I move:—
That Dáil Éireann agrees with the recommendation of the Commission on Vocational Organisation that there should be established a council of education as a permanent institution to act as the accredited advisory body to the Minister for Education, and directs that a select committee of which the Minister for Education shall be chairman and consisting of 11 other Deputies be appointed with a view to the early formulation of the necessary legislative proposals.
The recommendation of the Vocational Organisation Commission is contained in paragraph 540 of their report. It says:—
"We recommend, therefore, the establishment of a council of education as a permanent institution to act as the accredited advisory body to the Minister for Education. It should be a vocational non-political body without any executive or administrative powers. It should strive by securing the ready co-operation of all concerned in education to make fully effective the national educational policy as determined by the Government and the Oireachtas. From the Government's side it would be an organ for eliciting from the school and people the maximum practical support for national policy. From the parents' and educationists side it would make available to the Minister and the Oireachtas the knowledge and experience of those best qualified to suggest appropriate means to ensure the success of that policy. In more detail, its function would be to conduct a continuous, competent and constructive review of the educational system; to show where wasteful overlapping and lack of co-ordination occur; to examine proposals in the light of the ascertained needs and circumstances of the country; to submit suggestions for the development of education, and to organise public interest and co-operation in its different branches."
Further, in the same paragraph, it says:—
"The council should contain representatives of parents, whose interests in education are preponderant, and of all the bodies directly concerned in the various branches of education, religious and secular, viz., the churches, universities, headmasters and teachers. We suggest that there should also be representatives of agriculture, industry and commerce, the educational needs of which are of vital concern to the country."
That is the general outline of the proposal from a commission that consisted of representatives of various religions and various branches of education, industry, administration and agriculture. My purpose in putting down the motion in its present form is that, with these recommendations in front of us, the Oireachtas would set up a committee under the chairmanship of the Minister to go systematically through them to see what is the position generally in the country from which a council of education could be drawn that, with the approval of every Party in the Oireachtas, would act as the accredited advisory body to the Minister for Education.
After full discussion and conference with one another under his direction, the various Parties in this House might decide that certain things should be enshrined in legislation, so that the people of the country, after full consideration by a body such as the Vocational Organisation Commission and, after review by their representatives in this House, would have a statutory organ in the form of a council to advise the Minister on every matter connected with education. The commission draw attention to an important point in Section 513:—
"A last point of supreme importance in our eyes will close this introduction. On this point, we wish to leave no possible excuse for misunderstanding or misrepresentation. We have not suggested any changes in the political system or structure of this country, nor are any such changes either involved or implied in our recommendations. We have not even remotely suggested a ‘vocationally organised State' or a ‘Corporate State' of any pattern. We have, in actual fact, sedulously avoided any such proposal and left the political structure untouched; corporatisme d'état has been far from our thoughts. We have, on the contrary, connned ourselves rigidly to sketching out a vocational organisation for the economic and social life of the country as distinct from its political life. We have suggested an economic vocational structure which can exist alongside and parallel with a political structure that is not based on vocationalism. We have steadfastly endeavoured to keep all irrelevant political influence from impinging on this vocational structure and to keep it, in turn, from becoming involved in political affairs. In one point only is a question of political structure touched on, and then incidentally, viz., the possibility of a vocational senate forming part of the Legislature.”
That being their attitude as a whole with regard to industry and our social life, it is particularly interesting to see how perfectly, from the point of view of the responsibility and authority of the State, on the one side, and the responsibility and authority of the Church, on the other side, the commission's recommendations fit in without in any way detracting from the authority of the State or from the authority of the Church in matters of education, so intimately and closely connected with both. We are happily in the position that there is no conflict here between the Church and the State in relation to any aspect of the control or direction of education. We have no trouble of that kind to darken our educational councils. We have not had up to the present any great political troubles to darken our educational councils, but there is no aspect of our national life about which our people are more concerned at the moment than education. There is no aspect of our national life in which they are prepared to give a greater response to a lead along a road that will bring them out of their difficulties in regard to education—difficulties which are not alone economic but social.
