asked the Minister for Education the total number of pupils in national school classes with 40 or more pupils in the greater Dublin area.
Ceisteanna — Questions. Oral Answers. - Dublin School Pupils.
88.
The total number of pupils in national school classes with 40 or more pupils in the greater Dublin area as on the 1st February, 1968, the latest date for which complete figures are available, was 88,437.
Does the Minister not regard it as rather alarming that there should be 88,000 national school pupils in the greater Dublin area in classes of more than 40 pupils? May I ask him if he has any general observations to make on this serious situation in education?
As the Deputy knows, we are trying to overcome this problem by training more teachers and, as I have said on many occasions in this House, by amalgamating schools so as to make more teachers available. We are trying to get the number down to 35 pupils per teacher. This is made very difficult because of the movement of population into the larger urban areas.
Could you try to pay the teachers better salaries?
Would the Minister consider, as a matter of general policy, that perhaps an imbalance has developed in educational investment in the country and that perhaps more money should be given on a priority basis to the national school sector to get rid of the situation in which you have 88,000 children in classes of more than 40? Does the Minister consider that there has been some imbalance in our allocation of capital investment in the primary sector? I am asking this question in good faith.
I appreciate that, but the Deputy is aware that every section in the educational field regards itself as the most important and each one wants, if possible, to get more than its share of the money available to me. Therefore, I must look at the situation as a whole rather than divide it up into sections and do the best I can for all sections.
The Minister referred to the proposals for expanding the output of primary teachers. Does he not recall that in the Second Programme it was stated that there was a backlog of 2,000 teachers and that the Government had no intention of doing anything about it on the most spurious ground that if extra teachers were provided in the 1960's they would not be needed in the 1970's? Secondly, there would be a reduction in the quality of the teachers and, that being the case, has this decision since been reversed?
The Deputy is aware that I have already informed him that we have increased the intake into the training colleges and, in fact, if we were able to rationalise our whole educational system we would have sufficient teachers at this moment to ensure we had one teacher for every 32 pupils. I accept it is not possible to rationalise it to this extent but, nevertheless, there is no use in trying to develop this into what would appear to be a crisis.
Would the Minister explain in view of the critical situation that has arisen due to shortage of teachers——
We cannot discuss the whole education programme on these questions.
Is it true that the Dublin people are more gentle than people in rural Ireland and that Dublin Deputies are not as active in this matter in the same aggressive way as Deputies from rural Ireland?
There are no children left in rural Ireland.
Deputy Browne is not correct——
It is permissible hyperbole.
On the contrary, for the first time since the Famine the population has increased and to a very considerable extent.
There was an increase between 1946 and 1951. I would pose a question to the Minister; is it not the case that in certain parishes in Dublin the conditions in the national schools have been a disgrace and an outrage? Is that not a fact? I have not said that the Government have not improved the position but there have been classes with nearly 100 pupils.
I can tell the Deputy that the number of classes having more than 50 pupils has fallen considerably since last year so we are making progress.
I accept that we are making progress but it was a disgraceful situation.