"Necessary expenses not accounted for elsewhere. Interest payable before deduction of tax. Income tax paid. Income tax deducted under PAYE. Farmer and/or landowner to fill in this section also. Land, wherever situated, owned by a farmer. Rateable valuation. Acreage. Buildings. Land taken under rent, conacre or otherwise. Total acreage. Usage of farm. Wheat. Number of acres. Amount harvested. Amount sold. Amount received for sales. Stocks. The same for barley, oats, potatoes, sugar beet and other crops. Meadow. Pasture. Other land. Number of men other than applicant employed on farm. Family. Non-family. Livestock. Cattle, sheep, pigs, poultry. Bought. Born or hatched. Sold. Number. Amount received. Type of cattle. Put an `X' against type applicable. Shorthorn, Hereford, Jersey, Friesian, Ayrshires, Aberdeen Angus, Kerry." There are two blank spaces in case they have any other peculiar cattle. "Milk. Number of cows in milk. June to December. Milk produced and sold. Amount received for sales. Other receipts. From sales of wool, hay and straw, timber, eggs, hiring machinery, letting of land and grazing, stud fees, cartage of milk or other items, keeping guests, other receipts. Expenses. Rent, hire of grazing, rates, repairs, insurance, wages, bank or other interest, seeds, fertilisers, feedstuffs, machinery running expenses, motor running expenses, telephone, electricity, service fees, veterinary medicines and other expenses. Estimated total value of machinery at end of year." Underneath that is put rather oddly: "Name of pupil, school pupil will attend"—just to get back to education for a moment. On the other side of the form: "Nature of farm, mainly drystock production, hill and mountain grazing, creamery milk, creamery milk and pigs, drystock and tillage, creamery milk and tillage, liquid milk, other. For office use only—please leave blank" and a lot of queer initials.
That is what a Protestant has to fill up if he happens to be a farmer and wants his children to benefit from the Government's free education scheme. I do not think even this Government have ever devised a means test as mean as this one and as comprehensive and as detailed and as humiliating. That is what we are asking the minority in this country to put up with under the so-called free education scheme. I should like to ask the Minister has he got this document? Does he know what is being done in his name? Does he know what is being done to carry out this scheme? I do not blame the people who are doing it. They took on this job to help their co-religionists. It is the only way they can get money from the Government. They decided to do their best to try to mitigate the burden of education for some of their people but through them the Government are imposing on the Protestant community an intolerable burden. I should like the Minister to take up this whole matter, re-examine it and find some other answer.
I know there is a problem. Basically, if you have a private education with a cost variation of two to one and you want to make it free, you are faced with a dilemma. If you give an amount which will simply cover the cost of the cheapest schools then some schools will have to charge fees of £70. That is the present situation. If, on the other hand, you give the amount of money required to cover the cost of the dearest schools which provide the maximum facilities most of the schools will get twice as much money as they need, something which no Government or Department of Finance would readily contemplate. That is the dilemma.
Some compromise between the two is required. Clearly what is needed is to raise the grants so that as many schools as possible can come in. I think myself the answer may lie in making some special once-and-for-all provision to cover the past building debts of secondary schools. I suspect that if the Government looked at the building debts the schools have accumulated they might well find that with a fairly small increase in the annual grant virtually all the excluded schools could come in if the Government made some special provision to meet these past debts. After all, these debts were incurred to provide educational facilities for our children. The Government now pay 70 per cent of the cost and ultimately pay 100 per cent through the loans system. There is no reason why this should not be made retrospective if this would tidy up the system and enable us to have free education.
Even if that is done, there may still be some problems. There is a basic dilemma. A private system of education is bound to involve variation in costs as different private interests seek different objectives, either the cheapest education or the best education, both legitimate objectives. To make that free does create a problem. I do not blame the Government for not having found a quick and ready solution. I blame them for the solution they found in the case of the Protestants. I think they ought to consider whether there is any way in which they can get out of the situation where we have 30 Catholic girls schools outside the scheme and then the case of these Protestant schools.
I think this requires more debate than it has had. I do not think people have really applied their minds to this. Incidentally, one reason why they have not is that we have never been given any kind of picture of school costings. Apart from the limited figures published in Investment in Education nobody has ever told us what the position is. Most people thought naively that if they had to pay £10 or £12 for a few years in Christian Brothers schools that was the cost of education but the fact that five-sixths of the cost of that school was carried by the State already was not clear to them.
Nobody has ever published costings for schools to show the range. In fact, the only figures I know of which were published are ones which I estimated myself and published in an article in the Irish Times on 8th February, 1967. These I had to build up by extrapolating forward from the data in the Investment in Education report. No further figures have been published since then. We know nothing about the total costs of education or the range of costs of education. The Government should publish data of that kind showing the range of costs and getting school accounts from different schools showing the reasons why there are these variations in costs.
