Traveller Parent Development Day
Monday 27 November 2006

Sile de Valera, TD, Minister of State at the Department of Education and Science pictured here with Winnie Keenan at the launch of the 'Traveller Parent Development Day' held at DCU.

Sile de Valera, TD, Minister of State at the Department of Education and Science, today launched the Traveller Parent Development Day – Action Plan for Education.

The event was organised by the DCU Access Service, the Visiting Teacher Service for Traveller Education and Pavee Point in response to the low numbers of young Travellers transferring to post primary schools in the North Dublin area.

The Minister said, “It is gratifying to note that the Visiting Teacher Service for Traveller Education can work effectively with the DCU Access service, and Pavee Point for the benefit of individual travellers. The results of this collaborative approach encourage and promote participation by members of the Traveller community in full-time education at second level. We are here today to create a forum for Traveller parents to think about, discuss and plan for the educational progression of their children through second level schools”.

DCU’s Vice President for Learning Innovation and Registar, Professor Maria Slowey, said that this action plan represented a particular part of DCU’s Strategic Plan to widen and promote access.

“DCU welcomes students from all backgrounds, and is involved in a number of initiatives, working together will all communities who are underrepresented, not just at post-primary level but also at third-level. We recognise that this is a long process of building trust and understanding, which hopefully will result in greater representation in education. And this will not be just restricted to the children of under-represented groups - the parents themselves will be encouraged to consider third level as an option, given that many have already been involved in adult education initiatives”.