking water points. Wide-ranging policies are not sufficient when we need clear strategies and standards for the provision of healthy food in secondary schools. Will the Minister commit to putting in place a national catering standard for secondary schools and to banning vending machines in secondary schools? They are not available in primary schools for the good reason they encourage the consumption of junk food. They should not be available in secondary schools either.
We regularly issue healthy lifestyle guidelines to post-primary schools and will be issuing them again in September. Issues relating to vending machines are addressed in the guidelines. I do not have the authority to dictate to schools on this issue but I have advised them to make healthy eating options available. Approximately 30% of post-primary schools have vending machines, a reduction from 35% in 2009. Much of the work required in this area involves changing cultures and encouraging healthy lifestyles in order that young people do not want to consume fizzy drinks. If a fizzy drink is not available in the school, it will not improve the student's health if he or she goes to the shop next door to buy one. It is more effective to introduce measures to change attitudes and cultures. Such measures are being implemented across government.
104. Deputy Jonathan O'Brien asked the Minister for Education and Skills if she will consider ring-fencing the current capitation grant rates for primary schools and introducing a supplementary system whereby schools may apply for additional capitation funding based on the condition of the school and other needs in order to introduce a fairer scheme and to address the higher expenditure older schools incur. [25913/15]
Will the Minister consider changing the capitation grant system to provide a reliable system of payment to schools most in need, which would take account of a school's age, location and student composition?
The last budget included an increase in spending on education for the first time in recent years, amounting to additional funding of €60 million during 2015. That increase has provided funding for 1,700 additional teachers and SNAs to be recruited for our schools, as well as funding important reforms. However, it was not possible to secure the funding which would be required to also increase the rates of capitation paid to schools.
The running costs of recognised primary schools are not budgeted for individually by the Department. It would not be feasible to grant-aid over 3,300 schools in this way. The running costs of these schools are met by my Department's schemes of capitation and ancillary services grants.
I do recognise the need to improve capitation funding for primary schools having regard to the reductions that were necessary over recent years. In the last budget I was able to secure the first increase in education spending in recent years. I am determined to continue pressing the case for increased investment in education in the forthcoming budget.
I acknowledge the Minister's answer but since budget 2011, there has been, in total, a 5% cut in capitation grants to primary schools, which has had a negative impact. I support the call not only for that cut to be reversed but also to bring the primary capitation grant up to the secondary school level, as the INTO has sought.
We should also be examining a capitation grant system to ensure that old, inefficient, pre-fab schools can be replaced. Such schools have to make do with the same capitation grant levels as brand new ones. As the Minister knows, new schools are more cost-efficient in lighting and heating. They are built to new standards, yet the same capitation grant applies to a 200-year-old school where the heat is going out the windows.
Due to cuts to capitation grants and to the summer works scheme over the years, these schools have had to make do with lower payments. In recent times, therefore, they have been finding it even more difficult to stretch the available funds.
The practical difficulty is that we have over 3,000 schools. It would be very difficult to assess the individual annual running costs for each school which is why we have a capitation grant system. We try to address the concerns of older schools, and schools with particular problems, through summer works and emergency works. For example, replacing windows and roofs, or other structural issues that may arise in schools, are generally addressed in that way.
It is probably true to say that newer schools are more cost-effective in terms of energy needs. We have been trying to upgrade schools and replace pre-fabs with new buildings but that is a work in progress. I will be fighting for as much funding as I can get in the next budget to ensure that we have money to do these things.
What happens in the meantime? We would all like our schools to be replaced by modern, super-efficient ones but that will not be the case. Some schools may build gardens, while others do not have money for heating or simple things like fixing light bulbs. While some schools can find money when necessary, not all schools have the same spending outlay. Given that it is far cheaper to run a newly built school than a 200 year old one, will the Minister consider reviewing the capitation grant system to take account of this? For example, one could have a uniform capitation grant for all schools, plus a top-up for schools with identified problems that make it highly inefficient for them to work, thus placing a greater burden on the capitation grant. Older schools must spend more of the capitation grant on heating and other running costs than do modern schools.
There is a case for taking the condition into account but we cannot do it unless we have extra money because I certainly do not intend to cut the capitation to some schools to increase it for others. It will have to be in the context of additional funding.
102. Deputy Michael Fitzmaurice asked the Minister for Education and Skills in view of the impact of the Government’s decision in December 2011 to change the ex-quota status of the role of the guidance counsellor in second level schools, her plans to reverse this cut in the next budget; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [25914/15]
In view of the impact of the Government's decision in December 2011 to change the ex-quota status of the role of the guidance counsellor in second level schools, what are the Minister's plans to reverse this cut in the next budget? Will she make a statement on the matter?
I have acknowledged that bringing guidance within quota is challenging for schools but the alternative was to adjust the pupil-teacher ratio staffing allocations. My Department helped shelter the impact for DEIS post-primary schools by improving their standard staffing allocations. Guidance and counselling is a whole-school responsibility with guidance counsellors playing their part within an overall team approach. Enhancing supports for schools, including guidance, are among a number of issues raised in discussion with me as priorities within the school sector.
The previous budget included an increase in spending on education for the first time in recent years, amounting to additional funding of €60 million during 2015. I am determined that education should be prioritised for investment as our economy recovers and I will be seeking to agree a set of priorities for such increased investment into the future.
I welcome the fact that the Minister will look for more funding. A long time ago the guidance counsellor was not included as a normal, run-of-the-mill teacher in a school. With our country hopefully now taking off, children will need the best guidance possible. I know from talking to guidance counsellors that there are problems throughout the country and they do not get the time to see all their students. Will the Minister give this priority as we are talking about the future of kids? Many kids go through traumatic experiences such as self-harm and they deserve us facilitating them as we did in secondary schools before 2011.
This is one of the areas we will start looking at when we get extra funding. A number of priorities are brought to my attention all the time when I meet people in the education sector. Psychologists from the National Educational Psychological Service are also available to all schools now and the subject of well-being is one of the areas being discussed in the context of reform of the junior cycle. There are guidelines for this and I have committed to having well-being as part of the curriculum for junior cycle students. This is designed to address the whole area of anxiety and all the mental health issues with which young people are faced and have to contend. The issue of guidance counsellors being ex-quota and specifically provided for within the school system is one of a number of things we will look at.
I welcome that the Minister has said she will try to change this situation. I would also like to see guidance counsellors broaden their horizons to look at other skills outside their field, such as skills involving their hands, to ensure there are other opportunities for them. We are possibly coming to the stage where we will run short of certain skills in this country in the coming years and we need to look at things in a broader context.
We are very focused on that and the Minister of State, Deputy English, and I have been very involved in broadening opportunities in the area of apprenticeships. We are involving people who work in guidance in schools in this and we are involving schools generally by making them aware that these should be options available to young people.
