Children described being subjected to name-calling and slurs at school.
A Government-commissioned report has found that Traveller children feel “unwanted” in school settings, particularly at second level.
– while their parents fear for them while they are in school, a report on the community’s experience of the education system warns.
The report, commissioned by the Department of Education as part of the National Traveller and Roma Inclusion Strategy (NTRIS) 2017-2021, is yet to be published in full but has already reported a strong sense of exclusion and concerns over the safety of Traveller students.
“Rather than feeling a strong sense of belonging, the predominant feeling amongst the parents and students from the Travelling community . . . is one of being unwanted – both in school and by the settled community more generally in society,” it says, per the Irish Times.
The report examines the “institutional and structural discrimination and racism within the education system” and the isolation Traveller children feel as a result of the treatment they receive from peers and school authorities.
Some Traveller children reported feeling “ignored” by teachers when not asked for homework or when assigned seemingly easier work than that of their peers. Their parents too reported a sense that teachers had lower academic expectations of their children than they had of settled children, with some saying they felt spoken down to.
The children also described feeling “sad” and “alone” at school and being subjected to name-calling with insults like “p*key”, “kn*cker”, “dirty” and “smelly” being thrown their way by other children, as well as classmates refusing to sit beside them.
When these issues were raised with teachers, many Traveller children felt they were not taken seriously.
However, some said teachers or principals who were “interested in learning about Traveller culture” and had “zero-tolerance” policies on bullying and discriminatory language had “very positive” impacts on them.
Parents found primary schools to be more welcoming spaces towards the Traveller community than secondary schools.
The findings of the report, conducted by sociologist Dr Maria Quinlan, were the result of detailed consultations with 104 Traveller and Roma parents and students as well as 28 teachers and principals, between November 2019 and January 2020.
It states that improving the experience of Travellers within the education system would be a “complex” affair that required a “multi-layered response.”
When asked when the report would be published in full, a spokesman for the department told the Irish Times: “Work is ongoing on a suite of reports on the theme of Traveller education. It is hoped to advance to publication the NTRIS baseline report as part of this work in the near future.”
