Travellers need ‘ring-fenced funding for third-level’

Greater communication between colleges and Traveller support groups and the ring-fencing of special funding would help increase the number of Travellers in third-level education, a seminar has been told.

Hilary Harmon, education advocacy co-ordinator with Pavee Point, told the Participation in Higher Education by Irish Travellers national seminar in Cork that only 13 per cent of Travellers completed second-level education, compared with 92 per cent of the population at large.

More Traveller girls than Traveller boys complete their formal education, while less than one per cent of Travellers go on to third-level, said Ms Harmon.

Ms Harmon said that such a low figure meant that there were very few role models within the Traveller community for other Traveller students to try and emulate.

According to the Higher Education Authority, the number of Travellers in third-level education is currently estimated at between 25 and 37.

The aim is to increase this number to 80 by 2019, she said.

Ms Harmon said the reason why so few Travellers managed to go on to third-level were varied, but there was a need for greater communication between colleges and Traveller support groups to inform the community of what supports were available for them if they wished to stay in education.

One way of assisting or encouraging more Travellers to go on to third-level would be to ring-fence funding for special scholarships for Traveller students to go to university or college, she said.

She said that those Travellers who do achieve a third-level qualification are often slow to reveal their identity because of perceptions about Traveller culture.

Therefore, there also needed to be programmes in colleges to promote and affirm Traveller culture as positive, Ms Harmon said.

She said problems extended to part-time third-level courses, as Traveller women who may have got married young and want to re-enter education discover that when they apply for a college place there is no funding available to assist them.

Difficulties at third-level come on top of the difficulties that Travellers face in obtaining work, with the odds of Travellers ending up unemployed being eight times more likely than among the settled population, she said.

Education committee

The seminar was organised by the Cork Interagency Traveller Education Committee, which is made up of the Cork Education and Training Board, Cork Institute of Technology, University College Cork, Cork City Partnership, the Traveller Visibility Group, Tusla, Cork City Council and participating schools.

The committee works with second-level schools in Cork to support young students from the Traveller community to progress to further and higher education.

The seminar heard from one principal of a participating school on how such schemes work.

Phil O'Flynn, principal of Terence MacSwiney Community College in Hollyhill in Cork, revealed that between 10 per cent and 15 per cent of the school's near 300 pupils are drawn from the Travelling community.

These students benefit from a Traveller mentoring programme run in the school.

However, that programme is funded by the Cork Interagency Traveller Education Committee and not by the Department of Education, said Ms Flynn.

“We run a Traveller mentoring programme and at the moment we are having great success with the Traveller girls - a lot of them are very bright and very able and they love the [programme], but it may not be working so well with the older boys.

“The girls said that if I want to get the boys interested, then I should get a horse project going in the school, because they are all interested in horses and animal care, so that’s something we can work on,” she said.