Before progress was reported I was pointing out that, notwithstanding the substantial progress in educational development in the sixties, we should not become victims of any euphoria since there still exist major deficiencies in our educational system. There still exist considerable inequalities. The current primary school curriculum does not, as at this point of time, prepare our young people for the social and work environment of the Ireland of the seventies. In many respects it does not meet educationally the social and economic needs of the people. I would further suggest that the current system in terms of the allocation of scarce resources, and education is an extremely costly process, is grossly insufficient. Generally speaking, the system is ill-administered from the point of view of the most effective utilisation of current community resources. I do not think there is any need for me to stress these points. They are self-evident.
There is little need to re-state the inequalities in educational participation rates. These have already been well documented in reports published in the 1960s but I would stress that because the Government and successive Governments, irrespective of political parties failed earlier, as we need not have done if we had sufficient initiative of social commitment and social dynamism to come to grips with educational opportunity, damage was done which is still reflected in our community. Educational change is a slow process and the damage to the national ethos because of inequality of opportunity and distortions in our present system have profoundly affected the lives of people now in their 20s, 30s, 40s and 50s. We shall have to live with the failure to develop our educational system for many decades yet until current developments begin to show in terms of the cultural, social and general quality of our lives. These are harsh facts that one cannot ignore in an educational debate. I am not saying this in any pessimistic or unduly critical way but I am saying that the policy of the State over the past 20 years in regard to education has had a disfiguring and distorting effect on Irish life which one finds it very hard to forgive.
The remedies proposed are, I think, not new to any political party or particularly the prerogative of any one political party but time and again Labour Party spokesmen have suggested that there is still a need for a comprehensive re-organisation of our educational system. This means many more social and political aspirations must be introduced directly into education. There is a considerable need to get to grips with the current four-tier system—as I might describe it—of education. We still have the Irish people bemused by the separation of primary education from vocational education, from secondary education and from university education, a kind of obsessional attitude towards the decompartmentalisation of education. This has had a terrible impact on our people and on the educational system. Not only is the fact that we should have allowed separate systems of primary, secondary, vocational and university education to emerge with no integration, educationally and socially unjust but it is also grossly devisive in the community and that devisiveness is reflected when we see three occupational trade union organisations catering for the teaching profession. There is an in-built sense of disunity and division automatically reflected in the teaching profession in terms of their own occupational relationship. This is unfortunate and tragic and has a wasteful effect of which the Minister is I think fully aware.
The philosophy of having little private empires in the primary sector, the national school sector, the vocational, the secondary and university sectors has influenced political attitudes and certainly dominated a great deal of the thinking of churchmen and teachers in regard to education. I think that this may have originated not only from the power structures in-built in the educational system but also from the philosophy very prevalent in the 40s and 50s and still lingering in some areas that children were supposed to differ from one another genetically and permanently and that only a fixed percentage were likely to emerge into the post-primary and higher educational strata. This was a very prevalent attitude among many churchmen and politicians concerned with education, a conveniently fostered myth of an educational élite. This attitude also pervaded Departmental thinking, the attitude of "We all have our quota of original sin. Some have a higher quota than others and, therefore, only those with the lower quota are likely to end up as bright young university men." This pessimistic, almost Jansenist concept, profoundly distorted the attitude of our people and could by no stretch of the imagination be classified as an enlightened Christian attitude.
If I sound bitter it is because I now meet men in their 30s, 40s and 50s who have been denied the more enlightened political attitudes of the present time and who have no opportunity of reliving their educational lives. Now that we are spending much more money on education it would be dangerous to be carried away into euphoria on educational policy. Another point I want to make is that I think there should be greater recognition of the tremendously increased proportion of taxpayers' money now being given to education. This automatically opens up the question of proper priorities in the allocation of money and other limited resources for educational development. It is significant that in 1965 we were spending £5.8 million on secondary education. Today we are talking almost in terms of £20 million—£19.8 million. Expenditure on primary education for 1965 was £18.6 million. In 1970 there was an increase of £7 million—not a terribly significant increase—to £25.5 millions.
