The Impact of COVID-19 on Education and Children’s Services

01 May 2020

The Traveller Movement is concerned about the widening education gap for Gypsy, Roma and Irish Traveller (GRT) pupils during the COVID-19 pandemic. Many GRT pupils have been left without educational support and resources, and in the last eight weeks, the Traveller Movement (TM) has been inundated with requests for support, including: requests for tuition; educational resources; access to tutors; access to laptops; mobile data, printers and ink; and advice about school exclusion. There are concerns from some practitioners that children from GRT backgrounds will not return to school in September as they will have missed a significant amount of their education and, due to digital exclusion they will be well behind their peers.