In his brief introduction to these Education Estimates on Friday last the Minister dealt with Votes 45, 46, 47 and 48, and made no reference to Nos. 49, 50 and 51. I should like to know from the Minister whether he takes those Votes as having been introduced or whether he will introduce them later.
Constituency of Longford and Westmeath. - Vote No. 45—Office of the Minister for Education.
Debate resumed on the following motion:—
Go ndeontar suim ná raghaidhthar £114,678 chun slánuithe na suime is gá chun íoctha an Mhuirir a thiocfidh chun bheith iníoctha i rith na bliana dar críoch an 31adh lá de Mhárta, 1931, chun Costaisí Oifig an Aire Oideachais, maraon le Costas Riaracháin Cigireachta, etc.
That a sum not exceeding £114,678 be granted to complete the sum necessary to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1931, for the Expenses of the Office of the Minister for Education, including the costs of Administration. Inspection, etc.—(Minister for Education).
Technically, of course, only one Vote is introduced, but on that question discussion can take place over the whole five or six Votes. It is not limited to the Vote that has been formally moved, but will be expected to range over all the Votes for which I am responsible.
My reason for asking it was that some confusion arose last year owing to the discussion covering the whole Votes. That confusion very nearly precluded Deputy Alton from speaking on some matter in which he was interested.
I shall try and follow the Minister's example and be brief. The slight increases in the Votes for primary and secondary education are apparently automatic and need no comment. I agree with the Minister in questioning whether 98 or even 95 per cent. attendance in any country, whether in rural or urban schools, can be taken as an absolute figure, that certain allowances must be made because, of course, statistics can be made to prove many things. A five per cent. increase in attendance resulting from the compulsory Act is very good, but the Minister stated that he took 82.5 or thereabouts to be the stabilised figure. I think we should rather aim at an 85 per cent. attendance.
As regards the work in the top standards, and whether the programme and staff cater for the needs of pupils between the ages of 12 and 14, I understand from the Minister that the inspector's report was satisfactory.
That the programme was sufficient. Whether actually the programme under the conditions that prevail could be satisfactorily carried out is a different question. But the programme is sufficient to provide the mental pabulum for these particular ages.
My reason for mentioning that was that it is rather a contentious question. I have met myself technical teachers and manual instructors who informed me in different counties that parents had come to them beseeching them to take children of 12 or 13 years of age from the national schools as they were practically wasting their time there. That, of course, may not be and probably is not, attributable to neglect on the part of the teachers, but to the under-staffing, which is necessitated by financial stringencies not only here, but in other States as well. It is very hard for some of these schools to cater for the needs of the top standards. The Technical Commission's Report, on page 22, paragraph 50, states: "Great difficulty has been experienced in technical schools as a result of the low standard of elementary education of many of the applicants for admission to classes." The blame could hardly, of course, be fixed on the teacher, because even if the pupils had finished the sixth standard they would scarcely be able to take advantage of technical education. A part might be attributed to the irregular attendance some years ago, because compulsory attendance in the last few years could not remedy the defects which had arisen prior to the application of that Act. No doubt the operation of the Continuation Education Bill will remedy that defect.
In that connection even at the risk of being considered retrograde I think that a good deal could be said for reversion to the individual inspection of schools. I think that it would be profitable to revert even in part to that individual inspection. Some years ago, after the primary programme and the secondary programme had been drafted, a co-ordination committee was set up. It ended rather abruptly for causes into which we need not go now. I think it would be well to re-establish such a committee to adjust matters between the primary programme, the continuation programme, the secondary programme, and the technical programme. It might be called a co-ordination committee, an educational council or an advisory council. We would not quarrel about the name. I certainly think there is room for such a committee. In the report on technical education it was recommended to establish a finance committee to consider the application and allocation of Government grants in connection with technical education. That would be one of the functions. Another might be, of course, to see would it not be possible to lighten perhaps the national school programme in the areas in which the continuation programme would be in operation some time after the appointed day had been fixed and to attain greater proficiency in a more limited number of subjects in the primary schools. The Minister informed us that some 10,000 of the 500,000 pupils attending National Schools had entered for the leaving certificate examination, and that some 55 per cent. had passed. That would be 2 per cent. of the pupils. I do not know that it would be advisable to make that leaving certificate compulsory, but would it not be well to consider what standard pupils should reach in the national schools before being admitted to the continuation schools, or would the Minister insist when they fail to reach sixth standard on their staying a year or two longer before being admitted to a higher type of school? I know that there are difficulties in the way of making that examination compulsory. We should like to hear the Minister's view on it when replying on these Votes.
In County Galway, when the examinations were held for scholarships for pupils proceeding from primary to secondary schools, there was an extraordinary percentage of failure. I do not attribute that failure altogether to the teachers, perhaps not at all to the teachers, but I think there is room for an inquiry into the working of the whole national system of education. Matters we have referred to year after year I suppose need scarcely be mentioned here now, such as school meals. We all recognise that wet, cold and hungry children cannot avail of educational facilities in primary or any other schools, and it seems to me that there are indications that the objection or opposition to such school meals is dying down.
In the matter of sanitation of schools I was told last year that it was for the Department of Local Government to interfere in such matters, but some co-operation was promised between the Department of Education and the Department of Local Government. The Minister might be good enough to tell us what steps have been taken in that regard during the past year. There is no need to go into a whole list of these schools which I mentioned last year and the year before, many of them with no sanitary arrangements, but we would like to know what leeway has been made up in the matter of the 350 new schools needed and the 500 requiring enlargement, also to what extent has amalgamation led to overcrowding of schools.
At the risk of being misunderstood, I stated here two years ago that I did not think that teachers who had themselves only a slight knowledge of Irish should be encouraged to teach other subjects through Irish. I suppose I will not be taken as being opposed to intensified teaching of Irish in the schools, but it does harm to the pupils and to Irish to permit teachers with a slight knowledge of Irish to attempt to teach other subjects through the medium of that language. Our hopes are largely centred on the preparatory colleges. This year some fifty pupils will leave these colleges, and I wonder whether adequate provision has been made in the training colleges so that those fifty pupils may continue their education on lines as Irish, as Gaelic, as it now is when they enter the training colleges. I would refer particularly to the training college in Drumcondra, without animadverting to it, so as to elicit information as to whether adequate preparations have been made therein. It was pleasant to learn from the Press that the new rules and regulations are at last available and about to be put into the hands of the teachers. Thus one cause of complaint has been removed and the Minister will have one question less to answer this year.
Regarding the Gaelicising of the schools, I have never heard of the Education Department issuing even a pamphlet to the teachers to tell them what the Government requires in that respect. There are no definite instructions that I know of. If I am misinformed the Minister will correct me.
In the head office in some respects there are unreasonable delays. For example, there was a dispute in Achill which the Minister knows about. I think it was finally settled by the manager being promoted to another parish after, I think, about eighteen months. Nothing was done to settle a dispute which had actually come into court. Letters were written week after week and month after month, but no conclusion was arrived at. To give another instance—in June, 1929, a school was inspected. I refer to the school of Killossery. The principal was marked efficient. He appealed. That was in June. In December there was a re-inspection and the principal was rated highly efficient. Of course it is quite possible for a principal teacher to be only efficient in June and highly efficient in December. I suggest that was too long a delay.
In the matter of appeals some information regarding the Appeal Board would be welcomed. There are, I understand, three men on that Board, one of them supposed to be appointed by the inspectors. Perhaps the Minister would inform us whether the inspectors are consulted about selecting their representative, also whether the Gilbertian situation might arise in that a junior inspector on the Appeals Board might revise the work of his senior inspector who had inspected a school. That is a ridiculous position, and he might inform us whether it is not a possible one.
In advocating the setting up of a Texts Committee to deal with school texts, particularly in the primary system of education, I was supported here by Deputy Tierney last year or the year before. I am still of opinion that such a committee is necessary. An Gúm is doing something in that respect for the secondary schools. The old National Board, whatever we might think of the outlook of some of their books, did great work in that series of Readers they published. It is particularly necessary in Irish and Irish history. There is an improvement, but still there is no merit in many of the Irish text-books. Even the grammar is very often faulty. History texts are more faulty still. I myself know of some pupils in the sixth standard in a pretty large Dublin school being asked questions on recent Irish history, and displaying abysmal ignorance. A question was answered by the best informed of ten pupils as to what leaders were executed in Easter Week. His answer was Pearse, Connolly and Robert Emmet. He was the only one who knew anything about it in a senior class in a Dublin school.
I understand also that in the training college there is one year in which no examination is held in Irish history. I think that is rather extraordinary. A knowledge of history is very necessary, because if Irish is to make headway in the schools, it is not sufficient to teach it as a subject. You must have a national foundation for it, and not teach it merely as you would teach other subjects. Irish will never be revived except you have a national basis for the teaching of it.
With regard to the Pension Fund. I have been criticised and misrepresented for having suggested when the matter was last before us that Deputy O'Connell and the Minister, or the teachers and the Minister, should try and put some concrete suggestions before this House. The question of these pensions is very involved. It is difficult for the average Deputy to understand it, and my suggestion, without prejudice at all to the rights of the teachers, was that some concrete proposition should be put before this House for agreement or disagreement. We have heard nothing since. I do not want to press the Minister for a reply if this is not an opportune moment, but he might possibly give us some information as to how the matter stands. When regulating those matters perhaps he would not forget the junior assistant mistresses and the lay teachers in the convent schools. With regard to secondary education, it is significant that there was an increase in the number of schools and in the number of pupils. That is a healthy sign, but as was said by me and other Deputies in connection with the continuation education debate, we would like to see a great many of these schools with a different orientation, a curriculum more closely in touch with agriculture and the local needs of the people. The new programme of secondary education produced a radical change in this State, even more radical than was effected in the primary schools in what was called the National programme. In the primary schools we had a commission which revised and considered the working of that new programme since it was put in operation. I would strongly support the plea made by the secondary teachers at their Congress that an inquiry should be held into the whole working of a scheme of secondary education, that the Minister should have a Departmental or other inquiry into its operation.
Criticisms have been made of the standard of examinations. I have heard teachers maintain, for instance, that the examinations in Irish are based, say, to the extent of 30 per cent. on tricky questions of idiom, rare idiom that might not be heard in speech from a native speaker once in a month. Again, there have been complaints about examination papers in mathematics. While admitting that it is an ideal to be aimed at, I would like to know how far it is now feasible to bring the leaving certificate into some conformity with the entrance examinations to the universities. There is waste of time and energy and a great overlapping there. What about making the junior certificate and entrance examination for certain offices in public employment, say, under the county councils, and so on? If it could be done, it would save a lot of time. There is a great leakage there. That council on education that I suggested perhaps might consider these matters.
Regarding the status of Irish in secondary schools, I have asked the Minister on a few occasions what percentage of its pupils a secondary school must present for examination in Irish in order to obtain full grants. Personally, I would rather foster Irish by encouraging it by voluntary methods if possible, but I know of many schools that are not in the least inclined, except under compulsion, to teach any Irish. Perhaps the Minister would tell us what percentage of the pupils on its rolls and for whom they are receiving grants a secondary school must present for examination in Irish in order to obtain full, or nearly full, grants. There are schools, and they are not Protestant schools, lest it be concluded that I am referring to them, in which the position of Irish is not improving. There has been a retrogression. I know of two secondary schools in which there was a gasra of the Fáinne, schools in which a certain percentage of the pupils spoke in Irish, say, at mealtime or at recreation, and in both schools there has been a change for the worse. In some of these schools Irish is taught for three-quarters of an hour five days a week as a subject, with no more national foundation to it than German or French. I submit that the Minister might tell us whether it is possible for a secondary school that did not present, say, fifty per cent. of its pupils for Irish in A1 class or a B1 class.
Regarding the pensions of secondary teachers the scheme inflicts hardship on elderly teachers who were over fifty years of age on the 1st August, 1929, who have had broken service during the last ten years, or part service in England or elsewhere. In the matter of increments, too, some of the teachers are hard hit by the taking of each school as a unit in this matter. A school might have perhaps fewer pupils one year than another, and might have a teacher or two more than the number allowed by the law or the regulations. A teacher satisfying all the requirements, having all the qualifications, still cannot get the increments, whereas a teacher with lesser qualifications and several years shorter service in another school, can get his incremental salary. That is an unsatisfactory position. I can quite see that there are great difficulties in it, that the schools are now owned by the State; but perhaps if all the schools were taken into account and the number of pupils reckoned instead of taking each school as a unit, something could be done to remedy the defect.
On the matter of technical education we had, of course, a pretty full debate on the Vocational Bill, and we will still have a fuller debate, I hope, in the Committee Stage. We are, I gather, to have two schools of domestic science very soon, but I trust that the recommendations of the Technical Committee in this respect will be given due weight, that proper attention will be paid to their recommendation that the subjects should be brought more into accord with the life of the people, with the actual social and economic conditions of the people of this State. The low proportional increase in the attendance at the commercial classes is also satisfactory or rather it is encouraging to see that in the higher technical subjects the percentage in increased attendance is much greater than in the mere commercial subjects. Perhaps the Minister would give us some information as to the bonus which was taken from the part-time teachers in technical schools. We will probably be told that it is a question for the committees now, but still a dissatisfied, underpaid staff will not make for efficiency in the schools. With regard to reformatories, I think that comes into this Vote here, and industrial schools. They are primarily not controlled by the Government nor financed by the Government, but still there are approximately 6,000 children in these institutions.
