Deputies will notice that in the various Votes for which I am responsible there is not, on the whole, very much change in the actual amounts between this year and last year. Roughly speaking, the amount is something in the neighbourhood of £4,600,000. I must say that it is not a Vote in which I can foresee very considerable savings in the future. Probably, as long as we are in this House and there is a Minister for Education, he will have to face demands, not for diminished, but for increased expenditure, and however much he may be convinced of the undesirability of placing fresh burdens by means of taxation, undoubtedly there will be many of those demands that he will not be able altogether to resist, and that possibly the Minister for Finance will not be able to resist. There will be many other purposes, too, for which expenditure of public money in connection with education may be highly desirable, but which, however, owing to the financial exigencies of the time, may have to be postponed.
I think there is a considerable number of Deputies of all parties who are convinced of the vital importance to this country of continually improving our system of education. I do not say that that is a feeling that is shared universally in the country, but I think there is a pretty general feeling among the different Deputies that that is so. They realise that it is important to us morally in the building up of our people individually, important to us nationally and economically. Our policy has been strongly to hold that it is impossible to separate those three factors, that they are intimately connected: the moral advance, the advance of the character of the individual; the advance in national feeling; and the economic advance of the nation as a whole.
I should like to say a few words about the economic aspect. We must remember that for a variety of reasons we are not in the fortunate position that possibly some other countries are. So far as we know, we have not the same supply of raw materials that they have. We are not a virgin country like some of the new countries which are rich. We have to depend, perhaps, more than is the case in other countries, even in Europe, on the trained ability of our people. Other countries have realised that. They have especially realised it since the war. Notwithstanding the financial stringencies which have accompanied the war and peace, they have made sacrifices in this direction. If we are to hold our own in competition with foreign countries, it is very essential that we continue to improve the training that we give to our young people. I do not mean merely intellectual training, but character as well, and that is possibly even more important; that we should help to build up the individual national character; that we should teach and inculcate and, so to speak, drive into the people self-respect and self-reliance. We have tried as far as we can, in the limited time at our disposal, and as far as we are able, to work towards the realisation of those aims. There is much that came from the older system that was good, much that can be utilised. There is much also that we felt called for reform. Co-ordination is necessary; various things had to be scrapped; new ideas had to be introduced and improvements made.
I think it can be safely said that in the last three or four years there have been gradual improvements made. The advance has not always been possibly as rapid as we or other Deputies would like, but, on the whole, I think we have tried to advance and that we have succeeded in advancing. I think any Minister for Education must realise what Deputy Thrift, I think it was, on one occasion said, that really putting the education of this country on a sound foundation, bringing it up to a proper pitch of excellence, is to a certain extent a life's work. We have not been able to accomplish everything in a couple of years, but we can at least claim that we have looked forward and not backward.
Apart from the question of finance, which has imposed certain limitations on us, I should like to refer to another matter which is sometimes forgotten in connection with the work of the Department and the whole system of education—it is rather easy to forget it; everybody is inclined to forget it at times—and that is, that even apart altogether from the difficulty of find-finding money, the powers of the State and of my Department in matters of education are strictly and rather narrowly limited. Our control is by no means an exhaustive one. We have by no means a monopoly of the task to provide education for the nation. We have not a monopoly even of the control of the education of the nation. Our influence in that matter is, as I say, a limited influence. We can interfere undoubtedly; we can to a certain extent guide, and do try to guide. We try to achieve certain aims, but there are limitations to what we can achieve and what we can aim at. Very often, as a result of that, we have to rely not so much on essentials as possibly on negotiations.
A system has grown up here, sometimes undoubtedly under unfavourable circumstances, but still has grown up with the history of the country, that in some respects at least, if not in all, did satisfy some of our deepest and most lasting aspirations. It may not be as logically rounded off as some of the systems that we find in other portions of Europe, but it was possibly none the less healthy on that account. I am not complaining that we have not control of the monopoly of education—quite the contrary. Personally I strongly believe that if anything of the kind were possible, it would be wrong that we should aim at it. Conscientiously, I believe there are a certain number who do not feel that they could take on the office of Minister for Education if there was any such monopoly claimed or aimed at. Certainly I think the great bulk of the people neither believe in it nor want it. It limits our control and it means that we cannot always do things as quickly as we should like. These are things perhaps which from our point of view are to be regretted, but it has had some good effects, apart altogether from the question of general principle and from the question of conscientious beliefs. It has saved us at least from many devastating conflicts about education that we see in other countries, not merely in Europe, but in other places as well.
