Why haven’t Travellers been able to embrace Education? 

There are many factors that contribute to this, in earlier Ireland our education policy promoted a segregated model of provision within institutions and schools nationally.

This meant that Traveller children were typically separated into special all-Traveller classes with one Teacher who catered for all Traveller children regardless of age, learning stages or capabilities in one classroom.

Currently, there is still the lack of visibility of Traveller culture within the Irish school system, Children are not in a position of comfort in classrooms, and this contributes to issues with identity and leads to feelings of isolation and segregation. Travellers in mainstream Education experience discrimination on a daily basis, which encourages children to drop out of school. 

Other issues like poor accommodation, mental health, appalling living conditions, poor physical health and the experience of widespread prejudice and discrimination prohibit Traveller children within the education system.

The level of education among Travellers remained well below that of general population only 13.3% of Traveller females were educated to upper secondary or above compared with 69.1 per cent of the general population.

Nearly 6 in 10 Traveller men (57.2%) were educated to at most Primary level in sharp contrast to the general population (13.6%). 167 Irish Travellers held a third level qualification in 2016, compared to 89 in 2011.

( Source: “CSO IrelandPrimary (incl. no for…Lower secondaryUpper secondaryTechnical/vocationalAdvanced and high…Bachelor degree or …Not statedHighcharts.com” )