Student Participation in Education

The Department of Education values the views, ideas and lived experience of children and young people and we are committed to continuing to learn and improve how we support, empower and actively listen to children and young people.

The Student Participation Unit was established in the Department of Education in April 2023. The unit helps the department to make sure that the voices of children and young people inform policy development across the department.

We know that we have done a lot of work to make sure that the voices of children and young people are heard and taken seriously but we want to improve. We asked an expert group to give the department advice on how to improve its work. The expert group made five important recommendations.

We are going to make the changes that the expert group recommended. We have decided how we are going to do that. You can find the report of the expert group and the report on how the department is going to make changes below.

Minister Foley launches Report of the Expert Group on Student Participation and Department Implementation Plan

The report of the expert group on student participation can be found here.

The background report of the expert group can be found here.

The Student Participation Implementation Plan for the Department of Education can be found here.

The report on consultations with children and young people can be found below.