Vocational education has rocketed from £3.7 million in 1965 to almost £10.5 million in 1970. University education has also shown a very substantial increase from £2.7 million in 1965 to £7.5 million in 1970. Ignoring the fact that we are now spending £3 million on school transport which we were not spending in 1965, these increases are of massive proportions and show the increasing commitment of the State. Automatically, this throws up a major question. We have shown a massive increase of £12 million in the post-primary sector and are spending almost four times what we were spending in 1965 and I would say that any increased allocation should be at the primary end, in the national schools. While, admittedly, there are political kudos, by-election votes and political hosannas to be gained from post-primary expenditure, I am convinced that in terms of education in the seventies every £ spent in the primary sector will give tremendous returns, which are very necessary if we are to improve the overall quality of the educational system.
In August, 1968, there were 237 national schools requiring major repairs, 661 schools in need of replacement and there were and still are 1,913 national schools over 50 years old. It is therefore not unfair to say that despite the Minister's tremendous efforts in recent years, the number of schools requiring major repairs or replacement is still very high. This is of major importance. At least two out of every ten national schools have not got electricity—and I am taking the figure most favourable to the Minister—and four out of every ten have not got inside toilets. Three out of every ten are heated by means of open fires.
So much for progress. By all means, let us spend £3 million on free transport to schools but it is rather anomalous to be providing children with quick, warm buses and safe drivers to bring them to schools which have no electricity, have open fires and no inside toilets. Therefore I would say that any increased allocation of capital should go—and if one sounds partisan on this it is only right that this should be so— towards the provision of decent national schools.
If I had more money to spend on education I would direct it increasingly to the national schools catchment areas in the major urban areas, particularly in Dublin. I do not suffer from any "Dublinitis" in regard to education but I would emphasise that there are 1,736 classes in the greater Dublin area which have more than 40 pupils. That is the figure for February, 1969. That means that in the greater Dublin area there are some 75,000 pupils in classes of more than 40 pupils. It brings one back to a sense of reality to imagine a schoolteacher, notwithstanding all the talk about the new curriculum and so on, having to teach classes of 40 or more. It is a scandalous state of affairs that this position should exist. It is something which deserves the Minister's immediate attention.
In regard to the primary sector I concur with the comments and strictures, if one could call them such, of Deputy FitzGerald in regard to the managerial system affecting primary education. I agree with Deputy FitzGerald that parents who are sending their children to national schools have an elementary right to a far more decisive, consultative and wider role than they have. It is true that in the past, due to a variety of factors, such as long hours worked by parents, the fact that they themselves had only minimum national school education and very limited educational opportunity, the effective operation of the system required almost complete delegation by the parents to the school managers. Direct participation by the parents was very restricted. In these days of greater lay liturgical participation parents should have as much right to walk into a school and discuss with the manager and the teachers any aspects of education which affect their children. In many parts of the country where there is no effective system of joint consultation, no parent/teacher-manager associations, the school authorities, the teachers, the parents and the pupils who in the last analysis are most involved, lose a good deal. They do not emerge as a more cohesive community at local level.
I welcome the advice of the Minister that parent-teacher management associations should be set up. I think he might speak more frequently in their favour. The hierarchy might speak more frequently to its representatives at school level on this very necessary development. Where it is brought to the Minister's attention that some managers do not favour such association and such consultation or where some teachers might not be in favour of it—which is very rare indeed—the Department should take the initiative in arranging for a meeting of local level, for a contact with the school manager, for calling such a meeting and putting it to the people concerned that it is very necessary that such a committee be established.
I am fortunate enough to be chairman of the parent-teacher management association of one of the largest primary schools in the country at Dundrum, County Dublin. We have found, from practical experience of officers of the Department coming out and meeting the parents and from meetings between the headmaster and the parents, that much progress has been achieved. The local association has brought about a completely new attitude in a very anonymous suburban area. It has given a sense of identity to the parents whose children are attending the school. There has emerged a sense of awareness of one another's problems between the teachers, the parents and the school managers. If we can get that far initially, we feel we can go much farther later on. It was not without some difficulty that the committee was set up but, once set up, it has gone exceptionally well. The Minister should be thanked for his general support of this principle. Deputy Colley, when Minister for Education, was most sympathetic to this idea also, as was the late Deputy Donogh O'Malley.