I should like to know whether the Rules and Regulations, made in 1868, have been revised. We were informed on a previous occasion by the Minister that the authorities in control of these reformatories and industrial schools take an interest in the children for two years after they leave such schools. I hope that that is so, and that it could not happen that children from those schools who go to work, say, on farms, could be treated, as cases in the courts have revealed that children in Scotland and England have been treated by farmers—half starved and no pay. I hope that that could not happen in regard to boys from reformatories or industrial schools here. It would be useless for me, I am sure, to refer to the teachers in these schools because, no doubt, the Minister will again say that that is not his business. These teachers have hard work to do, and are occupied for long hours at a stretch, as well as having other work to do besides teaching, namely, disciplinary work. If at all possible, their conditions should be improved.
I might refer briefly to the National Library and National Museum which also come under this Vote. Owing to the comparative generosity in dealing with the National Library excellent work has been done in the way of new cataloguing and the purchase of books dealing with Ireland. More accommodation will, however, be required, especially in view of the provision of the Copyright Act. I understand that that matter is being considered. At the same time additional reading rooms are required if they can possibly be found. Several students go there with their own text-books and do not use the library books at all. On a few occasions when I went there about eight o'clock in the evening the atmosphere was terrible, and certainly showed that more reading rooms are wanted. Some time ago there was an advertisement published for an assistant librarian. I think he had to be an honours graduate, and, if I remember rightly, the salary was about £120 with bonus, or £190 altogether. I do not know how you are going to get an honours graduate to remain in a post like that. He will probably remain there just for a time before proceeding to a better job. I do not think that you would get the proper type of person for a post like that at such salary. Thirty years ago an assistant librarian in the National Library started at £150. A salary of £190 for a post of that kind seems to me to be very like sweated wage.
As regards the Museum, I suggest that the Minister for Finance should be as generous comparatively with that institution as he was with the National Library. It is, I understand, being reorganised, and the confusion in the basement and entrance halls would certainly lead one to that conclusion at present. Undoubtedly the Library is of great advantage educationally, and so is the Museum, especially for students of research, from the primary schools to the universities, and for the teaching of history and other subjects. Pride of place should, and will, I understand, be given to the Irish Section when it is completed. The Museum seems to be understaffed, and, as Deputy Alton stated, some of the scientific or technical assistants are on a temporary basis and should be made permanent. The needs of the Antiquarian Section have often been referred to, but I do not think that they have yet been satisfied. Those are all the matters to which I have to refer, as the University Vote does not come in at present.
Mr. Byrne
The Minister's statement in introducing the Estimate was a frank and fair statement concerning the merits and demerits of education in this country. In speaking to this Vote it is my intention, despite the smile of the Leader of the Labour Party, to deal with primary education in a way, perhaps, which may be distasteful to him. The cost of primary education in this country is £3,617,000, as compared with £318,000 for secondary education. The return received for the money spent on secondary education compares very favourably with that expended on primary education. We are spending about £10 on primary education for every £1 spent on secondary education. I quite agree that such expenditure is necessary, because primary education is of outstanding importance to the country, and two-thirds of the children of the country will receive no education apart from that which they receive in the primary schools. The importance of primary education is recognised not only in this country but in most countries throughout the world.
The Head Master of Harrow recently stated that were it not for the system of primary education in England very probably Communism and Bolshevism would have sway in that country. Perfecting a system of education and bringing it up to the necessary pitch of excellence is, as the Minister remarked on a previous Estimate, really the work of a lifetime and cannot be achieved in a year or two. I do not want to say anything unduly harsh about our system of primary education, but, if there are serious defects in it, it is the duty of Deputies to try and have them remedied at the earliest possible moment. I have noticed that there have been many complaints about the results of our primary educational system. It was recently stated, for instance, that the results of the scholarship examination in Co. Galway in connection with primary schools were anything but satisfactory. I have also observed that in a report submitted to the County Council of Wexford, in connection with the scholarship scheme there, it was stated that two out of twenty-five pupils had passed the examination for such scholarships. Can anyone say that two out of twenty-five is a satisfactory proportion in a system which is costing us over three millions a year? Miss Ryan made a statement there to which I attach considerable weight. It negatived the opinion that anything that was lacking in our primary system was not due to the teachers. Miss Ryan stated that it showed a deplorable state of education and also that the national teachers were not doing their duty. There are, of course, differences of opinion as to the causes, and I do not set up as an authority on the matter, but there can be no difference of opinion as to the effects.
Recently I made an appeal for the setting up of something in the nature of a test examination in connection with primary education. The primary examination certificate has since been established and the Minister has given us the results. He said that out of 10,000 pupils who presented themselves for examination only 55 per cent. passed, so that out of 10,000 pupils we had 45 per cent. of failures. On a former occasion the Minister expressed the view that the backwardness in connection with primary education was due to unsatisfactory attendance at school. The Compulsory School Attendance Act has now been in operation for some years and the attendance has been raised from 73 to 82 per cent. I suggest that it is clear that the breakdown in the system is not due to irregular attendance but to other and more important causes. The Minister informed us that there were 428,000 children on the rolls. Of those who presented themselves for that simple examination only 5,000 odd could qualify. Does such a system enable the children of this nation to go forward and fight the battle of life? I say that such a percentage of passes as that mentioned shows that there are serious defects in our system.
I notice that the teachers have recently been clamouring in the Press, where they are given all the space necessary to air their grievances. They have been demanding that in future the granting of primary certificates should be placed in their hands, and that they should give them to pupils whom they regard as being fit to receive them. Was there ever such an astounding claim made by any body of men who have such results to show as those shown in connection with this Vote? The teachers want to be handed over the granting of those certificates without any examination. I can only describe such a proposal as colossal effrontery. I ask the Minister to realise that our primary system is undoubtedly in a backward condition. I ask him to go further and to make it obligatory that pupils reaching a certain standard should present themselves for examination. Then we would have a reliable test as to how primary education is working in the country, and we would be able to realise whether it is proving effective or ineffective. At present, when pupils come to a certain age and a certain standard, they must automatically leave that standard and go to a higher one whether they are fit for it or not.
In view of the defects in the system and the huge sum of money which a comparatively poor State like this is spending on primary education, I ask is it fair that children should be changed from one standard to another without any test? Is that in the interests of the children? Is it fair to the parents who make sacrifices to keep their children at school? Something must be done to deal with these defects. There are causes for them. It may be due to the teachers. I do not say it is. I do not want to be unjust. Though there may be differences as to the causes there can be no differences as to the effects. May I ask the Minister seriously if he cannot devise some means by which pupils will not be advanced from one standard to another without something in the nature of a test to see whether or not they are fit to go into the higher standard? I believe it would be much better for a pupil to have a sound, thorough knowledge of the fourth standard and not to have a knowledge of all the fundamentals of the fourth and fifth standards. Deputy Fahy has pointed out that complaints are coming from the technical schools about the low standard of education of those presenting themselves. He takes the view that it is not due to the teachers, but I take the view that a great deal of it is due to the teachers. I think there should be some spur put upon the teachers in order to endeavour to get better results than we are receiving under the present system.
I do not know whether it is true or not, but I should like to ask the Minister if it is his intention to change the age for entrance into the preparatory colleges. I have been told that there was some intention to lower the age for entrance from 16 to 13. I hope it is not true. I understand that for these examinations something like 2,000 candidates offer themselves for somewhat over 100 vacancies and if such a change is going to be made it ought to be made gradually. Of the 2,000 pupils who present themselves for these examinations, only 140 or 150 can enter the colleges. The parents of these children have kept them at school. They must have reached a fairly decent standard of education if the parents and the teachers consider them fit for entrance to the colleges, and it would be a very harsh thing if the parents of the bulk of these 2,000 children are left next year without any hope of their being able to enter the colleges. I have been asked by many people about this matter, and I take the first opportunity of asking the Minister if that is his intention, and if so, to ask that such a change should be made gradually and not all at once.
I do not wish to appear hypercritical as far as primary education is concerned, but certainly the country is spending a huge sum of money on it and it is undoubtedly getting poor results. If anybody contrasts the results of the examinations for certificates in the national schools here with what is going on, say, in the London County Council schools, one can at once see that there is no comparison for the backwardness of education in this country. I understand that in the London County Council schools there is not a single pupil who does not pass the sixth standard. I think I can make that statement as being true, and I shall be glad to hear what Deputy O'Connell has to say on the subject. I have the idea that the national teachers in this country are becoming a little bit too autocratic in their demands and in their methods, and that some voice should be raised on behalf of the parents of the children and of the children themselves. Nobody will be better pleased to hear that any statement I have made, as far as the teachers are concerned, is untrue than I shall be. What I do say is that undoubtedly primary education is backward in this country and that some steps should be taken to see that it is made much more efficient than it is and that the country receives value for the three millions odd which it is spending on the present system of education.
I should like to point out to Deputy Byrne that complaints with reference to primary education are not confined to this country. Similar complaints are made in England and in America, and one frequently comes across statistics in these countries showing that the average of illiteracy is very high and pointing out that evidently there is something seriously wrong with the system of primary education there. Personally, I think that in this country the programme is overcrowded and that in endeavouring to teach a multitude of subjects the point is missed and the children in these schools have a confused knowledge of many subjects and no real knowledge of any.
There are one or two matters in connection with the primary education Vote to which I should like to refer. One is the heating and cleaning of schools, for which a sum of £14,400 is set aside. I do not know if many Deputies receive complaints such as we get down the country, that the money provided for this purpose is entirely inadequate, with the result that in many country schools the teacher has very often to bear the greater portion of the expense of heating and cleaning the school, and in many cases the children have to do the cleaning after school hours. The old practice of carrying sods of turf to the school is still in force in many parts. It is a great hardship on children who have travelled long distances to have to spend the day in a cold, draughty school with a very inadequate fire.
Another question is the cost of books. This matter has been frequently raised here. It is due, I take it, to the constant changing of books in the schools. The Readers are changed too frequently, with the result that poor people with a number of children going to school find it very hard to meet the expense. They will tell you that it is almost impossible for them to keep their children in books. When one child passes from one standard to another, instead of being able to hand on the books to the next member of the family, new books have to be provided.
As to the National Gallery, I made a plea before that if it were possible some of the pictures should be sent occasionally to some of the other cities and urban centres where accommodation could be provided for them. All the people in the country cannot come to Dublin, and there are people of culture and refinement in many parts who never get a chance of seeing these works of art. If it were possible to insure the pictures and the authorities in other centres would make arrangements for their reception, it would be a good idea if selections from them could be sent down occasionally. The people of Cork, Waterford, and other places have to pay for the upkeep of the National Gallery, and it is only fair that they should get a chance of seeing something for their money.
So many questions could be raised on this Vote that it is difficult to do more than merely mention them. Indeed many of the matters that I wish to refer to have already been referred to year after year. I do not propose, therefore, to do more than to mention them again, because we have already said all that it is possible to say about them. Generally the Minister, in his opening statement, has the usual annual excuse for not having the rules published. He spared us that this time, and trusted to the inspiration of a newspaper report. But, as far as I and most of those who are engaged on the work of education are concerned, we have given up all hope of ever seeing these rules. I shall do no more now than remind the House that we have not yet got them after eight years of Departmental life. I suppose the Minister takes it—at least it is evidence of the fact that he agrees—that owing to the good sense of the teachers, managers and others engaged in education they are able to carry on without any rules. There might be something to be said for that if the Department did not now and again root up some old rule and use it to prevent the application of the common sense of managers and teachers to carrying out the work of the schools.
A considerable amount is provided in this Estimate, and a considerable amount has appeared in other years' Estimates for the provision of preparatory colleges. I do not wish to say anything on the whole policy of preparing teachers in this way, but I should like to get some explanation — so far as I know none has yet been offered—as to the necessity for erecting large and substantial and expensive buildings in out-of-the-way places in the country. These buildings are erected in the Gaeltacht. When the intention is that people should be reared in the atmosphere of the Irish language and brought up to be able to use it, it would seem at first sight that the natural place to have them trained is in a district where Irish is the spoken language. But when one remembers that in practice the students have no real touch with the life of the Gaeltacht, one is tempted to ask what is the reason for having these colleges there. We have two or three of these colleges in Dublin, and if it is necessary to have the colleges in the Gaeltacht then we should not have the present colleges in Dublin, where they are not in touch with Irish speakers. The real fact, I understand, is that the students are not in touch with Irish speakers, even where the colleges are erected in the Gaeltacht. There is no real touch with the life of the people. The students may take a walk amongst them now and again, but these students, as we can well understand, are kept under discipline, and rightly so; they live in the schools and have little touch with their surroundings. They could do that equally well in Meath or Westmeath or Dublin.
I should like to have some idea as to the difference in cost which that has entailed upon the State. I believe the difference is a substantial one and I should like to have from the Minister the corresponding value that we have obtained as a result of putting these colleges in out-of-the-way places instead of in more central positions. I have had complaints from parents as to the cost of travelling to these colleges. That is one of the factors which have to be taken into account. The main factor, however, is the cost of erection of new buildings in these out-of-the-way places. If it could be shown that the students were part and parcel of the life of the Gaeltacht and that they were deriving special advantages from the fact that the colleges were situated in the Gaeltacht, it would be all to the good.
There is another matter in connection with these colleges on which I would like to have the views of the Minister. We have heard that the students in these colleges have done very well at the Intermediate examinations. I should like to know at what cost to themselves students have achieved this success. The secondary programme is usually covered in three or four years. Secondary teachers think that they are doing very well if they cover the programme for the Intermediate certificate in that time. It can, as a matter of fact, only be done with a certain amount of pressure. The students who enter the Preparatory Colleges, say, in October, 1928, are expected to sit for the Intermediate certificate in 1930. From what I have heard, I am satisfied that the measure of success which they have achieved could only be obtained at the cost of a great deal of pressure on the part of both pupils and teachers. They would require to be working at very high pressure all that time. These children—the boys and girls attending these colleges are little more than children — are at such an age that work for eight or ten hours per day is not good for their health.
