The Department of Education and Youth has said that while the direct governance of schools is a matter for school boards of management, schools are required to create safe and inclusive environments for students, including trans and non-binary students.<\/p>\n
The department was responding to media claims that an Irish Council for Civil Liberties rights guide for trans and non-binary people attributed erroneous information to the department.<\/p>\n
The ICCL booklet states that department guidelines say schools “must make every effort to update (a trans or non-binary student’s) name and pronoun in relevant systems and documents, and that schools “must use (a student\u2019s) correct name and pronoun in day-to-day interactions”.<\/p>\n
It then states: “Under the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), your school has a legal responsibility to maintain accurate records about you and to rectify inaccurate personal data if requested. The Equal Status Acts 2000-2018 prohibit discrimination on the grounds of gender, which typically covers trans and non-binary people”.<\/p>\n
The department has said that B\u00ed Cine\u00e1lta anti-bullying procedures require schools to create an environment where all students experience a sense of belonging and feel safe, connected and supported.<\/p>\n
“The procedures have been updated to take account of gender identity bullying, cyberbullying, racist bullying, sexist bullying, and sexual harassment”, the department said.<\/p>\n
While it states that no ‘guidelines\u2019 have been issued as to how schools should address the matter of a trans or non-binary child\u2019s preferred name or pronoun, it says a ‘resource’ was published in 2016 – Being LGBT in School – to provide guidance to schools as to how best to assist their LGBT students.<\/p>\n
This resource advises schools that there is nothing to preclude them from using a student\u2019s preferred name in day-to-day interactions, regardless of the name used officially on the school register. It states that “all decisions should be taken with the welfare of the student as the primary consideration”.<\/p>\n
The department has said that this resource is currently under independent review by Maynooth University.<\/p>\n
It said it intends to publish an updated resource for schools, in line with best practice, once the review is complete.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Department of Education and Youth has said that while the direct governance of schools is a matter…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":259334,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":{"0":"post-259333","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-news","11":"tag-top-stories","12":"tag-topnews","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/259333","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=259333"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/259333\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/259334"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=259333"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=259333"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=259333"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}