I welcome the statement by the Minister that the working document on the new primary school curriculum is approaching final form. It would be helpful if the Department were in a position to give Members of the House a summary of the contents of the document. It is very necessary that Deputies should be kept abreast of all developments in the educational field in view of the explosive changes that are now occurring. While headmasters, teachers and INTO get a great deal of essential information it would be quite valuable if public representatives had this information available to them even in précis form.
I can regard myself, as indeed many Members of this House can regard themselves, as a product of the now outmoded, in Irish education, philosophical attitudes of the past when we had the authoritarian attitude rather than the autonomous one in the schools. Many of us would not relish, if we had to go back again, the curriculum of education which obtained here down through the years. Therefore, I welcome the change of attitude.
The Minister must be aware of pressure in respect of teacher training and a re-orientation of approach by teachers. There are also problems in making the schools more flexible and adaptable in their approach to education. Problems in terms of the physical structure of schools should not be underscored. If the new curriculum is to be a success a great deal of new work will be required of departmental inspectors and certainly much change of attitude will be required of teachers engaged for many decades in education.
I strongly recommend that special attention be given to the development of school libraries. I should prefer if one-tenth of the total allocation for free transport were made available for school libraries. This is one aspect, in the allocation of finance, which tends in my opinion to be somewhat cockeyed. I have seen the effect in national schools of the introduction of a school library. It can bring about a blossoming of educational development among the children. Every national school in this country should have a well-stocked and carefully-prepared school library, suitably shelved and equipped. School managers should be made aware of this fact in no uncertain terms.
I am disappointed by the Minister's approach to the school-leaving age. We have had statement after statement from Fianna Fáil Ministers for Education that, from 1970 onwards, parents would be bound by law to keep their children at full-time school until they are 15 years of age. I have here a booklet issued by the Government almost immediately before the general election of 1969. Deputy Brian Lenihan, the then Minister for Education, is quoted in this booklet as saying that it is the earnest hope of the Government that parents will keep their child at school as long as is required. It is further stated that if it is the intention of parents to keep their child at school after 15 years of age it will not matter greatly at that stage which post-primary school he or she is sent to. On the other hand, if they are going to take a child out of school at 15 years, they should at least make sure that they pick a post-primary school which offers courses of some value for the sort of life foreseen for the child. We are told now in the Minister's statement that this is all knocked on the head until 1972.
I remember sending out to trade union education classes in 1964 the digest of the Second Programme for Economic Expansion in which it was stated that the school-leaving age would be at least 15 by 1970 and that this would call for extra schools and extra teachers and for a revision of the primary and post-primary programmes. We are getting more teachers and are having a revision of the primary and post-primary programmes. The Minister should have taken his courage in his hands and increased the school-leaving age to 15 years. The target for 1972 should be to have the school-leaving age 16 years. Even if the people have to put their hands in their pockets even deeper next week when the Budget proposals are known, we must remember that Irish people have never been found wanting in terms of spending money on education. It would have been an elementary act of faith and hope in the 1970s if the school-leaving age had been increased to 15. This change has been shelved again. It has been shelved repeatedly over the past decade. It may be shelved again in the future. The Minister has pointed out that the net total effect of raising the school-leaving age is not now, relatively speaking, as great as it would have been in terms of 1960. Nevertheless, a Government commitment in respect of education, made with such a fanfare of publicity before the last general election and prior to the general election of 1965, should have been adhered to. The Government should have proceeded with the proposal.
The scheme for providing free books in the primary sector should be revised. I share Deputy Dr. FitzGerald's considerable criticism of this scheme. The Government announced this scheme at a time to suit the elections. There was great public interest in education at that time. The Minister stated that the free book scheme would be paid for by the State and administered with great tact by the schools. Parents were told that if they felt entitled to avail of the scheme they should approach the headmaster of their child's post-primary school. I fail to see how tact can enter into it when one finds that the reality is that a parent has to say whether he is or is not a holder of a medical card and is or is not entitled to free books for his children. A child may have to bring his medical card to school in order to get free books. He may have to talk to the headmaster and make an application—admittedly in strict confidence—before getting his books. A circular issued by the Dún Laoghaire Vocational Education Committee stated that pupils under various headings would be eligible for grants towards books and equipment for the year 1969-70. These headings included children whose parents were holders of medical cards, who were of insufficient means due to absence of parental support, whose parents' income was derived in the main from social assistance, whose parents had financial difficulties resulting from prolonged or continuous illness, whose parents had large dependent families, or whose parents suffered from acute hardships. Parents of such children were asked to give them a written application for free books before a certain date and told that their application would be treated in confidence. It should be possible to have a better system for the allocation of free books.