Then it might be worthwhile summoning together a conference of all the interested parties. The Minister should sit down with the representatives of the religious orders, the managers, the headmasters, the teachers, the parents and even, might I suggest, the Opposition's spokesman on education too. We should all sit around a table and try to hammer out some solution to this difficult problem. I know it is difficult and I am not blaming the Government for not having resolved it completely. The Government should publish a full statement of the facts and the actual educational costings, pose the problem of private and free education, call together a conference and say: "Look, here is the problem. How do you think it should be solved?" We need to put our heads together to find an answer to it.
I have spoken of four of the five aims of education which I mentioned at the outset. I want to speak now for a moment or two about variety and freedom. On this there may be some divergence of emphasis between ourselves and the Labour Party. We share with them the same concern to secure equality of opportunity and do this through the educational system but perhaps we place a little more emphasis on the desirability of maintaining variety and maintaining as much freedom as possible.
The role of the Department of Education should be to encourage variety and not to enforce uniformity. This can best be done by devolving authority for some of the things they are doing at the moment. This question of variety is important in relation to the curriculum. Nowadays, greater freedom is given but the curriculum is still tied down by the examination system and this could best be overcome by giving authority to a schools committee to look after this and take it out of the hands of the Department.
In regard to the new curriculum I should like to ask the Minister to let us know at what stage it is now and what are its implications in regard to the size of schools. There are conflicting views: some say that you can only operate the new curriculum in a six-teacher school and others say it can be operated in a small school. I have heard it said that the design of our schools is inappropriate. To what extent is this the case? Is it necessary for us to design our schools in a different shape and how long will this take? The whole question of the new curriculum is shrouded in mystery and only those close to the problem know what is happening. Perhaps the Minister would tell us something about the plans for the new curriculum in the primary schools and the implications in regard to the size and design of schools.
A point made by the teachers' study group in their interesting report on the draft curriculum is in relation to school libraries. They make the point that the amount of money the Department of Education spent towards the provision of school libraries in the last three years was £35,000 or 1.38 shillings per child. This figure compares most unfavourably with the 5.88 shillings which the Plowden Report gives for primary schools in England. It is stated that the position regarding the availability of supplementary readers in Irish schools has been examined by Kellaghan and Gorman. In a survey of a representative sample they found that in city and rural schools which had libraries there was .6 of a book per pupil. Town schools had one book per pupil. As supplementary readers and text books are an integral part of a new curriculum a huge increase in the annual expenditure by the Department of Education towards provision of reading material is not alone desirable but imperative. It was further stated that clearly a wide variety of reading material will be required to cater for the very wide range of interests and ability which are known to exist within each class. This is a problem in regard to the existing as well as the new curriculum. However, the point has been made in relation to the new curriculum and much more money could usefully be spent on school libraries.
A point made in the study group report is the vital importance of conversion courses for teachers, particularly in regard to mathematics. I know the Department are dealing with this matter and the Minister made reference to it in his opening speech.
Another point I wish to make in regard to the curriculum is one that has often been made in this House and refers to the teaching of history in our schools. The damage done by the teaching of falsified history is very serious and its repercussions continue to be felt in the way in which some groups react and the readiness to use violence in pursuit of political ends. This is a matter we have never taken sufficiently seriously and I should like to ask the Minister if he is satisfied that the kind of books that taught a distorted version of history have been taken out of schools. Is he satisfied that history is now taught in a manner that will eliminate prejudice and help people to develop a genuine patriotism and love of country, rather than the negative hatred that has been the result of the kind of history taught in the past? The Department have a resposibility in regard to textbooks and I should like if the Minister would look into this matter.
Regarding the size of classes in primary schools there is a deterioration in the position that is extremely disturbing. On the 18th of December I asked the Minister a question recorded in volume 243 of the Official Report. I asked the Minister (a) the number of children attending national schools on the 1st of February, 1963, and 1st February, 1968, (b) the number of national teachers at each of these times and (c) why the number of classes with 40 or more pupils has increased in this period in Dublin by 24 per cent, from 1,429 or 71 per cent of the total to 1,769 or 76 per cent of the total, and in the rest of the country by 4 per cent from 2,892 to 3,000. The Minister's answer did not explain anything. He said:
As regards the third part of the Deputy's question the explanation is that the shift of pupils to areas of larger population was not matched by a comparable movement of teachers. The securing of larger school units in rural areas will ensure that this imbalance is rectified.
This is difficult to follow because, as the number of pupils in the country as a whole went up by less than 2 per cent, the number of teachers increased by 3½ per cent and it is difficult to see why the proportion of classes over 40 should increase both in rural and urban areas. I could understand it if a redistribution were taking place, where the proportion might go down in one case and up in another. Whatever the explanation it is a most disturbing fact that, far from making progress and despite the closure of certain schools in rural areas, the problem of large classes in Dublin and the country is getting worse.