We ought to remember, in training the teachers who are to take charge of the children of the future, that we do not want mere bookworms. We want teachers who will have wide experience and knowledge. To keep a young lad's nose to the grindstone from early morning till late at night in order that he may pass an examination and make a good show at the end of eighteen or twenty months is not the best way to turn out a successful teacher. I should like that there would be some examination of the amount of work done by the student in those colleges as compared with the amount of work done in the ordinary residential secondary school. This matter is, perhaps, rendered more important when we remember that the success of a pupil at the intermediate certificate examination will determine whether or not he is to be continued in the college. It is unfair to the children that they should be expected to cover the course in approximately half the time allowed for the same course in the ordinary secondary school.
I wish to refer again to a question which has been repeatedly raised here—the provision of school accommodation. I will only refer to it on this occasion for the purpose of obtaining information from the Minister of the progress that has been made in solving the problem. I should like to know how many new schools have been erected during the year and what the Minister's plans are for the future. The amount of money available this year is less than the amount which was available last year. The problem of school accommodation here in Dublin is specially acute. I should like to know whether the Minister is taking any special steps to deal with the problem in Dublin. I know that some very fine, new schools have been built here. That has relieved the pressure to some extent, but there is no system by which the accommodation available in Dublin can be utilised to the best advantage. Some schools are overcrowded. Other schools may have accommodation. I am afraid that children are refused admittance to schools in Dublin on other grounds than want of accommodation, although want of accommodation is always the plea used. That plea can always be used under our present system.
I am afraid that evidence is not wanting that certain schools select their pupils and select the class from which the pupils are to be drawn. When pupils of other classes apply for accommodation in these schools, which are supposed to be free schools, they are not admitted, on the plea of want of accommodation. I think there ought to be some method by which that would be prevented. When a child applies to any school which is receiving grants from this State as a national school, that child ought to be admitted if there is accommodation for him. There ought to be no possibility of selection on the ground of the class to which the child belongs or the position held by his parents or his own capabilities—whether he is a brilliant student who is likely to bring credit to the school or not. These factors should be ruled out, and any child who applies should be admitted to the school if there is accommodation for him. The question is how can that be effected? I made one suggestion to the Minister — I do not know whether I put it formally or not. I repeat the suggestion now: that every school should be bound to exhibit in the porch or entrance a notice showing the number of pupils for whom there is accommodation in the school. That should be displayed the same as any other school notice. Along with it should be shown the number of pupils on the roll on the Friday of the last school week. If that were done and a parent applied for admission for his child, he could see whether or not there was room for him. If there was accommodation, he could insist on the admission of his child and he would not be turned away with the plea, which is made now in a great many schools, that there is no accommodation. If the parent does not look the kind of person whose children should be admitted, he is told that the school authorities would be glad to receive him, but that there is no accommodation. There may be other methods of dealing with the question. I suggest that method. Certainly, something should be done to prevent what is happening in many schools in Dublin whereby some schools are enabled to make selections of the type of pupil they desire, while other schools take all the pupils for whom they have accommodation. All these schools are drawing money from the public purse, and all pupils, whether rich or poor, whether brilliant or dull, have the same right of entrance to them.
Deputy Goulding referred to the question of heating and cleaning. That also seems to be a perennial problem. I should like to know from the Minister what steps he is taking, if any, as regards the provision of proper heating facilities for the schools, and also as regards the provision of sanitation.
There is another matter about which I think it is necessary to say a few words, especially in view of discussions that have taken place lately. I refer to the Department's policy as regards instruction through the medium of the Irish language. There has been quite a considerable amount of discussion and complaint by teachers of late that the Department's policy is practically to force teachers by indirect means to teach subjects through the medium of Irish, although the teachers themselves feel that the conditions under which such teaching can be carried on successfully are not present. In the School Programme Report for 1926, it was laid down that where a teacher is competent to teach through Irish, and where the children can assimilate the instruction so given, the teacher should endeavour to extend the use of Irish as a medium of instruction as far as possible. That is reasonable, and nobody objects to it. But there are two conditions definitely laid down there—(1) that the teacher must be competent to teach through Irish, and (2) that the children should be able to assimilate the instruction. It is stated that. generally speaking, the teacher who holds the bi-lingual or higher certificate will be deemed competent to teach through the medium of Irish. The complaint that is heard from teachers is, not that they are themselves being forced to teach through the medium of Irish while they are not competent to do so, but that the children under their care whom they are expected to teach through Irish are not in a position to assimilate that instruction. There is no doubt in my mind that teachers in many cases are being indirectly coerced to teach subjects through the medium of Irish merely in order to be able to say, as far as I can judge, that they are teaching through the medium of Irish. Who ought to be the judge in these matters? That is the difficulty.
I think that where you have good, efficient teachers, teachers who are doing their work earnestly and fairly, the decision, to a very large extent, should rest with them as to whether or not the children can assimilate their instruction through the medium of Irish. After all, the inspector visits a school once a month and in many cases not nearly so often. He certainly will not know as well as the teacher can know—he has no means of knowing—whether or not children are able to benefit by instruction through the medium of Irish. I think that the demand that was made by the teachers at the Congress, that the time had come for some kind of assessment of the whole value of teaching through the medium of Irish, in the circumstances is a fair demand. They passed a resolution saying that in their opinion the time was ripe for an educational assessment of the use of Irish as a teaching medium in schools in English-speaking districts. I think it would be well if we had an examination now, after a period of eight years, of the effect of teaching subjects through the medium of Irish, its educational value, and whether in fact an attempt has been made to do more than it is possible to do. I have a strong feeling arising out of statements made by many teachers—I will not call them complaints; they were only complaints in so far as these teachers felt that their status was being affected in some way—that things are being done in some schools — sometimes perhaps through the enthusiasm of the teachers themselves, but much more often as a result of a feeling that they are expected to do it—that are not for the educational benefit of the children. If that is so I think that they should not be done. I do not want to go into this to any great extent now, but I could quote instances that would lead one to believe that there is a settled policy to insists that, whether it is the teachers' opinion or not that it will be of benefit to the pupils, instruction must be given in certain subjects through the medium of Irish. You cannot lay down hard and fast rules in a question of this kind. You might find certain schools in Dublin in which such instruction could very well be given. There are schools in Dublin with special advantages in which there is no doubt that instruction can be given effectively through the medium of Irish where the children are largely Irish-speaking. There may be other schools where that can be done effectively, while in a school across the road it would be foolish to attempt it. There is no use in laying down a hard and fast rule to the effect that in future, unless such instruction is given, a teacher cannot get rated as highly efficient, which brings with it certain rewards to the teacher.
I do not want to go into this at great length, nor do I want to quote particular cases. It is a matter that the teachers themselves have discussed with the Minister on many occasions. But I would like to have from the Minister a statement as to what the policy of the Department is, as to what they expect to be done, and whether or not they stand by that statement which I read as to the conditions which should exist before subjects are expected to be taught through the medium of Irish, namely, that the teacher is competent to impart it, and that the children are in a position to assimilate teaching through the medium of Irish, because if one sets out to teach through the medium of Irish, the statement you often hear is that if that condition is not present you are teaching Irish and not the subject.
Another matter that one comes across now and again is that a teacher will be told that his teaching of the subject through the medium of Irish—arithmetic, history and geography, and such subjects — is very good, and yet the subject, oral Irish, is only marked "good." That is important when it is remembered that one of the regulations at present applying to a certain class of teachers—not to all teachers but to some of the younger—is that no matter how well all the other subjects are taught, unless the mark for oral Irish is also "very good" the teacher cannot be rated "highly efficient" and cannot get the special or higher increments that are attached to that rating. As I say, cases have occurred where all the other subjects have been marked "very good," including subjects taught through the medium of Irish, and yet the oral Irish is supposed to be only "good." I cannot conceive how a subject like arithmetic could be taught through the medium of Irish in a way that could be described as very good if the children had not a good oral knowledge of the language. If that is the case, arithmetic should not be taught through the medium of Irish at all. I should like to have from the Minister a definite statement as to what the position is, and I should like to know whether it is his intention to have an assessment made of the whole value of teaching subjects through the medium of Irish in English-speaking districts. I think the time has come when we might very well take stock of what we have been doing in the matter of reviving Irish for the past eight years and find out whether we are going in the right direction or whether a better system than that in operation at the moment might not be adopted.
I will refer, again briefly, to the various recommendations that were in the 1926 Report and that have not been carried out. There is one of them especially that I have been raising year after year, and that is the notes for teachers. I suggested some time ago that if the Minister were to take three or four of the senior inspectors and put them at this job and if they were to spend a whole year at it the value to education as a whole would be better in the end, even with the expense that it would involve. I am sure that it would have a frightful effect on Deputy Byrne if the inspectors were withdrawn for a short time——
Mr. Byrne
Not if we get value for the money.
I believe that some of the inspectors should be set aside for this work. That work would come home to the whole teaching body, and that would be of more benefit than their incidental visits to schools during the year. As Deputy Byrne has butted in at this stage, I might say a word or two about his statements. We hear a good deal about value for money. Will Deputy Byrne tell us how he would estimate the value we are getting for the money? What is the standard of value? That is a question, I think, that anyone who comes with this annual jeremiad ought to be prepared to answer.
Mr. Byrne
May I be permitted to interrupt the Deputy for a moment?
Surely.
Mr. Byrne
Seventy-five per cent. passes in secondary education and forty-five per cent. failures in primary education. There is your answer now.
That shows at once that the Deputy was completely ignorant of what he was talking about all the time. He asked what was being done by the London County Council, and he said that he was informed that practically every child passed through the sixth standard. When our School Attendance Act will have been in operation for five years, which will be next year or the following year, we hope that practically every child will pass through the sixth standard. Deputy Byrne mixed that up with something that is entirely different.
Mr. Byrne
What percentage of pupils never get out of the third standard?
Perhaps the Deputy will tell us?
Mr. Byrne
I venture to say 33 1/3rd per cent.
I venture to say that the Deputy is very far wrong; in fact, I am quite sure that he is. He spoke about the primary certificate that was instituted for the first time this year on a voluntary basis — that was why all the children were not put in for the examination—and he talked about the astounding claim that was made by the teachers that they should have control in some way of the issue of this certificate. Of course, Deputy Byrne does not know that it was the teachers themselves that marked the papers this year. He is quite unaware of that.
Mr. Byrne
That does not change my opinion.
And at least one of the reasons why there was not a higher percentage of passes was because the teachers adopted too high a standard and rather undermarked the papers or did not give the full value. That may surprise Deputy Byrne. I am sure that he cannot conceive that a national teacher would have any sense of honour or that the would be inspired by anything but to show good results in order to satisfy Deputy Byrne. I could quite well conceive what Deputy Byrne would say if some of us began to dip too deeply into the buying and selling of spades and shovels, for instance. We would be promptly told by him that we knew nothing about it.
Mr. Byrne
I think, with respect, I am as well qualified to speak on education as Deputy O'Connell.
I am sure of that. I have no doubt about it. I make every allowance for Deputy Byrne. Perhaps he was unfortunate in his teacher, or perhaps his teacher was unfortunate in him, which is more likely. We had evidence on the matter the other day when the Minister for Industry and Commerce made repeated attempts to point out to him some very simple thing that was in an Act of Parliament. After that exhibition I am not surprised at anything that Deputy Byrne says, but I do not intend to deal with his statement at any length. In this country there is more inspection of the work of teachers than in any other country which I know, and the complaint has been made that it is over-inspected. Certainly there is more inspection here than there is in England or in Scotland. I do not know whether Deputy Byrne knows anything about the systems of education in England and Scotland.
Mr. Byrne
I spent ten years there. I do not think you spent one.
Then, of course, I know more about what Deputy Byrne is complaining of.
Mr. Byrne
I am able to contrast the systems, which you are not.
We have had statements from those who are best qualified to make them as to the efficiency of the teachers and the work that the teachers do. There was never a time, as I think the Minister himself said, when there were not statements from people of the type of Deputy Byrne that the work was not satisfactory and that in their fathers' time or in their grandfathers' time very much better work was done. We will always have that type of complaint, and I am sure that anything I or the Minister or anybody else in this House would say would have no effect whatever on Deputy Byrne. But we pay as much attention to what Deputy Byrne says on this subject as we do to what he says on any other subject, and that is very little.
I support what Deputy Fahy says about industrial school teachers. I think that the conditions under which those men have to work are not at all as they should be. I cannot see why the Minister is so powerless as he pretends to be in this matter. A grant is being given by the State towards these schools. I suggest it should not be handed over without some different conditions being attached. It would not be unfair if grants necessary for the maintenance of the schools were found by the local authority while grants necessary for educating the children were found by the Education Department. An arrangement on that basis could be made; either that or the State should undertake the education of the children, be responsible for them and see that the teachers teaching the children possess the same qualifications and are put on the same scales of salaries as the teachers engaged in the National Schools. These are a few of the points I was anxious to mention. There are many other things deserving of discussion on this important Vote but I will, perhaps, raise them on other occasions.