I consider myself as socialistic in my attitudes as any Minister of State. It would be politically wise in the educational development of the country to drop the terms "free transport", "free education" and "free books". There is nothing free about these schemes. The taxpayers pay £3 million for "free" transport. This is a State transport scheme for the pupils. This is a State system for the provision of books to certain categories of people. There should be a more enlightened political analysis rather than the cheap political gimmickry of calling the schemes "free". There is nothing particularly free about paying secondary schools £19 million for "free" post-primary education. This is expensive by any stretch of the imagination. I would urge the Minister to drop these terms.
I should like to refer to the sidestepping which has taken place in regard to the comprehensive schools. I remember the banner headlines which greeted Deputy Dr. Hillery, smiling rather nervously in May, 1963, in connection with the comprehensive school. We could visualise these schools dotted all over the map. We lauded the idea. They died a sudden death. That is the most charitable way of putting it. I do not know what gut politics went on from 1963 onwards but I do know of the tremendous need for a coherent, comprehensive, integrated system of education in the country and this suffered a serious setback. When I talk of comprehensive education, I do not find myself particularly preoccupied with the opening of new schools as such. There can be comprehensiveness in the sense of tremendous co-operation between the various school authorities in selected areas.
It has been said emphatically that a comprehensive school would need at least 120 pupils in sixth form. It has also been said that it takes 1,500 pupils between the ages of 11 and 18 to produce a sixth form of that size. So goes the British experience. I know equally, and I share the attitude of the Department on this, that we could have in many urban areas and in many of the smaller provincial towns, if we were spending £100 million a year, a proliferation of highly trained, highly equipped personnel in secondary schools, in local schools and in associated complexes in a given catchment area.
The Minister and his Department have tried to bring about some elementary sense of rationalisation between the respective educational authorities but they do not seem to have got very far. I recall reading, to my dismay and personal resentment, the educational vituperation poured on the head of one of the Minister's officers, Mr. O'Connor, when he threw out some facts for enlightened public discussion. At the time I wondered would he recover from it, but of course I underestimated the resilience of public servants.
There is a great need to get rid of the hotchpotch of small units not only in the primary sector but also in the post-primary sector of education throughout the country. If I may do so, I should like to quote from the famous article by Mr. O'Connor in Studies in 1958:
Our educational system—at both primary and post-primary level—has developed as a hodge-podge of very small units. Transport difficulties do not provide the complete explanation because in many of our towns we find three or more secondary schools together with a vocational school. To seek to provide in each of these small units adequate facilities for language, science and technical studies would be sheer extravagance.
It is beyond the potential of the country to sustain inadequate schools—and adequacy must be assessed by economic as well as by educational criteria. Schools must be brought together so as to establish units viable by present day educational standards. Single community schools are the rational requirement in most centres outside the large urban areas. Yet, though we have made progress in some respects in the matter of co-operation we have made no significant gains in our drive for community schools. Maybe we did not try hard enough last time.
One of the major obstacles has been the attitude of the Church authorities to co-education. In some dioceses it is not tolerated at all; in many of the others it is a thing of last resort. Religious orders, by and large, oppose co-education. It is not uncommon to find two girls' secondary schools and a boys' school in a centre where the pupil potential is such as to warrant only one school. The difficulty here is apparent at once. A single school would make the presence of all but one of the Orders unnecessary and the natural reluctance to leave a community where one had given service for a long time is understandable. Nowhere, yet, has joint management of a single school been attempted by two religious orders, though, in two areas to my knowledge, there are proposals for such joint management.
