SSUNI President Ellen Taylor Gives Evidence to the Education Committee

Yesterday, Wednesday 20th March, President Ellen Taylor appeared before the Education Committee alongside a panel of youth representatives to give evidence and answer questions about young people’s priorities and needs.

She highlighted the work of the Union on a range of issues, focusing in particular on the work carried out by our working groups, relating to LLW, Sexism and Sexual Harassment in schools and Mental Health. Underlying all of her points was the need for regular consultations with young people such as this one, ensuring that students are at the centre of all decisions made relating to them - the founding principal of SSUNI.

Also present on the panel was Eimear, a Northern Ireland Youth Forum’s Executive member who has worked extensively with SSUNI on our joint mental health campaign. She reiterated our key asks on the issue and the need for mental health and well-being to be defined within the curriculum more clearly and for a specialised subject on the issue to be created. Students need a clear, defined time in school to focus on their mental health, to learn about wellbeing and to learn how to manage their mental health. Mental health is consistently the main issue raised by students to SSUNI and Ellen and Eimear prioritised it in their presentation to the committee.

The other area raised consistently by Ellen related to the components of ‘Learning for Life and Work’ (LLW), such as Relationship and Sexuality Education (RSE) and Political Education. The results of our ‘Let Us Learn’ report were spotlighted, with a focus on how the curriculum covers these topics in theory, yet students do not get consistently taught them in schools, with teaching quality varying wildly.

Ellen highlighted this point raised in our report, saying, “This is citizenship, this is RSE, this is political educational and financial education - and it’s not been taught in schools!”. Curriculum and teaching reform in this area must be a priority for this new Executive.

You can watch the full testimony on YouTube, starting at 2:39:40.

Short clip of President Ellen Taylor raising the issue of inconsistent LLW education.