I would like to refer to the matter that has been spoken of by Deputy Goulding — the cost of school Readers to children in the primary schools. Every year in almost every school the Readers are changed in each standard. Some parents have mentioned to me on different occasions that they look with dread upon the promotion of their children in the schools owing to the very high expense that is entailed. There are so many Readers on the market at the present moment that I could scarcely name them. There are, for instance, the Standard, the Oriel, the Acme and the Sterling, and there is a regular competition amongst Readers with titles of the Saints. Each of the series of Readers is excellent in itself, and I know that it is the policy of the Department to encourage a change of Readers in the different standards; but I often think that the Department's intentions, when it is mentioned that it is advisable to introduce new matters to the pupils in the different standards every year, are misinterpreted. A pupil is promoted from the second to the third standard and the series he gets in the third standard will certainly be new matter to him; the same applies to the fourth and other standards. These Readers, excellent as they are, really mean a duplication of matter. You find the same poems, and the same lessons in prose appear in the different series.
The expense involved in purchasing books is a very important consideration. Books that sold for a penny, twopence or threepence in my day are now sold for as many shillings. This cannot be said to be the fault of the publishers. They are not sure of their market, and I do not know how they estimate the number of series of Readers they will publish every year. This applies mostly to the English Readers. If the Minister could get some of the inspectors and teachers—perhaps in that matter Deputy O'Connell could suggest something—into consultation they might be able to advise in regard to series of Readers and I believe that that would have a very beneficial effect on primary education. I know for a fact that when children reach 14 years the parents consider the price of books is too prohibitive and they keep the children away from school. In many cases there is a serious tax on the teachers, because frequently they have to buy Readers for the poor children. I know that Deputy O'Connell's solution of the matter would not be the Minister's solution, but something should be done to lessen the cost on the pupils.
There is another matter to which I would like to refer. In the school programme I believe needlework is not obligatory in girls' schools now until the girls have reached the third standard. A child leaving the infant school is usually about seven years, and then that child is placed in the first standard. The child does not reach the second standard until she is nine years, and she is at least then years before she reaches the third standard. It is a great hardship on a child not to be shown how to use a needle until she is ten or, perhaps eleven years of age. Of course the programme is certainly overcrowded, but I think that in girls' schools some means should be devised to drop one subject and let needlework be taught in the junior standards. It is very hard on the teacher in the third and fourth standards to have to teach the elements of needlework.
I am in entire disagreement with my colleague for North Dublin in what he said about primary education. I think that the people of the Saorstát never got better value for their money than they are getting at present. There is no more hardworked body of teachers in any country than there is in Ireland. The teachers here have nobly responded to whatever calls were made upon them. Some of them had to learn Irish, had to commence in the very elementary stages, and to-day they are teaching the language with excellent results. There are some teachers who, eight years ago, did not know a word of Irish and they now have the bi-lingual certificate; they are teaching Irish and are able to rank in the standards of the highly efficient. Their teaching of the English language and of the other subjects is equally good. There may be a few exceptions, but these are the exceptions which prove the rule.
Deputy Byrne's idea of the primary leaving certificate is one with which not many of us will agree. This is a subject in which we are all interested. As Deputy O'Connell has stated, this was a perfectly voluntary matter last year. The fact that the teachers presented 10,000 pupils when it was not obligatory on them to do so, and prepared them for what I consider a very difficult test, is surely commendable. I wonder did Deputy Byrne see the papers that were set for the primary leaving certificate? I have often wondered how many Deputies would be able to answer these papers set for the primary leaving certificate. The Irish in the higher course was a real steppingstone to the intermediate certificate, and so was the higher English course, and the arithmetic, instead of being of a low standard was, in my opinion, of a very high standard. I say to Deputy Byrne, with great respect, that if he reads those papers he will change his mind. He states that there are 428,000 pupils on the rolls. Not a sixth of that number, perhaps not one-tenth or one-twelfth of that number, could under any circumstances be allowed to sit for the primary leaving certificate. The fact that there were, voluntarily, 10,000 sitting out of a possible 30,000 was most creditable. The fact that 55 per cent. passed at the first attempt does not indicate by any means a low standard.
I think the Education Department is to be congratulated especially on what it has achieved on the technical side. At the end of April I received an invitation to view some of the exhibits of the Dublin technical schools. The exhibition was on Friday evening and, unfortunately, most country Deputies had then gone home. I only wish that they had an opportunity of seeing some of the work turned out in the technical schools in Dublin. I could scarcely believe that such excellent work was possible. I visited the technical schools at an earlier period when the pupils were only commencing. The progress they made from October to April was something wonderful and it reflected great credit on the principals of the schools and on the Department.
I should like to make a few sporadic remarks on two or three subjects. It was very pleasing to find the Minister in a position to say that we are making important progress and that the attendances in the schools are greatly increased. I think we might say that probably as a result of more regular attendance there has been a considerable improvement in the number of pupils who have been able to reach the sixth standard. Though I accept these statements with pleasure, and am glad that the Minister is able to make them, I put myself alongside the unpopular Deputy, Deputy Byrne, in one respect. We are spending a very large sum of money on primary education. I do not want a penny less spent on it, but I still think with the Deputy that we ought to get more rapid improvement than we are getting. There is really a case for seeing whether we are making the improvement that we ought to be making, considering the money we are spending on the subject.
I agree with Deputy Mrs. Collins-O'Driscoll, and not with Deputy Byrne, in believing that the cause, if what I believe to be true is true, is not at all with the teachers. I do not follow Deputy Byrne in that. He thought the teachers were largely to blame. I take very much the view of Deputy Mrs. Collins-O'Driscoll in that respect, that the teachers are doing their very best to get the very best results in and through their work, and I believe they are very largely successful. I think there are other causes which are holding us back. The attitude taken up by Deputies Fahy and O'Connell makes me really hopeful that something important may come from these discussions. I do not want to turn the debate into a debate about Irish, but I was pleased to hear Deputy Fahy say that he was a firm believer in a policy of fostering the Irish language rather than compelling the use of Irish. It has been my conviction always that if you want to make a success of the teaching of Irish you have to do it through a fostering policy rather than through a compulsory policy. I thought that even more important was the statement made by Deputy Fahy, followed by the statement of Deputy O'Connell, that the important question at present is to what extent attempts are being made to teach other subjects through the medium of Irish. I have no doubt the Minister will say that the policy is that laid down in the paper which Deputy O'Connell read. I have no fault to find with that as a policy for the Minister, but I think there is a good deal more than that to be considered. One important point is whether that lenient policy is the policy that is being followed in the course of the Department's administration.
I agree with Deputy Fahy that pressure is the wrong way, that there is pressure in the administration to make the teaching of other subjects through the medium of Irish be carried on very frequently in a way which is fatal to the real education of the child, and that so long as there is that wrong pressure the results are bound to be poor, and that what is required is an easing of that policy in administration rather than an increase in the pressure. I agree with what Deputy Fahy and Deputy O'Connell said in that matter, and I strongly support them in their suggestion that there really is a case for inquiry, a summing-up, a taking stock, of seeing what the policy of the last eight years has led us to, of seeing whether we are getting—I will put it bluntly and crudely as Deputy Byrne did—value for our money and whether we can hope to get more improvement if we change our plans somewhat. I do not think that even Deputy Mrs. Collins-O'Driscoll or any other Deputy is prepared to say in the House that we have got a perfect system. If we can get improvements I hope we are always anxious to try and find them and bring them into practice.
Deputy Fahy and Deputy O'Connell have also referred to two or three other matters in which I should like to support them very strongly. I agree that the most important event of the last twelve months in connection with the votes we are now talking about has been the introduction of the secondary pensions scheme. I agree with the Minister that it is yet too early to say whether that scheme is on a perfectly satisfactory footing or not. I refer to the subject for this reason, that I know there are cases of hardship, and I think it is important for any Deputy who knows of such cases to bring those cases of hardship under the notice of the Minister, because it is only when such cases are brought to his notice that he can see whether the scheme is completely satisfactory and perfect or whether it will not require some amendment at a later stage. With Deputy Fahy, I think the most important cases of hardship that have arisen have been those of broken service for the older teachers in connection with the rules that are laid down in the scheme, applying to cases of quite long service where well qualified teachers were approaching the age for retirement and were cut out by those rules for broken service. I do not want to go into special cases, but I want to urge Deputies to make it their business to find out how the rules of the scheme are working among secondary teachers so that the Minister may be made aware of cases of hardship.
In connection with the secondary teachers, there is another matter to which small reference was made, and that is that there still remain a number — I am glad a comparatively small number—of highly efficient teachers teaching approved classes for the requisite number of hours and still not receiving the incremental salary given by the Department. I think so long as any of that class remain it will be a blot upon our system. The Minister, in the last reply he gave to a question on the subject, certainly surprised me and pleased me by saying that the number of such teachers had fallen obviously and had become unimportant in number, but that is all the more reason for removing the defect completely. It means all the less cost to the State. It ought to be possible to find some way even without increased cost to the State in which the grants given by these increments would be distributed in such a way that there would be no teacher suffering from a grievance of that kind, and I consider it to be a real grievance. As I have said, there are highly efficient teachers teaching a number of classes the requisite number of hours and yet they are debarred from receiving the incremental grant or prevented from changing from one school to another, because if they do so it may cause a loss in increment.
In connection with pensions there is another matter to which I would like to make a brief reference. We have had to talk about it in the House before and the Minister for Education himself in 1928 stated, I believe, his intentions or his convictions in the matter. I want to remind him of that statement and to ask him whether there is a hope that action will be taken in the early future on the matter. I refer to national school inspectors who are retired after a lengthy service, part of which may have been service as a national school teacher. Now we in the Free State are in this matter in an isolated position compared with Northern Ireland or Great Britain. There the service which he has had teaching as a national school teacher is taken into account. When his pension comes to be estimated in the Free State we are still in the position that a retiring inspector's pension is calculated only on the years of service as an inspector. At least I believe that to be the case. When the Superannuation Act was going through in 1928 the Minister for Education said that it was not his intention that that should continue and that he felt that there was justice in their claim that their whole service as teachers and inspectors should be taken account of. In that I am in entire agreement with him and I bring the matter forward in the hope that I may be able to get from him an assurance that some change will be made in what I believe to be our present policy in the matter.
I had not the intention originally to take part in this debate at all but in view of one point in particular that was raised by Deputy O'Connell I think that it is the duty of anybody who is interested in education or in the progress of the Irish language to express himself. I am very glad that a certain amount of misgiving has been expressed from the side of those who are actively engaged in education as to the question of teaching subjects through the medium of Irish. I have been of the opinion personally for a long time that the movement towards teaching subjects through the medium of Irish was a movement which was fraught with danger not only to education generally in the country but to the progress of the Irish language itself. There is a good deal to be said for teaching children in their most youthful stage the elements of calculation and such things through the medium of the Irish language but I do not believe personally that the practice of teachers who themselves are not native speakers trying to teach other subjects through the medium of that language to children who are not native speakers of it is a practice which anybody who has any kind of logical mind could defend as an educational practice.
Deputy O'Connell talked about there being schools in Dublin in which it was possible that subjects might be successfully taught through the medium of Irish. I am inclined to doubt whether there is any place in Ireland outside the Gaeltacht where it is possible successfully without doing damage either to Irish or to education to teach subjects to any high standard through the medium of Irish. I believe that this effort which has been made to impose the teaching of mathematics, for example, and other subjects through Irish in the schools is one of the things which have done most to create misgiving and uncertainty in the public mind and to create a certain amount of artificial opposition to the whole question of teaching the Irish language. It might not be there at all if this effort had not been made. I have come across cases even in my own experience where experiments of what you can only call a ludicrous kind were made in certain secondary schools. I do not say that these experiments were sanctioned or ordered by the officials of the Ministry. Some of the things were brought about by the enthusiasm of certain people. Certain teachers take the bit in their teeth when they get a certain amount of encouragement. I believe the function of the Ministry of Education should be to discourage teaching the students through the medium of Irish in a non-Irish-speaking district unless they are satisfied that both the children and the teachers have a very good knowledge of the language. The number of teachers in Ireland qualified, certainly as far as secondary education is concerned, to teach any subject through the medium of Irish in any real, thorough or successful way must be a very small number. You will get a great many people who will make an effort to teach, for instance, Latin through the medium of Irish, but I make bold to have grave doubts about the quality of the Latin that is so taught. The danger looks greater as you go up in the scale of education. I believe less harm is done in the lower classes of primary schools by teaching the elements of calculation, and so on, through Irish, to children who are just beginning the language or who have a certain amount of fluency in it, but it is in the senior classes, and especially in secondary schools, that the grave danger exists both to education generally and the language itself if there is too much indulgence or too much encouragement of the practice.
I am personally inclined to think that all this movement towards teaching subjects through the medium of Irish is a premature movement and I am not sure that it is not all founded on a semi-political make-believe. It is an inheritance from the days when we were trying to get a Republic by pretending that we had one. We are trying to restore the Irish language by pretending that it is restored and to my mind that process is confusing what is really an end with a means. If Irish comes to be the spoken language of the country then it will be quite easy and necessary that subjects should be taught through the medium of Irish, but until that date comes attempts to teach things like mathematics, geography, and so on through the medium of Irish are really confusing an end with what can only be a means to an end. I am very glad that the teachers themselves have adverted, both outside the Dáil and here, in the person of Deputy O'Connell, to the danger of that whole movement. I hope that what Deputy O'Connell has said will be taken very much to heart by the Minister, and if there is any attempt being made by over-zealous officials or teachers to push the teaching of other subjects through the medium of Irish in districts where such a system is unsuitable it will be curbed. There are two other subjects of lesser importance which I desire to mention. I believe that a certain amount of difficulty has arisen in secondary schools owing to the character of the leaving certificate programme. It has come to my knowledge, from the point of view of the university, that a great deal of difficulty is being encountered on account of the lack of co-ordination between the leaving certificate programme and the programme for the university matriculation. The National University is, at any rate, doing something itself to try and bring about a better co-ordination. I wonder whether from the side of the Ministry something more active could not be done to secure that the standard of the two examinations shall not be so far apart as it is at the moment? What happens now is that students instead of as was originally intended, going in for the leaving certificate examination, go in for the matriculation examination a year earlier and thus gain a year. The result is that the leaving certificate examination, which was intended originally to be a sort of entrance to the university, has to a certain extent been left high and dry and, instead of the secondary course being lengthened, as it was hoped it would be, it has been shortened since the days of the senior grade intermediate. The whole question is one of co-ordination. The standards of the two examinations are too far apart. It may be possible either by raising that of the matriculation or lowering that of the leaving certificate examination to bring them nearer.