It seems clear that education is being adversely affected by institutional considerations not related to education. There are arguments for and against co-education but these are relevant only in centres where the pupil potential is large enough to enable the school authorities to follow their own inclinations, without disadvantage to educational objectives. My concern is with the very many areas where the educational advantage requires co-education. To persist in opposition to co-education in such areas is entirely unreasonable, and detrimental both to the individual student and to the community. It is significant that, in a number of dioceses, co-education is now acceptable in practice.
We recall the furore these comments caused, but the essential rational objectivity of these comments, which caused a slightly hysterical reaction on the part of educators in regard to these elementary facts of life in education in this country, has been proved. Therefore I appeal to the Minister—I do so not in any doctrinaire sense—to bear in mind that now we are spending a very substantial proportion of our Budget on education and that although none of us decries the work being done by the religious orders in education, and the work that has been done by them during the years when the Irish taxpayer was simply too mean to attempt to do it himself, there is an overriding national responsibility on the Minister in respect of the allocation of State finances to education. Unlike the econometric jargon of the non-spiritually oriented economist, we must realise that we must occasionally put our hands in our pockets irrespective of the spiritual attitudes we adopt. In the long term, these facts have to be faced by the community at large.
There is another comment I wish to make to the Minister. It is in relation to school closures at the primary level. I think that by and large the Minister has found us in Opposition, both Fine Gael and Labour, sympathetic to him. He has found a full understanding of the need to rationalise and to close one-teacher and two-teacher schools in some areas, unpleasant as it may have been. We have seen the inevitability of that. I am not saying that in any sense of pessimism. However, I am satisfied, and I share Deputy FitzGerald's concern, that the extent of consultation has not been as great as it should have been. The fact that a school manager might want to close a school is not enough. The fact that parents may be silent does not necessarily mean they are giving their assent. The fact that they do not stand in front of the new school bus and have to be moved by the Garda does not mean they are giving their consent. I urge on the Minister therefore, particularly in relation to two-teacher schools, to make every effort to ensure there is a full degree of consultation with parents, with the teachers concerned and with any other interests who might feel involved.
Having urged rationalisation in respect of post-primary and primary schools, it would be quite unfair and improper if one did not take the Department into account in terms of general rationalisation. Education is much too serious a matter in terms of national policy, in terms of its role within the community, to have the vertical system being operated by the Department. I do not hold with some of the imported continental techniques, but I see great virtue in any Department in counterplay between senior officers of equal status having their own particular responsibilities and being obliged, under ministerial chairmanship, to put forward their alternative strategy and their own particular solutions so that a departmental attitude might be arrived at. Education is the sort of Government Department which is so open to dialogue between professional staff in the Department that the approach advocated by the Devlin Committee is at least worthy of experimental application.
I am aware that the Cabinet have shrunk in horror from the idea of encouraging Departments to consider the implementation of the Devlin Report but in respect of this Department it presents no great difficulty. I share the view of the Devlin Report that the Department's role should be confined to educational matters and that we should have a new Ministry of Culture although that title is not one which I find particularly attractive. To give the Department this title might indicate that all their activities would be directed towards cultural aspirations. I am sure we could think of a happier name. I also share the view expressed in the report that the Department should be responsible for the four basic functions of finance, planning, organisation and personnel. This would ease the burden of work on the senior officers of the Department. It is improper in terms of State operation and administration that, for example, one or two officers of a Department should become so preoccupied with, say, the question of remuneration of teachers that other major aspects of national policy would automatically be removed to a different level. The Minister might very usefully consider implementing the proposals of the Devlin Committee for at least an experimental period. Much as it would affect the senior executive staff of the Department, they are of such seniority and are held in such respect within the Department as not to be unduly worried about an experimental approach even for a period of four or five years.
I wish to place particular emphasis on reformatory and industrial schools. Perhaps the Minister will be good enough to tell us if Members of the House will be supplied with a report of the committee set up by the Government to inquire into these schools. I understand that the report is now ready and the Minister has indicated that it will be presented to the Government in the normal way. However, many reports are presented in the normal way but there are abnormal situations in terms of further circulation. Therefore, I am concerned that when the report has been received and considered by the Government it should be circulated to the public press and to Members of the House so that public awareness and concern will be stimulated in regard to these schools.
