By her own admission, Pamela Cullotty had little self-esteem or belief in herself when she started a degree programme at South East Technological University (SETU) a few years ago.
After leaving secondary school in her mid-teens, it took 12 years from her return to education, at the age of 23, to finally reach graduation day.
At a recent graduation ceremony, where she was awarded a Bachelor of Arts in applied addiction studies and community development, all that self-doubt melted away.
“As a Traveller woman who left school at an early age with no expectations for myself or from the system, this has been a huge achievement,” Cullotty says.
“Not only do I stand here today with higher expectations for me; I now have much higher expectations for my children. As I took this journey, I became a role model for them, and also for others in the Traveller community.”
It wasn’t an easy journey. Primary and secondary school were difficult, she says, where she struggled with friendships. It wasn’t so much because of the teachers or the schoolwork – it was, she says, because she felt she didn’t belong.
“We were a well-known Traveller family, so it wasn’t unusual to be discriminated against,” says Cullotty, “I did have some lovely teachers who really believed in me and kept pushing me on, but the hardest thing was feeling that your culture wasn’t recognised, and you didn’t belong. I hated it.”
Cullotty left school after she completed her Junior Cert.
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This is not unusual for students from the Traveller community. Figures from an Economic & Social Research Institute report show 28 per cent of Travellers leave school by the age of 13.
A Department of Education report indicates that retention rates for Traveller pupils are rising, but the high dropout rate after junior cycle confirms that Cullotty’s experience in school was part of a bigger picture.
The report shows that although 90 per cent of Travellers from the 2015 cohort of students remained in school until third year, only 27 per cent remained until Leaving Cert year.
Cullotty later joined a Traveller training project in Donegal, where she completed the Leaving Cert Applied. “I felt like I belonged there,” she says.
Cullotty’s education stopped for a few years when she became a young mother. Her decision to return to education was made while attending women’s groups in the Donegal Travellers’ Project, where she began to learn more about her Traveller culture.
“I had role models that I believed in and that I wanted to be like, I really felt like I belonged there,” says Cullotty. “It gave me the confidence and belief that I could go on to education, that I could go further in life.”
Cullotty was participating in a programme delivered by An Cosán, an organisation based in Jobstown, in Tallaght, in partnership with SETU Carlow, which aims to empower through education.
“What we’re trying to do is provide progressive pathways whereby a learner might complete an unaccredited foundation course and decide to move on and undertake an FET level-five programme and keep moving up if they so wish,” says Adelaide Nic Chárthaigh, adult community education manager at An Cosán.
What sets the educational facility apart from others is the level of support and flexibility available to the learners.
You just have to believe in yourself and be your own biggest motivator
“Our job is to facilitate the learner’s growth, from return to learning to BA if they choose to go that route, providing appropriate supports along the way,” says Nic Chárthaigh.
An Cosán says it supports learners with wraparound services including one-to-one tutoring, the provision of childcare and monetary supports.
“Our community education model is resource-heavy, time-heavy and costs money,” says Nic Chártaigh. “But it has been proven to work and we know that’s what is required to meet the needs of our learners.”
Research by the Unesco Child and Family Research Centre at the University of Galway has examined the social return from investments made by projects delivered by facilities such as An Cosán. It found that for every euro invested, €9 of social value was created.
One of the supports funded is the blended-learning approach; students can access the courses online, through their community network and workshops delivered in Jobstown. Cullotty says this blended format helped her succeed as a regular commute from Donegal to Tallaght was not possible.
“It’s about meeting learners where they are at,” says Nic Chartáigh. “Flexibility is essential in meeting the needs of our learners. Attending class in their own locality without the hassle of travel or attending class online from their homes.”
Accessing the programme via An Cosán was different from Cullotty’s experience of education at school in one key way.
“From day one I felt that my culture was recognised, it was on the curriculum, I belonged,” says Cullotty. “They spoke about Traveller culture in the materials, in the class and they spoke about other cultures too, it was very inclusive in that sense.”
An Cosán says a key principle of its educational ethos is recognition of the important role a mother plays in role modelling the benefits of education.
“We are a firm believer in the ‘one generation’ solution, in that, if you educate a mother, you educate a family,” says Nic Chártaigh. “Role modelling is incredibly powerful. If kids see their mum on a laptop, or doing homework, it does have an effect on them.”
Cullotty has witnessed the impact her return to education has had upon her own children and believes it will now continue to ripple out throughout the community.
“Now that I have higher expectations for myself, I have higher expectations for them,” says Cullotty. “The ripple effect is that today I will change things for both of them, and then they’ll change for their children and so on and so forth and that will keep rippling out as time goes on.”
Cullotty says this change in expectations must come from both within the Traveller community and without.
“If the world has no expectations for you then it’s very hard for you to have expectations for yourself. The more something is projected on to you, especially as a child, you start to believe that’s just the way it is,” says Cullotty. “It becomes normalised within the community and across the education system.”
In the meantime, Cullotty believes there are things that could change now in the education system that could help stem the tide of early school-leaving among the Traveller community.
She believes all teachers should participate in cultural diversity awareness training so that greater openness around different cultures becomes normalised in schools.
Cullotty says teachers can play a powerful role in fostering expectations and changing mindsets.
“A gentle push from a teacher, a little recognition can support Traveller children to have higher expectations for themselves and to think about their future,” she says.
Kevin Shortall, principal at St. Aidan’s Community School in Tallaght, has seen positive changes in relation to Traveller participation in education but believes there is still a lot more that needs to change for participation to translate into success.
“The strongest advocates within the Travelling community for the preservation of the culture are those who have the best education,” says Shortall, “A very strong education is a good protective factor for Traveller culture.”
Cullotty says anyone considering following her lead should know that, although it seems daunting, it is worth the challenge.
“You just have to believe in yourself and be your own biggest motivator,” she says. “Getting to the top of it can seem like such a struggle but once you get to the top, you can slide on the other side to the finish line.”
Education gap: Travellers vs general population
- Primary: 57 per cent of Traveller men are educated to primary level only in contrast to 14 per cent of the general population
- Second level: Only 13 per cent of Travellers versus 92 per cent of non-Travellers completed senior cycle at second level in 2016
- Third level: 1.4 per cent of Travellers have a college degree, compared with about 50 per cent of the general adult population
Source: CSO census data for 2016
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