Another point on which I would like to dwell is that raised by, I think, Deputy Mrs. Collins-O'Driscoll, namely, the question of supplying proper text-books in the primary schools. I do not know whether it was last year or the year before that I raised this matter. I believe that one of the greatest drawbacks in the primary system is the lack of a standard supply of good text-books. There is at present too much variation and the matter is left too much in the hands of publishers, who are amenable largely to the laws of supply and demand and are not necessarily actuated by any very high educational motives. I believe that since the old series of text-books was abolished there has been a constant decline in the standard of readers, for instance, supplied in primary schools, though the old Readers were perhaps prepared from a special point of view and had their own drawbacks. I think that there should be some means by which standard text-books could be made available through the Ministry of Education and also, perhaps, the price of such text-books might be fixed so as to put them within the reach of the poorer class of pupil.
That applies to English text-books, but still more so to Irish ones. So far as I am aware, and I have given a good deal of attention to the subject, the position in regard to Irish text-books is completely confused. There is no such thing as a really useful Irish Reader for primary schools. In some parts of the country you will find the same book, perhaps an unsuitable one, in use for six or seven years. You will find in schools in County Galway, for instance, in districts where Irish is hardly dead even yet, that there are hardly any books available for the pupils of ordinary primary schools. Generally a book in the Munster dialect will be used by the teacher. Perhaps one book, perhaps two books, may be available for all the pupils of the school. There is no such thing as a set of Readers in the local dialect which could be graduated so as to enable pupils to advance from simple to more difficult Irish and to introduce them to the beginning of a knowledge of Irish literature. I think that if the zeal that is devoted to the movement for teaching through the medium of Irish were devoted to securing a properly graduated standard of text-books a great deal more would be done for the language and, perhaps, for education as well.
In that respect I am inclined to think that the books which are being produced by the Committee set up under the Ministry some years ago can scarcely be described as suitable for school reading. They purpose to be of use for secondary schools, but the vast majority of them contain practically nothing that is of any educational value, and in many cases the language in which they are written is not always of an altogether irreproachable kind. I am inclined to think that the whole question of the supplying of Irish books in particular, both in primary and secondary schools, would need to be considered more carefully and, instead of novels and detective stories being published at the expense of the State, it would be better that the money spent on these books should be spent on good translations which are being produced to a very small extent. There should be good graduated text-books containing selections from Irish prose and poetry and which would give students a good introduction to the old literature of Ireland.
A great deal of whatever objection has been raised to compulsory Irish has, to my mind, been really against the methods pursued in enforcing compulsory Irish. If the teaching of Irish were carried out in a more reasonable way, if excessive demands were not made on the capacity both of teachers and pupils, if an attempt were made to face the actual fact that for the majority of the people of Ireland Irish is no longer their native language, because they have to learn it as they would learn a foreign language, and if our programme towards the restoration of Irish were based on that fact we could get on without discomfort and with less disagreement amongst ourselves.
I am going to preface anything I am going to say by remarking that I have listened to more commonsense manifested in this debate in the speech of Deputy Tierney than I have heard since I first became a member of the Dáil. The speech of Deputy Tierney was one, I think, which should commend itself to every member of the House, particularly to any Deputies who take even the slightest interest in this important subject of education. I think it is agreed that the establishment of school attendance committees throughout the State has had very useful results and reactions on the youth of the country. I would like to get some information from the Minister as to when he proposes to establish, or rather re-establish, the Cork School Attendance Committee. It has certainly outlived its usefulness. It may be said to be in existence, but it can rarely find a quorum, for reasons with which the Minister should be conversant. I think that the Minister has power under the Act of 1926 to see that when death occurs, or when, for other reasons, a vacancy is created on such committees, vacancies shall be filled by people who are willing to serve.
There is a very large sum of money set apart in the Estimates for the provision of training colleges. It is certainly a huge expenditure. Many people in Cork as well as in Dublin feel that while you have to send people, say, from Cork to Galway or Mayo, or from Dublin to Mayo or any other part of the Gaeltacht, the object intended is never realised, because the pupils are practically locked in while they are there and they have no intercourse with the peasantry. I, and a good many others, fail to see the object of transporting people from one end of the country to the other into such colleges where they have no contact with Gaelic-speaking people. Does the Minister feel that there is something in the air which would give pupils the blás and make them speak better Irish? I cannot see how they will profit by residence in the Gaeltacht unless they have contact with Irish-speaking people there.
I know that girls from Cork go to Falcarragh, but they do not get the intercourse which they should get as pupils if they are to secure a proper knowledge of Irish. It is rumoured that a college will be established in Ballyvourney in Cork County. I see no necessity for it. I think that it is useless expenditure, and that in a few years it will become a white elephant on the State. We have excellent cultural facilities in Cork, as in Dublin, where students have an opportunity of attending the School of Art, the Technical Schools, the School of Music and other cultural institutions of that character. In Dublin you have a Protestant and a Catholic Irish college, and we suggest that it would be foolish expenditure on the part of the State to erect a college at Ballyvourney when there are plenty of facilities in the City of Cork. I would enter a strong protest against expenditure of that kind when you realise that the highest prizes at the disposal of the Minister were obtained by boys from the Presentation College in Cork and the North Monastery. Those boys got the highest marks in Irish during the year just closed. On the University side you have another lad from one of the cities with absolutely no contact with the Gaeltacht securing first prize. Therefore, there seems to be something wrong in this whole scheme of education—on the Irish side of it at any rate.
There is another aspect which I should like to touch upon. Deputy Tierney spoke of the Readers in use in the schools. He rightly pointed out that there should be a standardisation of these Readers. He stressed the cultural aspect and the educational value of it, but there is another point which I am sure will appeal to many Deputies, and that is that the fact that we have not standardised Readers is the cause of extra expense and that bears hardly upon the poorer classes. Those of us who are old enough to remember the old system of education will recollect that there were first, second, third, fourth, fifth and sixth standards and, as the name implies, the books were standardised. A pupil going from one school to another could use the same books, and in poor families the books used by the eldest could be passed down to the other members of the family. Under the present system a boy transferred from one school to another, even in the same area, may have to get a different Reader, and that is the cause of a great deal of expense. Another point is that, from the literary standpoint alone, they are not works that would commend themselves to judges of good literatue. I am convinced that the educational value of the school books of to-day that I have examined is not at all to be compared with that of the old school books, with, of course, certain qualifications.
Another matter which I should like the Minister to direct his attention to is the fact that teachers who become ill are deprived of their salary if their illness lasts longer than one month. Some arrangement should be come to to put teachers in the same category as other civil servants who are paid their full salary for six months while ill, and whose salary does not terminate until after twelve months' illness. If something were done in that direction it would tend to give the teachers still further interest in their business. I know that already they have a very favourable record for the interest they take in it, as shown by the enthusiasm with which most of them have entered into the programme laid down by the Minister.
There is another matter which has struck me as a careful student of education, and that is the aspect referred to by Deputies Tierney, Thrift and O'Connell. We are spending huge sums of money on the teaching of Irish and I am perfectly convinced that we have not got any results approximate to the amount of money spent. I had occasion during the last couple of weeks to examine a showcard. The letterpress on it was in Irish and asked the public to buy certain articles of Irish manufacture. One authority on Irish wrote the matter for the letterpress. It was submitted to a second authority on Irish who made some corrections. It then went to a third authority on Irish who made a third set of alterations. Eventually, it was sent to Cork University and two professors there struck up a form of words which really conveyed what the proprietor of these articles wanted to convey to the public. Surely there is something wrong there. If we have not standardisation already, we should at least make an endeavour to get it.
There is another matter which I intended to raise on the Civil Service Estimate and that is with regard to the method of examination or the marks allotted for Irish in relation to other subjects. If it would be in order, I should like to mention the matter now. Recently a case was brought to my notice where a young boy fresh from school entered the post office service.
The Deputy is out of order already.
Then I shall deal with the educational side of it. This boy entered by a Civil Service examination and got very high marks in written and oral Irish.
Is the Minister responsible for this?
I hope the Minister will accept the responsibility. I think he is responsible, because his Department is responsible for having a Connaught man to examine a Munster boy in Irish.
I think the Deputy might leave that for a more appropriate occasion.
Then I shall raise it on the Civil Service Estimate. I think something should be done to regularise not only the Readers in English, but also those in Irish. With regard to the established practice now of teaching other subjects through the medium of Irish, we have been in too great a hurry. In many places it requires a little extra moral courage to say even that much. The worst feature of Irish life today is that if a public man or a man in his private capacity has the audacity to say even one word against the programme of Irish he is immediately labelled anti-Irish, anti-Gaelic, and anti-everything else. That has been the practice for a very long time. A very noisy minority were able to stifle even the best educationist in the country. They were in too great a hurry altogether with the Irish programme. I have the very greatest sympathy for the unfortunate children who to-day are being taught in two languages where, for instance, the town of Kinsale is, and who possibly, if asked where is Ceann-tSáile, could not tell you. Deputy Fahy thinks that I do not understand any Irish. Sometimes I can understand a little of his Irish, although it is not Munster Irish.
As a matter of fact, it is.
I submit to the Minister that in the method of teaching the Irish language there must be some association of ideas, and one cannot get that association of ideas under the present system. The children in the schools put in a relatively long time in learning Irish. When I say that I mean learning anything taught through the medium of Irish, because when you are teaching any subject through Irish you are imparting a fuller and better knowledge of that language, although in my view you are not imparting a better knowledge of the subject which is being taught. Whilst I have the greatest sympathy with the language movement and should not like to do anything to retard it, at the same time I think that the teaching of such subjects as arithmetic, algebra and geometry through the medium of Irish is a great mistake and will retard rather than accelerate the movement towards a Gaelic-speaking Ireland. Having said that, I hope nobody will misconstrue anything I have said. I am not ashamed or afraid to say anything that I want to say on this or any other subject, and I hope there will be some casing off on the situation. This galloping ahead is ruining half the children by trying to teach them in elementary schools certain subjects through the medium of a language which they do not understand and which they never hear when they go home.
I am pleased to hear from Deputy Anthony that this debate is being conducted in a very reasonable spirit. If that atmosphere continues, the Minister will have no difficulty in dealing with two or three small points which I wish to put before him. I wish, first of all, on behalf of quite a considerable number of my constituents, to make the complaint that the Constitution is being broken with full knowledge by the responsible Government of Saorstát Eireann who are depriving the children of two islands off Schull of the right of free education to which they are entitled under the Constitution. I refer to the islands known as Calf Island and Castle Island where children are left at present to grow up in a state of absolute ignorance. I do not say that it would be possible or practicable to have a school on each of these islands because the expense might be out of all proportion, but the point I respectfully put before the Minister is that in a matter of tampering with the Constitution and taking away the constitutional rights of any citizens, the question of expense cannot be looked upon as a stumbling block or as an excuse or defence. How to deal with these children is, I agree, a matter of some difficulty. It would be impossible to send them each day to the mainland. You would have to provide motor boats for them and days might come when it would be impossible for them to attend school. The only practicable solution I can see, and I have consulted those best qualified to speak on the matter, would be that the children should be allowed to be moved to the mainland. They are the children of very humble people, but, if a contribution, even as small as six shillings per week during the school year, is allowed in respect of each child, I am satisfied that with the assistance of food sent from home and their own boats these children would be enabled to be suitably educated at a very small cost to the State. My appeal is that these children should get the rights which the Constitution says that they ought to get and that they ought not to be forced to bring a Chancery action in Dublin to have their rights declared under the Constitution. We all know that if they did, at the end of a week or a fortnight of argument before Mr. Justice Meredith, they would get a declaration that they are entitled to these rights at a cost which would be more than sufficient to carry out my suggestion for the next twenty years.
While I am talking about Schull, I want to draw the Minister's attention to another matter. During the war period, the necessity for a female school in the town of Schull was very badly felt. There were no grants for that purpose then available. There was a small community of nuns there. These good nuns had not themselves the money, but they obtained money from other sources and from other sections of their Order and—what is a credit to those good nuns, a credit to Schull and a credit to their Order—they expended £2,500 in the building of a school. There is a large amount of the money which they borrowed still due. I suggest to the Minister that he should not take advantage of any technicality, but that he should take over that school, have it vested in trustees, put under the direct control of the Department of Education and pay back to those noble-hearted ladies some at least of the money they have expended. I do not think that is an unreasonable suggestion. I do hope the Minister will look into it and see if something cannot be done to relieve a situation which should never have arisen and which would never have arisen were it not for the period in which that building had to be erected, if the people were to get the education they were by law entitled to.