If the road for the people's hope and energy in educational matters be not fully opened, then questions will arise which will drag various aspects of education into politics. The very fact that the economic situation is likely to press so hard on the country, following the devastation and the reaction of six years of war, will make the people much more interested in education than they were. There will be a suspicion that their inability to find employment will arise from the inadequate nature of their educational equipment. In that way, and in other ways into which we need not go, there is a certain danger that education may become a matter of political controversy. That would be a disastrous thing, because it is so unnecessary in a country where the people in their social, political and religious outlook are so homogeneous. Since a council of education has been recommended by a body so authoritative, so well-informed and so unanimous as that which dealt with vocational organisation, I was anxious that, at the earliest moment, the attention of the House should be drawn to it and the Minister should be asked to let the House know his intentions with regard to the proposal.
In the past, there have been suggestions that a council of education should be set up. The Minister's mind seemed at one time to be open on the matter. However, in dealing with the proposal of the Irish National Teachers' Organisation, on one occasion, and, in dealing with the proposal in the Seanad, on another occasion, he rather suggested that he had closed his mind against the recommendation. Now that the Vocational Organisation Commission has recommended such a council, it is very important that the Minister should let us know what his intentions are regarding it, and that, if possible, he should agree to the proposal in the motion to have the matter examined by representatives of the various Parties with a view to deciding the nature of the legislation which should be put into operation. We have a large number of big educational problems to deal with. They will require the co-operation of all, so as to have efficient discussion and so as to ensure the use of the simplest and best machinery we can devise. They will require full understanding by the people who will have to bear the economic cost. Economically and socially, they will be vitally interested in the results of the work.
If we take the financial side of things: From time to time I have made representations with regard to the impossible size of classes in the City of Dublin. In the primary schools there have been as many as 80, 90, 100, 110 pupils on the rolls. I have repeatedly suggested that a very great wrong was being done to young people whose education is begun under these circumstances. The Minister has indicated at times that it was lack of building that was responsible for that situation and that it involves an amount of finance. I think there is even more than lack of building. I think there is want of appreciation of what happens in the classes as between teacher and pupils and of the necessity of having much smaller classes.
Recently new regulations that are being brought into force in Great Britain were published. A tremendous amount of discussion on education has taken place there during the last five or six years. Enormous plans have been made, and very important decisions have been taken. The regulations, which will come into operation on the 1st April, provide, with regard to the size of classes, that the maximum number of pupils on the register of any class will be, for pupils mainly under the age of three years, 15; for pupils between the ages of three and five years, 30; for any other class, in a primary school, 40; but, if the class consists mainly of children over 12, 30; for any class in a secondary school, of any type, 30. Classes can only be allowed to exceed these maxima if the Minister is satisfied that every effort is being made to comply with the regulations, and that failure to do so is due to unavoidable lack of teaching staff or school accommodation owing to war conditions, or to difficulties due to the coming into operation of the Education Act. The regulations say:
"Although it is not possible to prescribe a lower maximum than 40 for a class of junior children and infants, the regulations will be amended so as to reduce this figure directly the necessary increase in the supply of teachers and school accommodation makes it reasonably possible. In the meantime, the immediate task of reducing the present maximum size of classes for senior and junior pupils, from 40 and 50 to 30 and 40, respectively, will make very heavy demands upon the available supply of teachers."
There we have a position in which a maximum of 30 is set down as the number that ought to be on the register of any class, in any part of the primary school or any part of the secondary school. I mention this simply as showing a standard that is being aimed at by people who are much the same as we are, who have much the same problems to face, and who are facing them under just as great difficulties as we are likely to face here. I am not at this particular stage mentioning it in any way as criticism of anything that exists here, because when we come to deal with the question of education, when we consider how closely that question is bound up with the question of religion and the bearing of religion on our lives here and on our capacity to use our country's resources, I feel we are treading on holy ground. I think our people feel that, and when the dangers and difficulties of the war situation are passing away, they are turning their minds and their hearts, burning with desire, to achieve in the educational sphere work as effective and as promising of results as they tried to do in the defence sphere when there were dangers confronting them. If we do not face the situation with a proper development of our national personality and our individual personalities, and if we are not properly trained to do the work, the difficulties that will arise to-morrow will be more dangerous to us than any impact of war might be.
There is a big financial problem to be faced when we consider how inadequately our schools are staffed at the present time, and how inadequately we are furnished with buildings. We are faced with a big problem in the provision of teachers. We are faced with the problem of what is the basic foundation for our teachers' education. There is the question of the class from which they are to come, how they are to be got, their primary and secondary education, the whole question of their training. These are matters in respect of which there have been problems and difficulties and differences of opinion. The problem must be faced with a very considerable amount of effort to-day. Our training colleges have been rather out of commission for a while back, and if the implication of what is being done in Great Britain with regard to the size of classes and the number of teachers is accepted here—and I do not see how we can escape from accepting it—then we require a large number of teachers almost immediately here, apart altogether from any drain that there may be upon our teaching capacity by the demands Great Britain will be making because of the number of teachers they will require.
