The position of minority ethnic groups in higher education has been the subject of increasing attention in recent years throughout Europe, in particular issues in relation to the exclusion of, and discrimination against, these groups. Ireland is thought of as a relatively homogeneous society, but this is not a fully accurate perception.
The Travelling community is one group with distinctive cultural characteristics. There are significant and growing communities of Asian or African origin. Refugees and asylum seekers from other troubled parts of the world are also attracted to this country.
Gradually, our society is becoming culturally more complex with different demands made on the services which the state provides. This is particularly the case with education where decisions must be informed by the existence of the variety of cultures and lifestyles in our midst.
This Conference, I hope, will place the issue on the agenda of the higher education institutions in Ireland. Ultimately, of course, we need to formulate strategies to promote access and participation by minority groups in education and I am pleased to note that this is one of the main aims of the Conference.
Many of you will be aware of my own involvement with our largest minority group - the Travelling Community - and will be familiar with the Report of the Task Force on the Travelling Community produced in 1995.1
Providing for the accommodation needs of Travellers is the area in which I am most involved as Minister of State for Housing. It goes without saying that the availability of a satisfactory standard of accommodation is a basic human requirement. As well as meeting a person's immediate and obvious physical needs, permanent accommodation provides a basis for access to a wide range of public services, including the formal system of education, required to develop our mental abilities to the full.
The policies of the Government, set out in the National Strategy for Traveller Accommodation which I announced in 1996, are therefore, particularly relevant. The National Strategy is concerned with putting the necessary legal, administrative and financial structures in place to facilitate local authorities, in consultation with Travellers, in meeting their accommodation needs.
The range of accommodation which has been provided and continues to be requested by Travellers includes standard single houses in local authority estates, group housing schemes, serviced permanent residential caravan parks and short stay/transient halting sites.
Two thirds (or approx. 2,000 families) of all Traveller families provided with local authority accommodation are in standard or group housing. It is, of course, easier for these families to avail of the statutory social, health and educational services on offer. A significant proportion of Travellers wish to retain their nomadic way of life and the National Strategy has been designed to respect and to respond to this wish.
Local authorities, therefore, have provided and will continue to provide a range of sites for Traveller caravans or trailers so long as the demand exists. Many Travellers leave these sites at regular intervals for varying periods throughout the year and outside the peak travelling season of the summer months.
This poses obvious problems and challenges for the formal education system as we know it and which have already been analysed in great detail in the Report of the Task Force on the Travelling Community.
The Task Force report advised that the following fundamental principles should underlie and be applied in the development and provision of education services at all levels:
The Report noted that at the present time third-level education is not a possibility for the vast majority of Travellers. Travellers who complete second-level education, and go on to further education, gain from that experience but, without ongoing support, risk losing their Traveller identity and being set apart from their families and friends.
The financial costs of further education are also prohibitive for most Traveller families and those who have availed of third level education have only been able to do so because of voluntary support and grants which were made available.3
The purpose of this conference is in many ways to ask questions about how we accept the diversity represented by ethnic and other minorities living among us. The same necessity that may have urged successive generations of Irish people to make their lives in other societies has motivated people from ethnic minorities to come to Ireland. Our history is one of being outward looking, of being open to the challenges of moving into other societies in many parts of the world and of making a distinctive and welcome contribution in those societies.
At home we have been resistant to the acceptance of difference, of diversity. As someone who was, is, part of a women's movement that has done so much to allow for diversity, I am conscious that we need to keep travelling on that route.
Living on an island where agreement to co-exist has yet to be reached, we should be more than usually sensitive to the value of a multicultural society.
The proceedings of this Conference will bring this important issue to the fore. We can draw from the experiences of groups of different backgrounds and begin now to build the supports in the education sector which they need.
It only remains for me, to declare the Conference open and to wish you well in your deliberations.
1: Report of the Task Force on the Travelling Commmunity; Stationery Office; Dublin; July 1995. Return to Main Text
2: Ibid. P. 154.Return to Main Text
3: Ibid. P. 196.Return to Main Text