There is one other small point that I will refer to briefly, lest I be ruled out of order. I suggest that the Minister for Education should get at the soft side of the Minister for Finance in connection with the question to which I propose to allude. We all know that buses and motor conveyances are now provided in some country districts for the conveyance of children to school. There is no sight more encouraging than that of those children driving comfortably to school on a very wet morning. On the other hand, I know no more distressing sight than that of little children travelling on foot two or three miles to school on a wet morning. They face the day's work wet and shivering and they are unable to learn. In some instances, these motor conveyances have been provided, or largely provided, by the generosity of local people. I ask the Minister for Education to persuade the Minister for Finance to provide that no motor conveyances used solely for the purpose of conveying children to or from school shall be subject to any motor duty. That is a very small matter, but it is one that would affect some of these conveyances. If granted, I am sure it would open the way for similar conveyances and thus provide a much-needed want. I know the Minister has done a good deal in this respect. I know that the methods of conveyance he has provided for children to and from school have met with universal approval. They are in accord with the laws of God and the laws of humanity. I merely put this small point before the Minister now.
On the Vote for the office of the Minister for Local Government and Public Health I referred to the lack of sanitary arrangements in the national schools. These arrangements are both inadequate and primitive. I think that one of the first charges on any sums allocated for the reconstruction of schools should be the provision of proper sanitation. It is a very bad start if children are brought up in an atmosphere of neglect of proper sanitation. If they are not educated in the ways of modern sanitary appliances I fear they will go through life with a handicap. Medical inspection of schools is making somewhat slow headway. It is not through any fault of the Minister for Local Government and Public Health that only in a small number of counties have appointments been made of county medical officers of health. These county medical officers of health are responsible for the medical inspection of school children. Unfortunately, too many children attend school with infectious and contagious diseases. There is no provision made in the majority of schools for their inspection and, following inspection, for their segregation and treatment. I think it is very hard on parents who take care of their children, especially with regard to cleanliness of their heads and scalps, that their children should be infected by those of negligent parents. I know that there has been some provision made for lectures on hygiene, but these lectures should be on a more elaborate scale. I will be told, no doubt, that that will come with medical inspection of school children. I hope it will, but it is coming very slowly. Lately, I noticed that some children leaving school invested in chewing gum. The great drawback of chewing gum is that the gum is indestructible. This piece of chewing gum passed around from mouth to mouth amongst a dozen school children. Each of them had their such out of it. It struck me that if there was one child with infectious disease in the group how easily the disease would be spread amongst all the others. Infectious disease has been spread amongst school children in that way.
We have heard a lot to-night about Gaelic as a medium through which to teach other subjects. While I have been in this House I have been voting for compulsory Gaelic in the national schools. I believe in the educational value of a second language. There are some languages of greater educational value than others, but I thought the second language which had the greatest chance in the national schools in Ireland was Gaelic. I think it was advisable to avail of Gaelic as a second language for the purpose of expanding the intellects of the children, because children who learn a second language have certainly an advantage in after life over unilingual children. I know arguments can be used that you could get a better second language than Gaelic. It is another question when you make Gaelic a medium for teaching other subjects. There could reasonably be no objection to Irish or Gaelic as a compulsory subject if it were taught as any other language is taught in schools. I think the primary idea of the enthusiasts—I shall not call them fanatics—in making Gaelic the medium for teaching other subjects is that the child shall be taught Irish from the time he goes into school until he leaves it. Undoubtedly, the parents of those children resent the teaching of other subjects—very important subjects such as mathematics — through the medium of Irish, but they are cocreed with the bribe that their children cannot get a Civil Service appointment without a knowledge of Gaelic. In that way, they are reconciled to it. They could also be reminded of the fact that a lot of these children find their way into the big business houses of Dublin, Cork, Limerick and elsewhere, and that Irish is not the language of those business houses. Accountancy is not conducted in Irish, and children who are taught accountancy or mathematics through the medium of Gaelic are very much handicapped in these houses. Deputy O'Connell has said—nobody disputes the wisdom of his statement—that it is time for an assessment. If an assessment comes, I hope it will be an impartial assessment. If there are to be enthusiasts for Gaelic on the assessment board, I would ask the Minister to see that there are also people on it with more sense of proportion and more sense of reality. Some aspersions have been cast on the Irish national teachers—I think very undeservedly. I think the national teachers are a very fine body of Irishmen. This country owes them a very great debt. If the Irish people are to be a success in their own country—or out of it for that matter—it will be due to the efficiency of the Irish national teachers.
It is not given to many people to have the opportunity of obtaining a university education. I should like to see every teacher in Ireland, in due course, having a university degree—not only a degree or diploma in education, but also one of the other university degrees. I think it would be a very good investment for the country. The only way you can bring university education to the homes of the poor people is by utilising teachers who are graduates of the universities. If that were done, you might have to improve the salaries of teachers, but I believe it would be money well expended. I think that the national teachers, owing to their knowledge of school children, should be associated more closely with the formulation of programmes. They understand a child and the capacity of a child better than the people who draw up those programmes. One great fault, I think, at present is that the programme is overcrowded. When I was a boy—I was not a very distinguished boy—I had the advantage of being taught a subject thoroughly before proceeding to another. For instance, I knew addition before I went to subtraction, and subtraction before I went to multiplication, and so on through the whole gamut. Nowadays there is quite a different system in operation. A child who does not know addition or subtraction will ask you a question about decimals. I think that is the wrong way. But there is overcrowding, and I really think that if the national teachers had more to say to the formulation of programmes there would be a more commonsense system of education, and in the long run the children would have a more solid basis for the different pursuits in life to which they will be called.
With regard to the county council scholarships that are available for children in national schools, I do not say that they are inadequate in number, but the amount of the scholarship is inadequate for any boy or girl. No boy or girl can avail of the university education to which these scholarships are supposed to lead except their parents have means to supplement the amount provided by the scholarship. I would certainly prefer to see the amount doubled, even if the number were to be reduced to half. I think it would lead to better results, because if this expenditure of public money is at all justifiable, it is for the purpose of tapping a higher order of intellect. I do not know if they have succeeded in all cases in tapping that higher order of intellect. I do not know whether or not the Minister is in a position to tell me, but I would like to know how these boys get on afterwards when they go to the university. Do they get honours through all their examinations, do they get honours at all, or are there instances where they failed to pass? I think that is the real test of the success of the county scholarships scheme. I am rather pleased with the whole trend of the debate, because it shows that we have come to realise the reality of the situation of education in Ireland, and I think the sooner we face it the better.
I receive a good many complaints as to the deficiency of primary education. I never heard that deficiency, if it exists, attributed to the teachers, either from lack of hard work or of enthusiasm. Most of the criticisms I heard as regards primary education were on the grounds of trying to convey instructions through Irish to pupils who were not conversant with the language, and I myself quite realise it. When I was at school I could read a French book so as to get its meaning, and if I was allowed plenty of time and the use of a dictionary I might have been able to express my meaning in French that might not be very correct, but I know that if an attempt had been made to convey instruction in any other subject through the medium of the French language I would have had a very poor knowledge of that subject. If you try to convey knowledge of any subject through a language with which the pupil is not really conversant, what occurs is this: he is asked a question, and the first thing he has to do is to translate it into the language that he knows best, then think of the answer, translate it back and reply in the language in which the question was asked. If education is carried on under that system there is every reason why there should be a good deal of cause for the complaints that we hear every day about primary education.
Deputy O'Connell has dealt so extensively with questions affecting pupils and questions affecting teachers, and has also dealt so extensively with the education policy generally, that I do not propose to traverse much of the ground which he has covered. But there is one matter which I think has not been touched upon in this debate and to which I desire to direct the attention of the Minister, and that is the matter of the provision of playing fields in connection with national schools. I am one of those people who believe that up to the present the Department, while I give it a good deal of credit for paying a considerable amount of attention to mental education, have not given sufficient attention to the question of physical education amongst school children. I believe that no matter how good our educational programme may be, no matter how perfect our educational system may be, if the children attending the national schools are not physically fit they cannot benefit from the education that is given them in the manner in which the Department desire, because I believe that a fit body is conducive to a clear brain, just as an unfit body is conducive to a muddled brain.
Deputy Hennessy has referred to the county medical officers of health in regard to the medical inspection of school children. I believe that it is very desirable to have this medical inspection of school children, but I also believe that if more attention were paid to the question of physical culture and organised games in the schools there would not be the same necessity for the medical inspection of the children. I understand that some time ago a deputation from the Irish National Teachers' Organisation, together with a deputation from the Gaelic Athletic Association, waited upon the Department. I understand that while the Department thought it desirable that playing fields should be provided as far as possible in connection with national schools, they pointed out that there were very many difficulties. I admit that as far as the cities and some urban areas are concerned there might be considerable difficulty in acquiring playing fields, but with regard to the children attending national schools generally I think that sufficient attention has not been paid to this matter. Take the universities. I think that Deputy Thrift or Deputy Alton or Deputy Tierney will agree with me that as far as the universities and the colleges are concerned a considerable amount of importance is placed on this question of playing fields, because those in charge of the universities and the colleges realise that it is necessary that attention should be paid to organised games. I believe that if the Department would pay more attention to this question of acquiring playing fields for the children much better results would accrue, and while it may be said that considerable expenditure would have to be incurred, I do not think that that expenditure would be altogether wasted, because I believe that money would be saved in connection with the medical inspection of the school children and in regard to their health generally. I bring this matter forward in the hope that the Minister will give us some assurance that an endeavour will be made to acquire playing fields as far as possible.
There is another matter which I wish to touch upon, in view of what has been said to-day by a number of those who took part in the debate, and that is in connection with the teaching of subjects through the medium of Irish. I believe that the casual observer or reader of this debate would come to the conclusion from it that very few teachers are capable of teaching other subjects through the medium of Irish. Such a conclusion would be, in my opinion, altogether erroneous. There are a large number of teachers quite capable of teaching other subjects than Irish through the medium of the Irish language. In that respect I would direct the Minister's attention to a recommendation which, I think, was made by the Gaeltacht Commission with regard to teachers in the Gaeltacht area. There is a large number of teachers there capable of teaching all subjects through the medium of Irish. One of the recommendations was that those teachers should get some additional remuneration, either by the restoration of the ten per cent. that was deducted from the teachers generally or by means of some bonus. But I think that the Department should hold out some inducement to teachers who are teaching in the Gaeltacht subjects through the medium of Irish to encourage them to remain in the Gaeltacht area.
One gratifying feature in connection with this debate is the increased interest that is taken in educational matters by this House. I am long enough a member of it to remember when the subject of education was introduced, either through the Estimates or in connection with some of the many Bills we have had, that the number of Deputies taking part in the discussions was very small indeed. I am glad to notice the increase that has taken place in the interest in educational matters. It makes me hopeful in regard to the future, because I am one of those who hold that education lies at the bottom of all our industrial and other activities, and I am quite satisfied that this debate will be helpful to the Minister and to his Department in shaping the future educational policy of the country. I think that the criticisms that have been offered will also be helpful to the Minister in dealing with the important question that has been referred to by almost every speaker—that is, the policy of teaching English through the medium of Irish. I have criticised that policy on a great many occasions, and the more I see of it the more I am convinced that the shortcomings which many of us find in our primary education to-day are largely due to the mistaken policy of trying to teach English subjects through the medium of Irish.
I was very glad to hear the Minister's statement with reference to the great improvement that has taken place in the work of our technical schools. I was particularly glad to hear from him that there has not merely been an increase in the number of students, but that that increase has been most marked in the subjects connected with purely technical education, an advance which the Minister very truly said is of great importance. He said it was specially noticeable in the case of what he might call technology. There was, he said, if you take science pure and applied, and handicraft, an increase of 65 per cent. since 1924. That was one of the most satisfactory statements which I heard from the Minister since he took charge of the Department, and I only hope that that good work and that good progress will be continued.
We still hear from technical education committees and from those engaged in the work of technical education complaints of the low standard of the primary education of the pupils entering the technical schools. I am satisfied that that in our city is, to some extent, if not to a considerable extent, due to the overcrowding that exists in most of the city schools. The attention of the Minister has been drawn to this matter here over and over again and I would like to hear from him what steps, if any, have been taken by the Department to deal with this question of overcrowding during the past twelve months. One would like to know what extensions have taken place, and what extensions are in contemplation, because if we allow this matter of overcrowding to continue it is obvious that the standard of primary education will continue to fall. All of us will agree that good work cannot be done in primary schools where overcrowding exists. I would like to hear from the Minister if definite steps have been taken to deal with this important matter. There is another question arising out of overcrowding and it is one to which the Minister's attention has been drawn. In order to get the young people educated, families have in some cases to attend three or four different schools. Only one child can be taken in here, another in there and so on in the different schools. I know one family where the children have to attend four different schools in the city in order to get educated. One of the unfortunate effects is that when it comes to the holiday period all the schools have different closing times. In some cases you have two members of a family on holidays and the other two attending schools. That is very unfortunate for the poor people and for the schools, because if some members of a family are on holidays, I am quite sure the holiday influence is extended to the others who are at school.
The Minister has told me already that the question of uniformity of holidays is not one for his Department but for school managers. I cannot agree with that. Under normal circumstances it might be one for the school managers, but owing to the special circumstances brought about by overcrowding and the fact that families are distributed over a number of schools it is a matter that calls for special attention from the Minister and I hope some attempt will be made to bring about uniformity.
The only other matter to which I would like to draw attention is that of scholarships. I am not satisfied, particularly from figures obtained in reply to a question some little time ago, with the results of these scholarships. I would like more attention devoted to them. In many cases the competition for them is exceedingly small. Scholarships have not been awarded in many cases because there were not sufficient competitors and in other cases because the answering was of such a low standard only a moiety of the scholarships was awarded. The whole matter is one that calls for immediate inquiry. I would like to have from the Minister some information as to what he proposes doing. I am not at all satisfied that the question of increasing the value of the scholarship is really the trouble. I think there are other causes. Something should be done to keep the scholarships constantly before the minds of the students and some effort should be made to induce more to enter for them. I would like the scholarships inquired into from another point of view. I think most of them go to those engaged in what I might term the commercial side of education rather than to encourage pupils to enter the industrial side. That is a matter upon which the Minister might be able to give us more information than we have had at our disposal. I would like to see an increasing number of scholarships devoted to encouraging larger numbers to enter the industrial sphere.