Our system here, however, is, so to speak, a mixture of co-operation, of voluntary effort and State support. It has its defects, as I say, but it is not without its compensations and its blessings. It is no harm to remind people occasionally that the Minister for Education and the Department of Education are not the people who educate the country. They have only a certain limited power to influence the people who educate the country. We can help and we can stimulate. We can work for a certain amount of uniformity in aim in the educational systems in the country, but, as I said already, our powers are, to some extent, rather closely limited and defined. Everybody will admit that, ultimately, the education given depends on the teacher. But if you look at our three main branches of education as they appear in these Estimates and ask yourselves: which class of teacher is under our control—is appointed by us—you will find the answer is, "None." We do not appoint the national teacher; we do not appoint the secondary teacher; we do not appoint the technical teacher. We lay down certain conditions that must be fulfilled in the appointment of each type of teacher, but once these conditions are satisfied the power is practically out of our hands. That is probaby as it should be. We provide facilities for the training and equipment of these teachers.
Another factor that perhaps I should dwell upon—a factor which distinguishes the finances of education in this country from the finances of education in every other country that I am acquainted with—is the incidence of the cost of education. In practically every other country a very large portion—very often half and sometimes a great deal more than half—of the cost is borne by the local authority. That is so in England. It is so in Denmark and in France. It is certainly so in Germany. In the different States of Germany the incidence varies. In Bavaria the principal portion is borne by the State. In Prussia, I think, most of the burden is borne by the local authority. Here, practically the whole expense of education is borne by the central authority. Very little indeed, in comparison, is borne by the local authority.
There are certain events of importance in connection with the educational life of the country during the last year or couple of years that I should refer to. The School Attendance Act has come into operation. Two years ago, it was not in operation. On the whole, I think the results have been satisfactory —not perhaps that all the good results so far as percentage of attendance is concerned are immediately to be seen. There have been complaints from here and there about the non-enforcing of the Act for one reason or another. It is very difficult to estimate the value of these complaints. In some cases, where complaints have been made by individuals, either by writing into the office or by writing to the local paper, it was apparent that the person writing had a grievance against the local sergeant. Very often the complaints had possibly more foundation than that, but if complaints are made it is well that they should be substantiated. On the whole, I do not think there has been any slackness on the part of the enforcing authority in enforcing the Act. As has been pointed out on more than one occasion here, before the Act was passed the school-leaving age, in practice, was very often about 11 years or between 11 years and 12 years. Some people would put the average school-leaving age in Ireland, before the passing of the Act, at 11 years. Very often, as has been pointed out here also, children leaving the national school at the age of 14 had reached, not the sixth standard but very often only the third standard. That was very largely due to gross irregularity in attendance even on the part of those who had remained at school up to the age of 14 years. Remember that the Act cannot be expected immediately to show its effects scholastically, if I may put it in that way. If you take the youngster at the age of 12 years, he now has to attend school regularly from 12 to 14 years. If he had been attending irregularly from 6 years to 12 years, you cannot expect immediate effects from the Act. It is too early yet to judge the scholastic effects of the Act. It would not be fair to judge the products of the primary system after the Act has been in force for a year or two years, because the irregularity of the earlier years will still affect the product. There have been, as was natural to expect, complaints from some parts of the country on economic grounds in connection with the enforcing of the Act. Parents have written and resolutions have come from public bodies asking me to relieve those responsible of the necessity of sending children of a certain age—12 years or 13 years—to school at particular periods of the year. I have had to write back—fortunately, perhaps—that I had no power to do anything of the kind—that the Act was there and that I could not dispense anybody from obedience to the Act. It is, perhaps, natural to expect these complaints. It is natural to expect that only gradually will parents become accustomed to an Act framed for the benefit of the young people. It is only gradually that parents will begin to realise that, however hard their lot, they will have to sacrifice some immediate economic gain for the lasting advantage of their children.