In regard to teachers, in addition to the question of their training, there is the question of the second language. The question of the second language with regard to teachers is a serious problem, apart from the question of the teaching of the language in the ordinary schools. Then again there is the question of the curriculum generally. One of the facts that have been pointed out by the Commission on Vocational Organisation, in paragraph 537 of their report, is that better co-ordination is needed between the authorities dealing with education, and that there is neglect of agricultural education in primary, secondary and vocational schools. The paragraph says: "Secondary, vocational and agricultural schools all complain of the defective general education of pupils coming to them from primary schools," and there is the suggestion that in a country which is largely agricultural, where many of the children get their education entirely in primary schools, in agricultural districts, agricultural education has been neglected. Again, if we study what is happening in Great Britain we will probably be forced to the conclusion that not very much can be done to give agricultural education in the primary school, where children attend up to 14 years of age. So far from suggesting that instruction of any specialised kind, either in industry, agriculture or any particular trade, should be given in primary or secondary schools, a very important, influential and widely representative committee reporting through the Nuffield College organisation, have indicated the general outlook on that matter in Great Britain. They issued a number of publications. One is entitled "Employment Policy and Organisation of Industry After the War," in which on page 22 they say:
"In post-war Britain labour will be scarce, and young and easily adaptable labour scarcest of all, and it is accordingly of the greatest possible importance to the nation that none of it shall be allowed to run to waste, or be deprived of the opportunity of rendering the highest quality of service that is within its capacity. The educational system should be directed to fostering above all else qualities of initiative and mental adaptability in the coming generation; and upon its success in fulfilling this mission the efficiency of industry, as well as the cultural achievement of our civilisation, is bound mainly to depend."
They require qualities of initiative and mental adaptability because their labour will be scarce, and the work required to be done will be very great. Here, please God, we will not have that scarcity of labour but we will want initiative and intelligence in our people to a large degree to enable us to develop employment here and to see that our people can increase the natural wealth and the national equipment of the country so that children can find a living in the country when they grow up. We will want the same kind of efficiency and adaptability for the peculiar problems that face us in this country. How do they expect to get that adaptability and initiative in Great Britain? They show us in another pamphlet, entitled "Industry and Education", in which, on page 33, one of the conclusions is:
"That all normal children who are expected to leave school at the statutory age should follow, up to that age, a broadly non-vocational course, and that the learning of any specific trade should be postponed until a satisfactory groundwork of general education has been laid."
Another, in paragraph 7, is:
"That the school-leaving age should be raised to 15 at least, without exemptions, immediately after the war and, as soon as practicable, to 16, but that it is fully as urgent to improve the quality of education at the earlier stages and to make provision for continued part-time education beyond the school-leaving age as to raise the statutory age to 16."
The conclusion, in paragraph 14, states:
"That a system of compulsory part-time education between the school-leaving age and 18 should be introduced immediately after the war and should be extended as rapidly as possible to the point at which the working time of young persons will be divided with approximate equality between education and employment."
Then they suggest that employers in respect of their younger people should see that they are only employed for half their time and in paragraph 19 the conclusion reads:—
"That apprenticeship should rest on a foundation of all-round workshop training combined with specialised trade education, and that all employers taking apprentices should arrange for half their work-time up to 18 to be devoted to education, including vocational education, and should give every possible facility for those over 18 to attend higher courses and prepare for vocational examinations."
Then they face the question of whether compulsory military service is or is not likely to be brought into operation in Great Britain, and the conclusion they come to is:—
"That, if the period of national service falls as early as 18, it will probably be better for entrants to remain at school up to the period of national service and to defer their entry to industry until after that period, without any period of industrial experience preceding their national service."
I bring that and our own difficulties here into juxtapostion to show that people who are very experienced and very highly developed from the industrial point of view are facing a situation in which they feel that their experience and their industrial capacity up to the present will not be sufficient, without an enormous organisational and educational effort on their part, to face the work of maintaining their industry. If a people with that capacity and experience feel like that to-day, we can hardly agree that our agricultural education can be given in primary schools up to 14. Many minds will have to be brought to bear on the discussion of the question as to how far agriculture can be improved and developed here as a result of instruction given in the schools, whether compulsory or not, up to the age of 14, or whether it should be done in some other way. In my opinion it must be done in some other way. Then again you have the question that is to some extent reflected in the report of the commission here, that there is a problem to be solved in a satisfactory way in differentiating between the education that girls will receive and the education that boys will receive.