I have listened to this debate most attentively from the beginning and I do not think I have ever been more interested in a discussion on educational matters since I had the honour of being elected a member of the Dáil some seven years ago. It has certainly been the most peaceful discussion on the subject that I have ever known to take place here. We have had the benefit of listening to experts from every side on the subject of education. From every Party we have heard men speak who are well qualified from their knowledge and experience to give us their opinions of the advance that education is making in the country. The Minister is to be congratulated on the increasing success of the Compulsory School Attendance Act. We hope that it will continue to increase in usefulness as time goes on. I think there are some classes in the community that are escaping this Act, and I will bring one class under the Minister's notice. I refer to the children of people who go about in vans. In my county and, I conclude, in other counties, during the summer and autumn, large numbers of people travel in vans. I took the trouble to count the number of people one day. There were three vans in camp quite close to me and the total number of persons was thirty-two. Do children in those circumstances get any education?
[An Ceann Comhairle resumed the Chair.]
Their parents move about from place to place. They have no fixed residence, and whether the children ever learn anything or come within the reach of education at all is very problematical. There is another class of people somewhat similarly affected, though I do not know that their case is so urgent now. I refer to people in canal boats. There are not as many of them now as there were; there may be a few left still. Large numbers of children who live in vans escape the influence of education altogether. A great deal of good work was done, and it is still being done, I think, by committees of ladies appointed years ago to look after boarded-out children. It has often occurred to me that it might have a good and a humanising effect, particularly in lonely districts, if ladies of the proper creed, the creed belonging to the majority of the children attending the schools, were invited to visit the schools occasionally and take an interest in the educational work. I do not wish to interfere in any way, but I think that would have a humanising effect. It is a matter worthy of consideration, because I think the more interest shown by our citizens in the schools the better it would be. There are very few people who will take trouble on these subjects. If suitable people could be invited to give their assistance in this matter it would be extremely helpful.
I agree with Deputy Fahy—and I have heard it also mentioned by other people—that in some cases there seem to be too many subjects taught, with the result that there is not the efficiency one would look for from the teaching that is given. I have not the opportunity of observing matters that Deputy Fahy has, and I take it what he says is correct. Deputy Mrs. Collins-O'Driscoll made a remark that I heard a good many other ladies utter. She referred to neglect in the matter of the teaching of sewing in girls' schools. That is a most important matter.
On a point of explanation, I am inclined to think that the Deputy misunderstood me. I mentioned that needlework was not, under the present programme, taught to the very junior children.
I apologise. Then it would appear that in the junior classes needlework is not taught. I agree with Deputy Mrs. Collins-O'Driscoll that needlework ought to be taught in the girls' schools from the commencement. I do not think I could agree with Deputy O'Connell when he says there was differentiation made in some schools and children were kept out for one reason or another. I think it is a good thing to have children of more or less equal ability in the same school. It is not everybody who possesses the art of teaching, and we all know that the very cleverest people are not always the best teachers. If you put very clever boys and very stupid boys together, the result is not so good for the boys who are not so clever; they fall behind. If they were under other teachers they might possibly become extremely able and accomplished. It is necessary to have a class confined to pupils of equal ability and not have very clever pupils and pupils of less ability put together. There ought to be more grading of schools where that is possible.
In point of fact in a technical school that I knew the principal was one of the most brilliant men that this particular school ever had, yet he turned out his pupils less satisfactorily than many men with less ability could have done. It was afterwards proved to be the case when he was followed by others who were apparently not quite so clever and yet who achieved better results. I am entirely in favour of the teaching of Irish and always have been. I am in favour of bi-lingualism because I think it is of great commercial value to be able to speak two languages from your early youth. If you are able to speak two languages to start with you have no difficulty in acquiring a number of others. I have always held that the teaching, particularly of subjects like arithmetic through Irish is not wise; I do not think the result has been good. For one thing I think there are not enough teachers to be got who can go around the country and give efficient teaching. Even if there were I wonder how many of the pupils in the country districts can take in the instruction that is given? I know of one school in my neighbourhood where there is a most efficient Irish teacher, but I hear pupils complain very much about having to listen to instruction in Irish which they cannot take fully in. I think that is a matter which ought to be considered. There has been general agreement that the matter has been too much pushed. We are all desirous that Irish shall become the language of the country and shall be spoken but what we want to get is the best way to make it a national language to be spoken by everybody. I think the continuation classes that are promised by the Minister will have a very good effect because the want of sufficient education has prevented a very large number of people from joining the technical classes. They are unwilling to display their want of education. I remember years ago when I was connected with a technical school helping to form some of those classes by going out and asking people to join them. That is not a satisfactory state of affairs at all.
I think with these continuation classes that the necessity will not arise of having to go out in the highways and the hedges and compel people to go, but that of their own free will they will see that it is to their advantage to go in and learn the ins and outs of the particular trade they mean to make their livelihood by. The Minister is bringing forward his Vocational Bill and I will deal a little further with the matter in Committee. He has been congratulated upon the improvement that seems to be taking place in the general education of the country, and I think we may look in the not far distant future for further advances and higher results than we have yet attained.
I do not intend to spoil by iteration the wise criticisms and helpful suggestions that have been made to the Minister with regard to education, general and particular. I find myself in sympathy with most of what has been uttered to-day in this debate, and particularly I welcome the suggestion that emaunated from Deputy Fahy that fostering rather than enforcing ought to be the watchword with regard to the teaching of Irish. I think that will have quicker and sounder results and be less detrimental to education in general than the present method, which, I fear and deplore, does not bring the results that the originators hoped for. I rose primarily to reinforce the remarks which Deputy Fahy made regarding the National Museum. I think last year I drew a rather mournful picture of the state of the Museum, as it presented itself to me, with regard to its staff and with regard to its accommodation. I would like to ask the Minister what steps have been taken to improve matters. Are they any better than they were last year? The Minister gave us some assurances last year that he had not forgotten, and that he was doing a lot, but I do not see any signs of the Museum getting better accommodation. Is there any prospect in the near future that they will have a place to display whole collections that are at present in cold storage, particularly the collection of the Geological Survey?
I would be glad to know what the Minister is doing with regard to the staff, whether he has decided how the Museum is to be run, what assistance will be got and whether those figures on the paper represent merely paper officials and are not real, are not standing for real active, live officers of the Museum. If we let this matter alone too long I am afraid the Museum will suffer. Other museums in these islands are pushing ahead. I know that in the Six Counties they have taken wonderful strides. I would be sorry to see this museum, which is such a pride to us, resting on its oars or going back.
One word of explanation. In speaking on this Vote I said that the teaching of other subjects through Irish by teachers with a slight knowledge of Irish should not be encouraged and I said the teaching was bad for Irish and bad for education. I said the same thing in Irish two years ago here and no notice was taken of it. I must say that a whole thesis has been built upon my remark and that the foundation is not strong enough and will not stand the thesis that has been built upon it. I want to make it clear that I am in favour of the teaching of subjects through Irish by teachers who are competent to do so in all schools throughout Ireland. I wish Deputies would go into the schools and see how very little Irish is being taught there. Students can be taught Irish and have been taught Irish and I have been in schools and have seen them get taught. While being in favour of the fostering of the language I recognise that there are many schools, primary and secondary, in which no Irish would be taught unless it was compulsory.
I feel Deputy Fahy must have felt that he started something more than he expected from one remark of his. With regard to the last remark made by Deputy Fahy I do not think there is much change—I have not recent figures here—in the actual amount of teaching through Irish in the last three years. May I quote the figures in this Report in the middle of the year 1926—I am speaking now of the matter of which complaints are being made and that is teaching through Irish and Irish only—there is a certain amount done in which there is a little Irish used. I am leaving that out, because the only thing coming into play is the teaching through Irish only. It might have prevented a certain amount of over-statement of the position if these statistics had been looked into in the Report. I am leaving out infants, because there is a general consensus of opinion that if the teacher can teach Irish it can be done there. That was the recommendation of the National Programme Committee. Only 4,000 were taught through the medium of Irish in the first standard, in the second standard 2,700, in the third standard 1,500, in the fourth standard 1,000, in the fifth standard 600, in the sixth standard, roughly, 350— I am giving round figures—in the seventh standard 162, and in the eighth standard 69. May I suggest that valuable as the discussion was, and I am not at all inclined to question its value, it is an exaggeration to suggest that any lack of improvement or any failure to advance as quickly as we ought to advance is due in the Saorstát, as a whole, in the bulk of the schools, to an attempt to teach through Irish? It is one of the most important questions raised here. I admit it is a very important question, and I will straightaway agree with a principle— not merely is it the theoretical thing to which one might give assent, but it is a thing which it is my duty to see is acted on in practice—that it is bad educationally and for the language that teachers who do not know Irish should be asked to teach subjects through Irish to pupils who do not know Irish sufficiently to follow. That, in fact, where there is teaching through Irish, and where we would encourage teaching through the medium of Irish, the two conditions ought to be present, the capacity of the teacher on the one hand, and the capacity of the pupils on the other hand. If there has been, as many here seem to think there has been, in the actual carrying out of the programme by the Department, any tendency to go away from that principle, I will certainly inquire carefully into it. I will undertake to have an inquiry made to see how that can be done, and so far as in me lies apply effective checks.
I do not think that it is wise that that should be done. I think that there is general agreement on that so far as the House is concerned. On the other hand, I am not willing to accept the principle that outside the Gaeltacht there should be no teaching through the medium of Irish. I think that that proposition was advanced here. If the language is to become a language in the sense of being a real second language, a language in which people not merely read but think—many pupils in all countries read foreign languages but cannot think in them—then the language must be something that is being studied for purposes other than school purposes. Therefore there should be a reasonable advance in this matter but, I quite admit, only a reasonable advance. As to whether some extended inquiry in that respect is necessary, I will have careful investigation made.
There may have been a certain amount of confusion caused in the past twelve months owing to certain circulars that were sent out. They were open to different interpretations. It was, for instance, laid down that the teacher was, amongst other things, expected to carry out where possible the requirements of the National Programme. That contained a clause about teaching through the medium of Irish. It seemed a reasonable interpretation of that programme that where there was a young teacher, who had certain abilities and who had made no effort to qualify himself by getting a bilingual certificate, it would be fair that he should be penalised for not doing so and that if he made that excuse for not teaching Irish it could be brought against him in the report. I realised that even then there was a danger of pressing unduly, I have decided that all ambiguities shall be cleared up and we will deal with that teacher not by compelling him to teach Irish, but in another manner. I do not think that there should be any force used to secure teaching through Irish where the conditions insisted on here are not fulfilled.
There is rather a consensus of opinion, and if Deputies are under the impression owing to certain complaints that have reached them that we are going too far I will have that matter carefully and fully inquired into. It is my firm conviction, as I have said, that undue haste, where neither the teachers nor the pupils are capable, will do harm to the language itself apart from the educational damage done. Another matter that was raised was the question of scholarships. Deputy Good, Deputy Byrne and others raised it, and I think that Dr. Hennessy gave, at least, what was a partial explanation and that was the value of the scholarship. I have seen articles recently dealing with the subject and they proceeded on the assumption that the cream of national schools went in for those scholarships and on that assumption there was a very telling criticism made. Inaccuracies were, indeed, made in dealing with the actual papers set. It was alleged that the answering of a certain number of questions would secure a pass. That conclusion was arrived at by cutting each question in half, an inaccuracy which I was surprised to see in an article dealing with an educational matter.
I am rather doubtful about the premises on which the whole argument is founded. I am not denying that there is a case for investigation. —I think there is—but the sweeping conclusion reached by various people from these statistics do not seem to me to be justified. I ask Deputies to consider, in the case of the parents of a good many pupils at primary schools reaching the age of fourteen, what inducement is there even supposing the value of the scholarship was brought before the parents? Is the value of a scholarship itself sufficient to induce them to allow pupils to go on? I suggest that it is not in a good many cases. It would not tempt a good many brilliant young pupils. We have other tests besides these scholarships. We have, for instance, the entrance to the preparatory colleges. There we have keen competition and there we get a type of pupil that certainly cannot have been neglected in the national school if the pupils are to accomplish anything like that which they have accomplished when they come to the Intermediate certificate examination. I mention that as a set-off to the sweeping conclusions drawn from the scholarship statistics.
I am dealing now with pupils, the great bulk of whom were drawn from national schools, who then went on to secondary schools, known as preparatory colleges, and presented themselves. These colleges differ from most secondary schools inasmuch as they present practically all their pupils for examination. So far as the preparatory colleges are concerned, the total percentage of passes was, in the case of boys, 100 per cent., and in the case of other schools, not preparatory colleges, 75 per cent. In the case of girls 93 per cent., and for schools not preparatory colleges 69 per cent. The percentage of those who obtained honours was: preparatory colleges, boys, 83.9 per cent., and for schools other than preparatory colleges 30 per cent. In the case of girls the corresponding figures were 22 per cent. and 19 per cent. It is not merely in Irish that this has been done. In case Deputies might go away with the idea that the reason they scored so well was because they scored in Irish they should turn up—and I ask them to do so—the actual returns for the leaving certificate examination and they will see that the scoring was in all subjects. Take, for instance, history. The figure there was for boys 62 per cent. and in the case of preparatory colleges 99.4 per cent. The corresponding figures for girls were 61.5 per cent., and preparatory colleges 88.7 per cent.