Complaint has been made that the School Attendance Act has not been strictly enforced in the City of Dublin. As to the merits of that complaint I cannot judge. I might point out that, in some respects, the City of Dublin is an exceptional case owing to the inadequacy of accommodation. I hope that, in a short time, when the new buildings which are being dealt with are put up, that the principal cause of complaint will be remedied. In Dublin it may not be so easy to enforce the Act as elsewhere. That may be a passing phase. I am anxious, however, to see the complaint more fully substantiated.
Another matter that I am able to deal with more definitely than I was on the occasion of the last Estimate is the census of school buildings. There was, as you know, arrears in connection with school building in the years 1914 to 1924. During that period building was practically suspended, with the result that very large arrears had to be made up. A census of school buildings was undertaken by the Department. It was found that there was needed in the country, about a year or 18 months ago, about 350 new schools. There were about 550 schools in which there was need of fuller accommodation—possibly due to the result of the School Attendance Act and, perhaps, to other causes. Then there were about 900 schools in which minor changes were necessary, such as the addition of partitions so as to convert one large class-room into two or three classrooms. Minor changes of that kind have to be undertaken in about 900 schools. The Board of Works is trying, as fast as it can go, to remedy that situation and to provide adequate school accommodation.
The new programme, which came out of the National Programme Conference, has been put into operation. The reports of the inspectors that I have read are encouraging, so far as that matter is concerned. There does seem to be a distinct advance there. Since I last spoke here on this subject a Committee was appointed to inquire into the system of inspection.
For one reason or another dissatisfaction was expressed with it. From the point of the national teachers I think it was said they objected not so much to inspection but they wanted inspection of a somewhat different type, and that the inspector should be not merely a person who came in, as they put it—too strongly —as an inquisitor. They wanted a person who came in and gave them help. I think that was done even in the old days, but with the heavy task put on the inspector there was not sufficient opportunity given to him to come often enough to the schools to get into close touch with the work and to act as a friendly adviser to the teachers. As a result of a report of the Inspection Committee we have somewhat modified the system of inspection. We did not think it necessary that the official schools should be inspected every year, as they were practically up to the present. We suggested there should be more frequent incidental visits, as they are called, so that the inspector, as I indicated, should get more in touch with the actual work done in the schools and be ready to give advice. I must say before this change was made it was exceedingly difficult, when you consider the amount of work the inspector had to do, often enough to visit the school so as to give friendly advice of that kind. As a result of that, we found it necessary to make some slight addition to our inspection staff.
The work of inspectors has been referred to on a previous occasion here. I may indicate some of the very heavy work inspectors have to do right through the year, and I think anybody who is intimately acquainted with the system as it works will realis and asknowledge that that work is not merely important but also extremely heavy. They have the inspection of the schools, and in the area of an inspector under the new system there are about 120 schools. Then they are responsible for conducting the Easter examination that decides the entrance into the training colleges of a certain number of candidates every year. They conduct examinations in the training colleges of those who have been admitted to training; they superintend the Irish courses, and that would be in about the month of August; they examine into the certificates in Irish; they examine for entrance into the preparatory colleges and for scholarships from the primary to the secondary schools, and they prepare papers for all these examinations. It is only in recent years some of this examination work has been thrust upon them, such, for instance, as the preparatory college examination, the examination in connection with Irish, and so on. In the ordinary Easter examinations the difficulty of Irish, of course, has given a great deal more importance to the oral side of the examination, and that has increased the work of the inspectors. We have adopted another recommendation of the committee on inspection, and have circularised the managers in accordance with the recommendation in the report of that committee, asking them to aid us in attempting to set up a primary leaving certificate for the national schools. This will be voluntary, and not compulsory on the schools, but we hope the managers will co-operate with us in superintending those examinations, and that as many schools as possible will adopt this as a regular portion of their curriculum.