I mention these to show that there is quite a large number of problems which require to be solved at a time when, arising out of the political developments in the world and out of the economic developments, particularly as a result of the experiences of the war, the State is likely to be called upon more and more to take action with regard to economic and social matters. With the State being driven by circumstances or, very often, by its own volition, to intervene more in a large number of matters affecting the people's lives, there is very grave danger that it would do so excessively in education, or, at any rate, that the people might feel that it was doing it excessively in education, particularly arising out of the fact that we have to a great extent to spread and to hold the national language. In the peculiar condition of the national language to-day we have to save the language through our schools and there is the danger that the State, having been brought very much into the educational picture and because of the very great difficulties associated with that work, may have to take a more prominent part in and interfere more directly with our education. That is another matter which may bring about difficulties outside and also induce State interference here. We are offered in the proposals of the commission a way in which, just as the Church will be completely free to look after its responsibilities, the State will be completely free to look after its responsibilities and have the advantage of an advisory committee. When the matter is discussed, the question will arise as to whether it is to be directly representative or, while representative, selected by the Minister. We need a body that will inspire public confidence that every aspect of our education problem will be examined. Then we would know who were the leaders of educational thought generally in the country.
Sir Richard Livingstone has been writing a considerable amount of idealistic and very valuable matter on education and figuring very prominently in the proposals that are being made in Great Britain, particularly on the idealistic side. I wish to quote from his publication, "Education for a World Adrift", page 54:
"The most indispensable viaticum for the journey of life is a store of adequate ideals, and these are acquired in a very simple way, by living with the best things in the world— the best pictures, the best buildings, the best soical or political orders, the best human beings. The way to acquire a good taste in anything, from pictures to architecture, from literature to character, from wine to cigars, is always the same—be familiar with the best specimens of each."
It would be a tremendous stimulus to our people if they could know to-day that there was being gathered from the various organisations at present dealing with education a council which would think over every aspect of our educational problem. That council would need to be representative of the primary teaching side, the secondary teaching side, technical and university education, and include representatives of the head masters' associations and of organisations connected with industry and commerce. It would deal with these problems, whether they are confined to the primary side or are those which knit the various processes in education together, so as to turn out men and women who, in their beliefs and in their religious outlook on life, can co-operate in the social and economic work necessary if this country is to live.
On a previous occasion, the Minister seemed to have the idea that a council of this kind might be concerned more with the trade union aspect of things and the well-being of various organisations rather than with anything else. In paragraph 158 of the commission's report, an outline is given of the objects for which professional organisations were found to exist:
"(i) to defend the social and economic claims of the profession; claims based on the ground that those who discharge a social function deserve and require a suitable standard and ‘status', to enable them to continue discharging it efficiently;
(ii) to secure a standard of educational and technical qualifications in entrants into the profession;
(iii) to secure that only those who possess approved qualifications may use the title or enter into the practice of the profession;
(iv) to maintain a standard of professional conduct and etiquette;
(v) to advance the theory and practice of the profession by meetings and discussions;
(vi) to promote the social welfare of members by mutual benefit and benevolent funds."
I suggest that, in these items, the aims that might be described as noble aims are rather more numerous than the purely trade union aims. At any rate, an association representative of the various organisations would certainly mean that the noble ends would be developed, as the council would be dealing with the nation's educational problem as a whole and would smother completely the purely trade union ends of the various organisations. In paragraph 505, the report says:—
"But it is true also that the practice and use of association greatly help to develop the spirit of collaboration for noble ends and the power of subordinating selfish interests to the good of a profession or trade and of the whole community."
We are anxious to encourage the Minister to approve of the idea that such an educational council should be set up. In no realm of our national life do we require stronger sheet anchors and better charted seas than in education. On the other hand, in no department of our national life do we require a freer say. The Minister will find that a council of education would awaken a new national hope and would release a considerable amount of energy lying latent and dormant in our people to-day. Other countries have educational councils and consultative councils such as we speak of here. We are not likely to develop in that way, except in so far as we have technical education committees. I believe the need could be filled by setting up a representative council selected from the personnel of existing organisations, and I am anxious to hear the Minister's proposals and policy in regard to the matter.
