Minister for Education Norma Foley TD recently announced the launch of the Report of the Expert Group on Student Participation and of the Department of Education’s Student Participation Implementation Plan. 

The report contained five key recommendations to ensure students are included meaningfully in policy development and will be implemented by the department in full.  

The expert group on student participation was established in May 2023 to advise the Department of Education on how best to improve its work on involving children and young people in policy development. 

The group, chaired by Professor Laura Lundy from the School of Social Sciences, Education and Social Work at Queen’s and University College Cork, adopted a child rights-based approach and considered the findings from a wide-ranging consultation process, strongly focused on the views of children and young people. 

Professor Laura Lundy, chair of the expert group said: “The report of the expert group breaks new ground in numerous ways. It is the first that I am aware of, anywhere in the world, that will inform the student participation activity of a Department of Education. The report of the expert group is also written so as to be accessible to its primary beneficiaries – students as rights-holders. And finally, for the first time, the report of the expert group is being published along with the department’s implementation plan, immediately feeding back to students what the Department of Education intends to do in response to their inputs.” 

Minister Foley said: “The high-level recommendations of this expert group give us an excellent roadmap of five practical and wide-ranging recommendations that will help us to ensure that students views are heard in the Department of Education.  

“I am pleased that together with the report of the expert group, we publish our implementation plan. This plan has 50 actions, and describes how the department will develop its systems, policies, and ways of working that will ensure that we further embed a culture of participation of children and young people into policy development in the department. 

“It is a very exciting development, and we are looking forward to making real and swift progress on these actions, to improve our engagement and consultation.” 

 “I would like to thank Professor Laura Lundy for her leadership, and each member of the expert group for their dedication to this work. I also thank all those who participated in the extensive consultation process. I would especially like to thank the children and young people, including those on the child advisory group and the youth advisory group, who helped develop this report. Your insight, experiences and views have hugely influenced the content of this report,” added Minister Foley.  

For more information and the full report, please visit: gov.ie/itstartswithyou  

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