As I have indicated already the really important thing that will decide in the long run whether the system of education in any country is good or not will depend on the type of teacher you will get. That is true of any branch of education—secondary, primary, university or technical. It is quite true some men are born teachers, and they are the best, but the difficulty is how are you going to get them. There may be a number of them in the country, but how are you going to find them? Unfortunately that is rather difficult. If you could put your hand on 13,000 born teachers and put them into the schools in the morning, it would be very effective, but unfortunately we have to rely on much more routine and work-a-day methods than that in getting teachers. We have to rely on ordinary people who have, perhaps, a certain taste for teaching, who take to this profession for a livelihood, and that is what people see in most professions and businesses, and who have a certain amount of ability. Having got, not the born teacher, but a man of the ordinary type, the thing is to try as far as possible to make a good teacher out of him. That is the work of training. There are two stages in the training of the teacher in connection with our new system. There are, as everybody knows, the training colleges. Before people can enter a training college they must give proof of ability, proof of knowledge of a certain kind, and they must have even a certain schooling. Previously there was the monitorial system—the old pupil-teachership system. We found that did not produce the particular type of candidate we wanted. Also, perhaps, there was too much reliance on the mere result of the examination.
What we have to aim at is somewhat different, we have tried to change that as far as possible. By means of the preparatory colleges and the new pupil-teachership system we try to achieve that the persons who enter a training college, or at least a large number of them, will have got a thoroughly sound secondary education. A certain number of places will be open for competition at the Easter scholarship examination. That examination will gradually approach the type of the leaving certificate examination, and possibly ultimately might be supplanted by the leaving certificate examination. Take the ordinary type we hope to have in the future. They will come from the secondary schools to the training colleges. Pupil-teachers, as a result of their answering at the intermediate certificate examination, will get places in a number of schools and in the preparatory colleges. In both of these cases special attention must be given to the fact that in future these teachers will have to teach Irish and be able to teach through Irish. Therefore, we have set up preparatory colleges and staffed them with that particular aim, and the schools to which the pupil-teachers are allotted are also chosen with that particular aim in view. Roughly speaking, the numbers recruited as pupil-teachers in this particular way for the training colleges in the year 1926 were 33 boys, 117 girls. In 1927 72 boys were successful and 76 girls, and 11 extra boys were taken on for one year as pupil-teachers. The numbers in the preparatory colleges at present are as follow: Marlboro' Hall, 119, one short of filling the accommodation there; in Marlboro' House 32, and roughly speaking that number fills half the accommodation; in the Dingle College 47, roughly speaking half the accommodation, or half the number we ultimately intend to have there. That might be a more correct way of putting it. In the Western Girls' College that at the moment is placed in Donegal, owing to the fact that we will have to build a special college for girls in Mayo, you have 47. That is again about half. In Ballyconnell, that is the Donegal House, you have 42; 100 would be about the accommodation we will have there.
I intend in addition to have two further colleges, one for boys in Connaught and another in Munster, also for boys. In that way we expect to get teachers who will be able to teach Irish, and people who will be able to avail better of the opportunities they will get for training in the ordinary training colleges. Meanwhile officials of the Department have made inquiries into the existing training colleges. These inquiries have been submitted to me, and I hope in a short time to be able to submit to the various people who have a right to consult with me, the ecclesiastical authorities, the heads of the training colleges and the national teachers, and in communication with them to reach possibly a more satisfactory decision about the future of the training colleges. There was a question asked in the previous debate about the status of Irish in those colleges, I think, by Deputy Fahy. My information is that in the most of those colleges undoubtedly there have been great advances made in that particular direction. In some, as I indicated on that occasion, advances have been more striking than in the case of others, but in all there has been a striking advance. Now it will be necessary, owing to the shortage of teachers, to provide an additional training college. We will insist on certain conditions that it would be unfair to impose suddenly on the actually established institutions.
In this as in other countries one of the most difficult problems, possibly because its importance has been grasped only more recently, is the question of post-primary education, what you might roughly call technical or continuation education as distinct from that type of education which is secondary education. In some countries secondary education undoubtedly has so long established itself as an obvious branch of education that there is no discussion about its existence and about the fact that efforts and sacrifices must be made for it. There may be disputes about curriculum and matters of that kind, but it has fully established itself, not merely from the point of view of the educational authorities, but also from that of the people. It is not so clear in the case of technical education. Remember, if you guarantee ordinary primary school rudiments of education—it is at least a belief, I think it probably is unsound—but, anyway, I see no reason why technical education as education, might not be as good from the purely educational point of view as what goes by the name of secondary education. I cannot see why you cannot train the man, not as a machine, but train his mind as well by means of special attention to a trade as you could by special attention to a language. It depends again on the type of education and on the teacher, but in this country, as in others in these matters, we will have to get away from the slip-shod, laissez faire methods that might have done well enough a generation ago, but certainly are not such as to enable us to hold our own in the modern world.