It is no credit to the Irish people that, over the years, we have spoken a good deal with tongue in cheek about the defects of the reformatory and industrial school system without, at the same time, spending enough money on these schools to improve the conditions of the boys and girls in them. Such an improvement is very necessary. While I pay tribute to those directly involved in the running of these schools I must say that there is need for greater co-ordination and direct liaison between the Department of Health-and the Department of Education in regard to the child involved in psychological risk and the deprived child who is very much enmeshed in this educational system.
I appreciate that a good deal of attention has been given by the Minister for Health and the Minister for Education to the problem of the maladjusted child or the child who might be classified as deprived. Nevertheless, this problem is one of the greatest challenges and one of the greatest medical-social problems that we face. Unfortunately, there is still a great deal of public ignorance and apathy in relation to the treatment of such children as part of the schoolgoing population just as there is a great deal of ignorance on the part of the public as to the number of children who might broadly be classified as deprived. It is only fair to say that to my knowledge the present Minister has a special interest and special concern in this regard in his own constituency but I hope that far greater attention will be given to the educational system for these children because the social problems involved are of major significance to the future lives of children within this educational structure.
Another matter with which I wish to deal is controversial and has been dealt with by so many people that one is loath to becoming involved in it. It is the question of corporal punishment in national schools. There has been an unfortunate degree of emotional public opinion on this topic. There is a need to put the matter in the proper perspective. There has been a considerable change in the educational system. The abandonment of the results system whereby you could almost have said the pay of the teacher depended on the answers given by the children has certainly meant getting rid of any undesirable physical violence against children in school. The abandonment of the primary certificate examination system has been of immeasurable benefit and has led to the elimination of a physical reaction towards children on the part of parents or teachers in respect of the educational system. The introduction of the new curriculum has helped enormously in the development of enlightened attitudes.
There are still isolated incidents relating to corporal punishment which are indefensible. We must be concerned about this because if it is only one case per annum it inevitably brings the good name of teachers down. It must be dealt with and be seen to be dealt with by the Department. Any excessive dependence on corporal punishment is to be deplored, apart from the fact that increased severity is increasingly ineffective. Furthermore, the use of corporal punishment is contrary to the dignity of a child. If we resort to violence against children we cannot expect to command their respect. This is an extremely difficult problem and not one to be talked about glibly. However, if we get rid of overcrowded classes in our national schools and take a great deal of the pressure off the teacher, if there is a better environment in our schools, then there will be a far greater sense of creativity and individuality in our young children and corporal punishment can be phased out.
I would equally express my abhorrence of the non-physical forms of punishment to which the Minister has referred, such as sarcasm or other forms of intense personal pressure. That can be far more reprehensible and have a far more searing psychological impact on children than corporal punishment. I share the Minister's view which he expressed on 13th October last that school discipline should be operated with an attitude of love, of kindness, of sympathy and understanding. The emotional temperature, which tends to rise when one discusses this problem, would be enormously reduced if the Minister had discussions or consultations with the INTO on this matter. Perhaps he could have an objective study with a working party of teachers, educational psychologists, departmental inspectors and welfare officers who, without any general hysteria, could review in depth the many aspects and implications of the current regulations in the schools in respect of corporal punishment. This should help to get rid of public confusion in regard to this matter.
The Minister, even though it could be costly, should have another look at the school transport system, particularly the rates of wages paid to some school drivers. I have been appalled to learn that some of them are paid rates of £5, £7 or £10 a week. Admittedly the runs vary a great deal. The drivers may have a morning run and an evening run, and certainly many people are anxious to take this on as a principal job or a second job. Some of these school transport drivers believe they are being badly paid for doing this public service work. I have received a number of complaints about this. It is wrong that a number of them should be so poorly paid.
I share the Minister's concern that the provisions for grants for furnishing and equipping science laboratories and special classrooms in practical subjects is not being availed of to the extent anticipated. The Minister goes on to say:
...coupled with the fact that the science teaching grant is now covered by the new arrangements as to school salary and capitation grants, enables a reduction of £76,000 to be made in the provision under subhead A.3 as compared with last year.
