asked the Minister for Education if he will state whether he proposes to issue a supplementary volume on the work of the Department of Education during the year 1938-39, embodying (1) the normal Report of the Department of Education for that year, completely omitted from the volume already published; and (2) those schedules dealing with primary education usually included in past reports and omitted from the volume already published for the year 1938-39.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Department of Education Report.
I am not prepared in present circumstances to arrange for the publication of the supplementary report suggested.
Is the Minister prepared to say why the educational results are being withheld, contrary to previous practice?
I have explained to the Deputy already that, on the grounds of economy, it has been considered necessary to reduce the extent of the information given in the annual report. I cannot promise that this matter will be reconsidered until after the emergency.
Will the Minister say whether the economy effected in this particular way is not more than offset by the ignorance in which Parliament and the public generally are left with regard to what is being done, and the progress that is being made in the various lines of educational work? Does he not realise that it is particularly necessary we should have this information this year in view of the fact that the reports, for some years past, have indicated a deterioration in certain important lines of study?
Would the Minister consider laying a typescript copy of the report in the Library?
As it is being printed it is scarcely necessary to have a typescript copy left there.
In view of what the Minister has just said, I must ask him to consider that, because it would be something to have the information made available for Deputies, although that would not at all meet the general object or purpose for which this information was published in the past, but it would be something.
I may have misled Deputy Norton. What I want to assure him is that the usual appendices to the report will be printed in the usual way. It is not proposed to print the additional information. The compilation of it will, I think, have to wait until, at any rate, the first report is published after the emergency.
The usual appendices are not printed because a substantial part of the appendices, dealing with primary education, is left but.