Now, the system of technical education we inherited is about 25 years old. It had done excellent work in its time. It was still doing solid work in many other respects, but we soon became convinced that the system of technical education should be submitted to an examination. We appointed a Commission and asked them to look into the whole question. I should like to thank the members of the inspection Commission for the work they did, and the members of the Technical Commission for the considerable amount of time they had to give to the investigation of this difficult and complicated matter. The investigations of the Commission lasted much longer than many members of the Commission thought it would when they first joined it, but still all the members of the Commission gave their earnest attention to the work of the Commission from start to finish. In the old system, owing to the unsatisfactory character of the attendance, very often at the primary schools a boy at fourteen, instead of being in the sixth or the fifth, was in the third or lowest class in some cases, if we can judge from a rather celebrated tabulated system of figures in this House. Anyhow, the technical schools in the country had to undertake perhaps a lot of work, strictly primary work. That was not sound. We hope the School Attendance Act will rid the technical schools of that. Also there was too much perhaps of what in technical schools is known as "commerce," and too little of technical education proper. We asked the Technical Commission to investigate into all that. They have produced a report which certainly is a report of first importance for the future of education in this country, and is a report that will require time to digest, time also, as the Commission itself is quite clear on the point, gradually to put into operation. Our aim, at any rate, ought to be clear so far as these matters are concerned.
We have a system of compulsory attendance at national schools for what, roughly speaking, we might call primary education up to the age of 14. Whether the last two years' instruction in national schools should be considered primary education, may be open to some doubt. Some people think that primary education should stop at 10, others at 12, but I think if you look at our national school programme you will see we have two modern languages, mathematics, not in the limited sense of arithmetic but in the widest sense, and in many of the schools we have also what is known as rural science. You will see that there will be enough, so to speak, for the pupils between the ages of 12 and 14 to bank on, and that there is no reason to fear that the complaint may be made which has been made even in neighbouring countries, that there was a tendency, owing to the same type of education being kept on between 12 and 14 as there had been up to 12, for the pupils going stale. After 14 there should be continuation education for everybody. That should be our aim. It may be a secondary school up to the leaving certificate, or part-time education in the country districts. I should say that the economic conditions in country districts preclude anything else for a long time except part-time education, but you will find that that is so in most advanced countries in Europe. The most they can aim at is part-time education. We might possibly be able to introduce, especially for those who are not in employment, a system of compulsory whole-time education, for instance in the towns, that would bring the pupils up to 16 years of age. Our aim then would be that those in the secondary schools could get full secondary education between the ages of 16 and 18, and that in the technical schools, taking technical education in the narrow sense of the phrase, should begin about the age of 16.
As we are on the subject, I do not think the country should be satisfied— it may take some years to realise it and it may mean an expenditure of money, and that expenditure of money and the financial condition of the country must be borne in mind—until technical education in the widest sense, continuation and technical education, has got an acknowledged place in the educational system of the country. That should be axiomatic to those who are interested in education, just as attendance at the primary schools is axiomatic up to the age of 14. I might say that in some ways great liberty is now given in the programme in secondary schools. They are not limited to any particular type of subject. It might be possible and it would be desirable that some of the secondary schools should switch over to what some people would call—I just merely use this as a method of description and nothing else—a more practical type of education, possibly, in comparison with what is done in technical education. It is just possible that the other type of education, secondary education in the scholastic sense, has been overdone, and it would be no harm if some of the schools, even in the secondary system, would switch over in the other direction. However, that is a matter for the schools themselves, and it is very difficult and it would not be right for the Minister or his Department to dictate in matters of that kind. These are the principal matters with which I wish to deal so far as the policy of the Department is concerned.