I agree that there are too many students following leaving certificate courses which are not a suitable basis for later training as technicians. The Investment in Education Report stated that in the school year 1962-63 boys in the intermediate cycle spent less than 6 per cent of their time at school studying modern languages and boys in the leaving certificate cycle spent only 3 per cent of their time at school studying modern languages; only 45 per cent of the boys in the intermediate cycle studied French and only 21 per cent studied French in the leaving certificate cycle whereas 95 per cent of the boys in the intermediate cycle and 88 per cent in the leaving cycle studied Latin; boys in the intermediate certificate cycle spent less than 8 per cent of their school time studying physical sciences and boys in the leaving certificate cycle spent less than 10 per cent of their time studying physical sciences. The NIEC Report described the situation as disquieting in the light of the increased relevance and importance of science in virtually all aspects of human activity. It went on to say:
A country must positively encourage the scientific method if it is to make real economic progress. There is little doubt that Ireland has been remiss in this respect in the past, and there can be no doubt of the urgency of creating an environment that is more favourable to the study and application of science in the immediate future.
The young men who were at school in 1962 will hardly finish up on the moon on the basis of that academic involvement in the physical sciences.
This imbalance in our education system is slowly being redressed. The reaction of some people is that we are excessively orientated towards the economic aspects of a scientific approach but I agree with the Minister's view that for every £ spent on post-primary education there is no need to apologise to anyone for spending £10 on technical education because it is from this expenditure that the future of this country will be developed.
As the free education system has been in operation for a number of years the Minister should set up a working party, involving men of Paddy Lynch's calibre, to look at the free education scheme as it operates at post-primary level. I do not think there would be any harm in critically analysing the whole scheme and as we are now in an inter-electoral period no one would be able to make political capital out of it. The general costing of the scheme might be investigated and the results published. I am not happy with the scheme. I wish I could offer some less costly and more effective alternatives to the Minister. I also wish that I had detailed school accounts for some of the schools involved in the scheme as I would then be able to offer more objective comment. The question of public accountability for moneys received under the scheme is something which could usefully be inquired into by such a working party. I feel sure the Minister would have the full support of the House for the setting up of a working party in this connection.
I agree with Deputy Dr. FitzGerald that the ban on Trinity College should go. I know this does not come under the Department of Education but I feel it should be mentioned in any debate on education. We should examine the contention that one of our universities is utterly unsuitable for the education of Catholic students. I regard the contention as no longer having the validity which it once might have had. Coming from a constituency from which many people attend Trinity College I have not found any marked degradation in the spiritual sense of the 1,400 Catholic students who go there. Likewise, I have not found any marked elevation in the spiritual sense of the Catholic students in my constituency who attend UCD. In fact it might be said that the institutional atmosphere of UCD is far less conducive to the preservation of Catholicism. The attitude of the Hierarchy in relation to Trinity College is out of keeping with my theological interpretation, however narrow that may be, of the situation. I would urge that the episcopal prohibition on Trinity be very seriously considered because there is nothing worse than a ban of that nature falling into general disrepute, as it is at the moment. This makes the attitude of the Hierarchy even more embarrassing.
In respect of the merger I find myself—even though previous expressions of my views brought down on my head the wrath of the academic staff of UCD—in sympathy with the Government, though, perhaps, for very different reasons. There is the old story that Fianna Fáil were always out to do UCD because they were a shower of Fine Gael academics having a go at the unfortunate Fianna Fáil administration. Whether that is true or untrue I concede that there is a great need for the effective utilisation and spending of the scarce national resources of this country at the top level of education. People often accuse the trade union movement and being introverted and isolated and closed shop minded in terms of its internal affairs but I am afraid we could learn some lessons from the governing bodies of some of our universities in that regard.
I feel, therefore, that not only is there a need to rationalise the current academic set-up in Dublin and generally to have a more effective merging of certain departments—in that respect I would regard myself as having an open mind in favour of the general principle of rationalisation and merger—but there is also a very considerable need to update the whole structure of the National University of Ireland, the antiquated, out-moded and, one could even say, autocratic attitudes of governing bodies and the absence of general participation on the part of staffs and some of the more disquieting internal disciplinary procedures which exist. I should like to see an opening up of academic prerogatives, so called, in this country. It is certainly long overdue.
