asked the Minister for Education whether he has received a copy of the resolution passed by the Catholic Clerical Managers' Association endorsing the view of national teachers that it was unsound educationally to exclude English from the infants' schools outside the Gaeltacht, and whether he will ask the inspectors to report to him on the effect of such exclusion upon the children's education and development.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Exclusion of English from Infant Schools.
I have not received a copy of the resolution to which the Deputy refers, but my attention has been drawn to newspaper reports in which it was stated that the Central Council of the Catholic Clerical Managers' Association, at a meeting on the 16th June, 1936, passed a resolution on the subject. The existing programme of instruction requires the work in infant classes to be done entirely in Irish only where the teachers are sufficiently qualified. This principle was accepted and recommended by the National Programme Conference in 1926, which included amongst its personnel two representatives of the Catholic managers. My Department is in constant touch with the inspectors, and their reports on infants' classes, in which all the work is done through the medium of Irish by teachers with the requisite qualifications, do not indicate any material deviation from the normal intellectual training and development.
asked the Minister for Education whether any representations have been made to him by managers of national schools, giving the opinions of psychologists, doctors and teachers as to the injurious effect on the children's minds of excluding the use of the home language of the children from the infants' classes in the national schools.
In a few instances, managers of national schools have represented that, if all the work in the infants' classes were done through Irish, there would be a mental strain on the children. As I stated in my reply to a similar question by Deputy Dillon on the 26th February, 1936, I have no reason to believe that there is any real foundation for the suggestion. The existing programme of instruction requires all the work to be done in Irish in infant classes only where the teachers are sufficiently qualified.