In the case of mathematics, a subject which we discussed here on more than one occasion, the figures for all schools were 76.8 per cent., and for preparatory colleges 95.2 per cent. In the case of girls the corresponding figures 49.8 per cent. and preparatory colleges 94.8 per cent. That seems to a certain extent to knock on the head the theory which I have often heard advanced, namely, that girls are not capable of doing mathematics. Deputies will remember that these things are done through the medium of Irish, and the bulk of the pupils do not come from the Gaeltacht. I am really using that as a kind of corrective to the lugubrious views put forward as to the results produced by the national schools, based on the assumption that the cream of the national school students went in for the county council scholarships. I do not think that that is so. I think that economic reasons prevent them from doing so. On the other hand, there is a case, I admit, for inquiry as to why most pupils do not present themselves for examination for county council scholarships.
Deputy Good made a suggestion, to which I may have effect given, that the matter should be brought before all the pupils, who should be told that these scholarships are available. Deputy O'Connell raised the point as to whether the preparatory colleges are not being forced too much. Yes, if their education began at the time that pupils entered such colleges, but my whole argument is that their education did not begin there. As the Deputy knows, between the ages of twelve and fourteen in preparatory colleges and national schools, more or less, the same programme is covered. We are trying for coordination there. I want to say that the education cannot be altogether so hopeless in the national schools at the age of fourteen when such results are achieved. When it comes to Civil Service examinations that are open to national schools, and also to secondary schools, a fair percentage of national school pupils are successful.
Deputy O'Connell raised the question of the health of the pupils. In fact, one of the most successful preparatory colleges is also successful in hurling. It is not suggested that mentally or physically the pupils are decrepit despite their hard studies. I have not heard that students there are worked more than those in secondary schools. I have heard complaints, the value of which is very difficult to test, namely, that in all secondary schools too much is required from pupils. That is a complaint which I have heard in other countries as well as in this. It is a difficult matter to investigate. I tried to do so, but, especially in the case of day schools, it is extremely difficult to determine what amount of home work a boy does when home from school. Whether he is doing two hours' work or four hours' work it is not easy to say. The same applies even in the case of students in the study hall at residential schools. Another point raised was the question of school accommodation. During the financial year 1928-9 grants were made to the extent of £61,000 for the erection of 33 new schools, which afforded accommodation for 3,400 pupils. Grants amounting to £26,000 were sanctioned for the enlargement of 27 schools to provide additional accommodation for 1,250 pupils. Grants amounting to £13,000 were allotted for works of structural importance, and so on, in the case of 164 schools. During the financial year 1929-30 grants were made to the extent of £41,000 for the erection of eighteen new schools to afford accommodation for 23,000 children, and grants amounting to £24,000 for the enlargement of 28 schools to provide additional accommodation for 1,400 pupils, and general improvement grants were sanctioned to the extent of £27,000.
Deputy Good was anxious to have some information—I am sorry I had not more notice of it—about the accommodation provided in Dublin. I cannot give him particulars for the present year, though some of the actual work I shall now mention is going on at present. There was completed about 18 months ago accommodation for 2,200 pupils at the Marino; there has also recently been provided near James's Street accommodation for 600 pupils in the Keogh Barracks district; a school at Iona Road for 500 pupils; a school at Killester for 600 pupils; a grant has recently been made for a school at Fairbrother's Field, which is being built for 400 pupils, and a school for girls at Upper Drumcondra for 600 pupils. For the last two or three years we have, therefore, accommodation provided or to be provided for about 5,000 extra pupils. As to the primary certificate examination, some extraordinary deductions were made. Deputy Fahy conveyed the impression, and Deputy Byrne backed him up——
Two per cent.
Yes, two per cent. After all, if there are 500,000 pupils in National Schools and only 10,000 present themselves, therefore only two per cent. go in for the primary certificate. That seems simple arithmetic. The only difficulty is that it is too simple, like all statistics. Of course, if there are only 10,000, that can only be taken in conjunction with the number of pupils in the sixth standard, or of the age of 14, which is an entirely different proposition. But remember this is only the first year, and I suggest that before there are violent diatribes on the system from one side or the other—because I think there were attacks from another quarter during the usual Easter spate of oratory on educational matters—we should just give it a chance and see what is in it.
Complaints were made about the Irish and mathematic papers in the secondary schools. I went in for a secondary school examination in the beginning of the 'nineties, and I never remember a year in which complaints were not made about papers of one kind or another, nearly always mathematics, and also, naturally, in the case of Irish. It is a weapon open to anyone to use. I find it very difficult to get Irish experts or teachers to agree, and, possibly, the same would apply even to art experts, or tenors, or sopranos, or anybody of that kind. It is an extremely difficult matter. An "A" school is not bound to present any particular percentage of its pupils, but in fact "A" schools, as a rule, present a higher percentage for the examination than other schools. Of course, it is not the numbers presented for the examination that decide whether they become an "A" school or not. It is a question of whether they will teach through Irish. I cannot take the boys, as you cannot get an average, there being only one school, but if you take the girls' schools, where there are a number of "A" schools, you will find that there the results, on the whole, are slightly higher for the average schools over the country.
Deputy Fahy and Deputy Thrift referred to the question of the grievances that certain secondary teachers have as to pensions regulations. I indicated when introducing this scheme, or certainly afterwards to Deputies who came to me that great trouble had been taken to secure that no reasonable case of a demand for a pension would be left out. Certainly as cases presented themselves in the actual framing of the scheme provision was made to meet every case we could think of. But it is inevitable that there should be cases we could not think of. Since then a number of cases have come to my notice that did, on the merits, seem to be hard cases, but Deputies will realise that when two or three cases of this kind come to my notice I cannot immediately propose a new scheme. Therefore, if there are hard cases I think Deputies might take Deputy Thrift's suggestion and bring them before me. I shall only promise to deal with them in so far as they are really hard cases of people whose main business is secondary teaching, not people who are really not secondary teachers. In any reform which may be contemplated, it must be made clear that we cannot allow in people whose main business is not secondary teaching.
As regards the other subjects raised, Deputy Thrift and Deputy Fahy mentioned the question of increments of salary and the connection of that with the quotas in the schools. We have given on the whole a liberal quota to the schools. The question is: is that a correct quota? To us it seems a generous quota, and if that be so, it is, as things stand, inevitable that a certain number of teachers who are in certain schools beyond the quota should unfortunately be deprived of their increments. The suggestion was put forward that we might have a national rather than a school scheme. I considered these various questions at one time or another, and up to the present I have not come to any satisfactory solution of the difficulty. I do not say that my efforts will stop; they will not; but I confess that I have not yet reached any satisfactory solution. Deputy Thrift drew attention to the fact that the number in the course of the last four or five years had diminished from about 120 to something in the nature of 60 or 70—at any rate diminished 50 per cent. He regards that as an argument that the question is easy to deal with.
Easier!
I am not so sure, because in order to bring in these you may have to open a very wide door indeed, so far as the quota in the schools is concerned and the employment in the schools of teachers for whom we cannot pay. That is my difficulty. We could not, for instance, give a school carte blanche, however desirable it might be, to employ as many teachers as it liked and to pay them all. What I fear is that in the effort to deal even with this small number that remains we may have to open the door much too wide in that respect. However, I shall have the matter examined again and see whether something cannot be done. It is a surprisingly intricate question and, having given a great deal of consideration to it, I am not altogether too hopeful.
The usual questions have been raised with regard to the heating and cleaning of the schools which, as I have on more than one occasion pointed out, is essentially a local matter. It is so in every country, but in the case of a country where 97 per cent. of the cost of primary education is borne by the central Government a greater effort might be made locally. I am rather in the habit of emphasising that we are absolutely exceptional in that respect.
As to Deputy Goulding's suggestion of sending pictures from the National Gallery to other cities, I presume he meant for occasional exhibitions as temporary loans. I shall bring that matter before the Trustees. It is not a matter I can deal with, as I am not the custodian of the pictures, but I shall recommend it for their serious consideration.
Deputy Byrne asked a question as to whether it is my intention to change the age for entrance to the preparatory colleges. It has been reduced from 16 to 15½ already, and it may in future be brought down somewhat lower—that is the upper age—but not without due notice being given to the parents. Notice of any change of that kind should be given well ahead.
I think it was Deputy Fahy asked a question about the Appeal Board. I appoint the inspector, so the danger that the Deputy fears is not likely to occur. Professor Whelehan has kindly consented to act as chairman of the Board. I think at the moment the national teachers are represented by Mr. Quinn. A delay of the kind mentioned by Deputy Fahy is sometimes inevitable, especially when we change over to a new system. As a rule, we try to have an appeal hurried up as quickly as possible.
Deputy G. Wolfe, having stated that the programme was overloaded, did what every other well-meaning person in the State does, immediately asked for a new subject, that is, needlework. I admit there is a great deal to be said for needlework.
It is an old subject.
If it is there already, well it is there. I understood from him that it was not there, and therefore that it was being asked for. I can assure the Deputy that it is not at all an unusual thing. Deputy Dr. Hennessy also complained of the number of subjects, and I think he wanted one of his own added; everybody wants one of his own added. Some people have put forward a plea, and there may be a good deal in it, that if girls could do less at mathematics and more at domestic economy and needlework it might be better for the country as a whole. On the other hand, we have the cry that there are not sufficient girls doing mathematics. The question of needlework and domestic economy for girls is a very important one. I regret to say both subjects are being crowded out. That has not been mentioned in the debate. Both of them are being crowded out to an extent I do not like. I think a great deal could be achieved if we had more domestic economy being taught in the schools, and more needlework likewise.
The question of co-ordinating the University standard with the leaving certificate was raised, firstly, by Deputy Fahy, and then by Deputy Tierney. If it is the will of the University representatives, we might pass an Act to provide that nobody should be permitted to enter a University who had not passed the leaving certificate examination. I wonder whether or not that would meet with the approval of the University representatives. There are two ways of co-ordinating. You can go up or down, and I am not sure which way I was asked to coordinate here this evening. It is not often we have complaints made about our tests being too strict. Suggestions have been made that certain examinations that we conduct are not sufficiently testing, but here we have the complaint made that one of our examinations is altogether too difficult, from the university point of view.
What I had in mind was that, considering the high standard of the leaving certificate examination and the low standard of the matriculation examination, students are losing a year at the university.
At the university?
Yes. They are not doing very much work the first year.
I prefer to put it this way—that they are losing a year at the secondary school— that they do not stay on at the secondary school and go in a year later to the university. Universities are bodies that are very chary about their independence. I am glad that there has been an expression of opinion here that they should tone up their matriculation standard and see that they get in a more efficient type of student.
As regards the Cork School Attendance Committee, that Committee may not be functioning in the strict sense of the word, but the matter had not been brought to my notice before. As was seen from the figures I quoted last day, there is nothing to complain about as regards school attendance in the city of Cork. As regards the point raised by Deputy Jasper Wolfe regarding the children of the Calf and Castle Island, if he brings the case before me I will see to what extent a grant can be made for bringing those children to the mainland. I say that, while not at all accepting the interpretation of the Constitution which the Deputy gave. That we are, by the Constitution, bound to provide schools for the convenience of everybody I doubt very much. If the Deputy's interpretation were correct we would be bound to provide a schools for every isolated family living six miles from a national school.
The question of conveyance for school children has been brought, on several occasions, to my notice. It has been suggested that conveyances used for this purpose should be relieved of the tax of £70 which lorries have to bear. That would not be a satisfactory way of attacking the problem. These lorries do other work than conveying children to school. It would be much better to face the problem—as we are trying to face it—in conjunction with local people interested and see how the £60 or £70 can be made up. To remit a tax of that kind would lead to all sorts of abuses and difficulties.
The question of the charge of text-books was raised. The difficulty is this: there is a pupil in a class in the year 1929, let us say. That pupil has a certain text-book. As very often happens, he is not promoted. Is that pupil to have the same text-book next year in the same class? Is it not much better, in that case at all events, that there should be a change of text-book? That is the reason for any steps we take. That is the extent of our interference. There is great liberty allowed to schools in the choice of text-books. We cannot interfere unduly with that liberty. We could not, even in the schools of one city, prescribe a uniform series of text-books.
Deputy O'Connell raised a question which was referred to in a very different way by Deputy Good. That is the question of the reception of pupils into national schools in the City of Dublin. Deputy O'Connell's complaint was that pupils go to certain national schools and are told "no accommodation here." He complains that there is a selection actually made, and that, for instance, only brilliant pupils are taken into certain schools. It is extremely difficult to test whether that charge is true or not. In so far as it is true, how far can you interfere with the right of the parent of a brilliant pupil to send his or her child to the school which they think best? The question raises a difficult point of principle. But even to test the allegation itself is extremely difficult. I have heard the allegation on more than one occasion. It is not easy to test it, and it is still more difficult to find a remedy if the abuse —if it is an abuse—exists. The type of children going to different schools may be due to the exercise of a weeding-out power—if I might put it that way—exercised by the authority of some schools.
How far we could compel a uniform closing time for primary schools of a certain area is extremely difficult to say, because the schools are run by such different management. It is not merely a question of different managers. There are schools being run by different religious Orders and they have to consider the necessities of their community. They may find that the best time is the month of June. The ordinary schools may find the best time the month of August. I will look into the matter again and see whether more uniformity can be introduced in that regard. Deputy Good raised the question before and I looked into it then but not with much success. I will again consult the managers of the different schools in Dublin to see if greater uniformity, if not full uniformity, cannot be introduced.
Lest I was misunderstood, I should like to say that I have always found the Minister exceedingly ready to consider any representations in any case of hardship that arose.
Question put and agreed to.