I do not entirely share Deputy FitzGerald's harking after the academic freedom of the universities. Freedom for whom and freedom for what governing body? If a university claims academic freedom and freedom from departmental control and interference then it must at least live up to this by democrtic participation internally in its own affairs and it must be seen in its own internal operations to have full internal academic freedom. This is often absent judging by some of the internal vacillations which one witnesses in respect of university organisation and administration. These are harsh comments but I feel that one should not be under any illusion that prejudice or perversity or closed shop mindedness are the prerogatives of the uneducated. Those of the highest academic ability divert their talents in these directions, at least in my experience of some of them.
I would make a special plea to the Minister in respect of the National Museum. I feel that the old lady of Marlborough street has certainly neglected very much the National Museum. The old lady of Marlborough street has certainly neglected the National Museum and that the amount of money voted in Vote No. 27 is sparse. Our National Museum most certainly should get extra staff. They have a staff of about 26 at the moment. The position is quite appalling. Putting the National Museum on a par with the National Gallery in terms of State expenditure is long overdue.
I do not want to repeat what Deputy FitzGerald said. I support his comments in respect of the means test aberrations of the Department relating to Protestant schools and the allocation of money thereto. I certainly feel that a better system could be devised in consultation with the Protestant school authorities. I certainly share his concern about some of what can only be described as the messing that has gone on in that regard.
The Minister should continue to press, in respect of the teachers' salaries, for some general sense of unity between the three teaching organisations. I know that one is met with a very wry smile by most trade unionists in the INTO and in the VTA and in the ASTI when one advocates rationalisation of these organisations in their own best interests and in the best interests of the children and students and in the best interests of their own conditions of employment. Nevertheless, apart from the advocacy of the need for that proposition, which never seemed further from fruition, I do not see any great prospects for success at present.
On the question of university studies for national teachers and for the emergence of a three-year training course, with, as the Minister indicated, satisfactory university associations, that particular reality should be brought into being as a matter of the utmost urgency. I have been very impressed by the work done in St. Patrick's Training College and by the anxiety of the professional educators that I have met there to co-operate more thoroughly and more comprehensively with all sections of education. The university status which should be inbuilt in the teacher training course is long overdue.
These are familiar aspects and I shall leave it at that and assure the Minister that in the next 12 months he will find that, on our part, and certainly on the part of Deputy Dr. Thornley, the Labour spokesman on Education, who is unavoidably absent today and will be contributing to the debate later on, we will co-operate with the Government. I do not think the Minister has found us to be unduly carping or interested in making purely party political points out of education. I hope that, as a result of his ministry and as a result of the debate on this Estimate, education will once again have the pride of place in public discussion it had in the mid-1960s.
I feel this is very necessary. Otherwise it will fade into a general feeling of: "All is well and we are doing all right" apart from a public knowledge that, perhaps, all is not well on the industrial relations front in the Department. I would certainly hope that, with the tremendous developments in the regional colleges of technology, with the growth in post-primary education, with the new school transport system and all the other measures and palliatives and changes which we have advocated, we are at the beginning of the introduction of what I would call full democracy in education. We have got democracy in local government and in the franchise and we should now set about getting full democracy in our educational system so that equal educational opportunities will not be just political propaganda but a reality in every home.
I spent the past couple of weeks in County Kildare as did the Minister. I talked to families, to trade union members, to labourers and to voters all over the constituency. When one meets families living in remote rural areas on incomes of £12 to £14 per week and sees the children being brought home on a State transport system, one realises the value of that innovation. When one meets a family around, say, Athy or workers in the asbestos company or in Bowaters and sees them availing of what they regard as their natural right rather than something that is given to them, that is post-primary education for their children, and when one talks to them about apprenticeships, or the intermediate certificate, or technological education, one realises that the young generation, due to the work done by successive Governments over the years, are slowly getting the equal educational opportunities which they certainly deserve, which are their right and which are beginning to emerge in the 1970s.
