SOMETIMES, when Co Tipperary's visiting teacher for Travellers, Una O'Neill, finds that the children she deals with become despondent, she points to some shining examples such as the Traveller girl who got honours in her Leaving Cert last summer and is now studying hotel management in Waterford. Then there's the student who is doing an auctioneering degree and someone else studying agricultural science.

But these examples are rare and O'Neill, who liaises with schools and Traveller families, admits that "vocational aspiration is a difficulty because so few Travellers have made it to third-level education." Her job is to encourage Travellers to benefit from the educational system and to try and ensure that they go on to post-primary level.

The first visiting teacher for Travellers was appointed in Galway in 1980 as a pilot project with the aim of increasing participation by the Travelling community in education. There are now 12 visiting teachers around the country - a number that is considered highly inadequate, given the number of families who need the liaison service.

A recent protest outside the Dail by concerned parties highlighted the ongoing embargo on new positions for visiting teachers with the Traveller community. Thomas McCann, chairperson of the Irish Traveller Movement points out that "even people opposed to good accommodation for Travellers recognise the need for Travellers to have a good education, so it is impossible to understand why this embargo remains.

In Tipperary, the service is in place for two years, says Una O'Neill who can boast that her county, after Galway, has the second highest participation level in the country by Travellers in post primary education. But she has a massive work load.

"I have too wide an area," she says. "I cover the whole of Tipperary. I recently learned that, of the three new visiting teachers due to be appointed, I won't be getting a teacher to help with my service." Before the public service embargo in September 1995, 15 new visiting teachers were to be appointed.

O'NEILL liaises with about 170 families. This breaks down into 240 children at primary school, 46 at postprimary and about seven in pre-school. "Pre-school is target this year," she says. "The difficulty is that if your attention is divided between all three school groups and, if you take your attention away from one, problems can arise. This is particularly the case at post-primary level.

"Traveller children have a very low rate of participation in second-level and I feel that, if you don't develop some sort of a trend that's going to give the children aspirations while they're in primary school, then you're not going to get anywhere.

Basically, what O'Neill does is visit the families in an area and assess their educational needs. "Most families enrol their children in the same way as anyone else but I would help the families to decide what's appropriate and encourage them to get their children to go to secondary school."

Where there's a problem with transport, she might have to liaise with the transport section of the Department of Education. "Then I would take on a follow-up role dealing with any difficulties the child might be having in school. Sometimes the children feel intimidated going into school. Very few parents would have had any sort of regular schooling.

"You come across a whole mixture of experience. Some of it is positive but given that the Travellers are the most discriminated sector in society, that is bound to follow through in the schools. That is the biggest issue. One of the biggest difficulties for me would be attitudes. You might contact the local authority about accommodation and find they don't want to provide the service."

Accommodation has a huge impact on families and on how they partake in the facilities of the school, she says. "If they don't have water and toilets and are expected to mix with other teenage children, they're not starting off on a level footing. I know a number of the children who dropped out of secondary school last year because they simply couldn't keep clean when winter came.

"They just couldn't stand washing outside in the cold and trying to keep their uniforms clean. These are things that we don't even take into consideration. My job is to ensure that the children go to school and stay there but that's very difficult if they don't have decent facilities."

Does the curriculum in any way reflect the values of Traveller culture? "Up to now, there hasn't been much but there has been an increase in EU funding for materials that would reflect minority cultures. The approach would be inter-cultural. I wouldn't just focus on Travellers."

Visiting teachers for Travellers hold regular in-service sessions for teachers and Traveller parents with the aim of learning about traveller culture. "We make a lot of use of people like Michael McDonagh and his wife, Nell, based in Navan, Co Meath, who have done a lot of research into Traveller history," says O'Neill. "We have a lot of in-service sessions on materials, identifying the specific needs of travellers."

The Traveller culture must be acknowledged, she feels. They must feel welcome, that they're entitled to education. One of the biggest needs is that Travellers can acknowledge their identity in schools.

"Some of the children I've met have a lot of problems with self-esteem, even from an early age. They meet it in the wider society before they go to school. They need to be treated in such a way that,, they can be proud of their identity.

Traveller parents have fears about their children at second-level. "They have certain standards in their own community for teenagers and they fear that when they mix with this other teenagers they will get involved with drugs and the girls will go off with boyfriends," O'Neill explains. "We've had seminars assuring Traveller parents that this kind of thing doesn't happen."

Another fear of parents is that the children will grow away from them and perhaps won't want to do the apprenticeships in trade with their fathers. Schools must recognise that certain aspects of Traveller culture make it difficult for the teenagers to stay in school. "For instance, some of the teenagers marry early. That's beginning to change but it's still an issue. Or you might find that they take on adult responsibilities at a very young age. It's a matter of acknowledging that and not rejecting the child."

A primary school teacher with a qualification in special education, O'Neill often finds herself in the role of counsellor in Travellers' homes. "Recently a 14-year-old boy who wanted to leave school. He was crying and saying things like `we're not wanted here' and `what's the good in it.' My role then is to talk to the teacher. It's probably best if the parents approach the teachers themselves but if that's a difficulty, when I would accompany the parents.

As a result of schooling, do Traveller children aspire to settled life? "There would be aspects of settled life that Travellers want - mainly, decent accommodation," says O'Neill. "But once a Traveller, always a Traveller. The most important thing is that they keep a healthy identity."

SOMETIMES, with the best of intentions, schools will keep back children to try and bring them up to the academic level. They may be up to 14 years old when they go to post-primary school where everyone else in the class is 12. "They really feel the difference," says O'Neill.

Helen Reilly is a Traveller mother of 11 children, five of whom are at school. The family lives in a caravan on the side of the road. "It's wicked living here on a cold winter's day," she says. "We're waiting for a halting site."

She's pleased, however, about her children's progress. "I think they're doing very well mixing with the other kids," she says. "I was worried at first when they went to school but they picked up an awful lot. The longer they stay at school, the better."