asked the Minister for Education if he will consider removing the marriage ban on women teachers so that the services of married female primary teachers will again be available; further, if he will make a statement in the matter.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Marriage Ban on Women Teachers.
The rule requiring women national teachers to retire on marriage is based on general policy involving considerations of a social and economic as well as of an educational nature. It is not proposed to alter the rule.
Would the Minister not agree that many good teachers are lost to the service because of this rule —teachers on whose training considerable sums of public money have been expended, in many cases—with the result that sometimes we are compelled to call in the services of teachers who are not trained, in order to try to cope with the shortage?
It would spoil the clarity of the information that I wish to give the Deputy, in reply to his question, if we went into discussions of that kind.
Further arising out of the Minister's reply, in view of the fact that there is a very acute shortage of teachers would the Minister not consider allowing those teachers who had to retire on marriage to re-enter the teaching profession for, say, a five year period, until such time as a sufficiency of trained teachers would be available?
The question which was asked by Deputy J. Brennan in the first instance concerned the matter of removing the marriage ban as such. The answer to that question is that it is not proposed to alter the rule.
Would the Minister not consider the suggestion made by Deputy Cunningham at least as an expedient for getting over the difficulty of the present shortage?
To deal with any particular problem at the moment is one thing but to deal with the principle and the policy involved in requiring women teachers to retire on marriage is another thing—and that is the only point, I think, to which we need address ourselves at the moment.