I do not understand how the Minister can accept this and I want to raise the point here in relation to teachers. I should like the Minister to state what is his policy as regards utilising the existing capacity in teacher training colleges. In his opening speech the Minister implied that all resources were being used and that he was looking around desperately to enlarge the output of teachers. Is the Minister not aware that one of the training colleges has capacity for a further 100 teachers and that for the last eight years the only reason they have been unable to train more teachers is that his Department will not let them do so? Assuming the figure of 100 refers to the last eight years, there are 800 teachers who might have been trained had the Department given permission to this college to do so. Why does the Minister refuse to allow the facilities in St. Patrick's Training College to be fully used? Why does he say that this college may train only men? Why is he enforcing segregation in education at a time when the country is desperately short of teachers? The training college has the classroom space, for which the Minister has generously provided the funds, and they could certainly take in more pupils. I find the whole problem incomprehensible and I cannot see why the Minister should enforce segregation when the college itself is quite willing to train girls as well as men. Perhaps the Minister in his reply would explain the position?
I wonder if there is any way in which we can help with the desperate problem of retardation of children in urban areas? The Minister has launched the Rutland Street project and this is a great step forward. It is something that will achieve a result in itself and, as a social experiment, we shall learn from it. Is there any way in which the community can apply their minds to this problem? The problem of children in the national schools in Dublin and particularly those coming from the poorer areas of the city is appalling. The home conditions in these areas make study almost impossible. There are many problems of delinquency and difficulties in the home and the schools find it extremely difficult to cope with the children. Can something, I wonder, not be done?
I should like to mention here a voluntary effort in progress at the moment with the help of teachers, students and secondary school children from more privileged backgrounds. They have come together—I do not know who organised it—and, with the help of the Irish Transport and General Workers' Union, who have allowed them a room in Liberty Hall—they have taken children there to help them every night of the week. From what I understand of it this is having quite a profound effect. There are, of course, many problems. It is not simply a question of helping with homework. The fact that someone is interested and wants to help, and has some human concern for them, is having a profound effect on the children. In some cases there may be a tendency towards over-dependency on those helping. The children are children alienated from the world in which they live because of the conditions in which they are being brought up; they find it difficult to break through and others find it difficult to make contact with them. But the fact is they are making contact and they are helping the development of the children, giving them some confidence and proving to them that the world is not as hostile a place as it it seemed. They are trying to give some help with homework so that these children may ultimately benefit from secondary education.
Could we not do more of this? Could we not give more encouragement to this kind of voluntary development? There are literally hundreds of thousands with the goodwill to help, who are themselves sufficiently educated to help such children, if they are organised. All credit to those who have organised this initial experiment. It is a remarkable venture. Their social consciences have prompted secondary school children into giving this assistance to those less fortunate. Do we always have to act institutionally? Must we always wait for the Department to set up a scheme to do things officially? As a community we have been lacking in both the energy and the will to do things ourselves. This example is one that could well be followed. The Minister and the Department should show some interest and, if there is a little help needed in providing more accommodation, perhaps some flexible scheme to help experiments of this kind could be evolved. We should not be too tied down to doing everything through strict and rigid channels. Small sums to help such schemes could do a great deal of good. This is something to which we could give more thought.
With regard to post-primary education, there is a transition problem. I raised this matter before with the Minister and I was not, I fear, very happy with the Minister's reply. The Minister —he may not admit it here—may not be very happy with the position himself. I refer to the minimum age of entry to secondary schools. The Department laid down a minimum age of entry of 12. This is an arbitrary figure. It has nothing to do with whether or not people are ready for such education. It is destructive in its operation because it holds back children who are ready. It frustrates them. They are held back in the primary school when they are more than ready to go on. A very high proportion of children are ready at age 11 and some at age 10. The child who is ready and able to start first year in the secondary course should not be held back because of arbitrary red tape. This is, indeed, utterly abhorrent.
I asked the Minister the reason for this and he said there were educational reasons. They are anti-educational reasons. This scheme is operating perversely, as the Minister knows from correspondence and from representations made. There is a problem where the school is unable to promote children because they are not yet 12. The clever children are held back and the schools are encouraged to promote children who are not ready, but who are aged 12, because more children are needed in the secondary school to bring the numbers up. The scheme has operated in one instance of which both I and the Minister are aware very perversely indeed. The school has promoted the less able children, who are not ready for secondary education, and held back the children who are ready. This has operated right down through the junior school. The perverse consequence of a totally inappropriate Government policy is something the Minister should do something about. I see no reason for this. The reason the Minister gave was that it would avoid the problem that would be created if children went to secondary school under age 12; they would finish too soon and would be too young to go to university or to do competitive examinations for the Civil Service. Since only a minority do that the Minister is holding back all the children simply because some would be ready too soon.
What matter if they are ready too soon? Why keep them in primary school when they are ready for secondary education? Why frustrate them rather than let them finish and put in a constructive year doing 6th form work, something which has been possible in Dublin for many years? I did that myself in one school in 1943. It is now possible also in girls' schools. What possible advantage is there in keeping a child back merely because the child might have a free year at the end during which to do useful 6th form work? The majority of children, when they finish secondary school, go into employment so that this business of waiting a year does not really arise. It is an extraordinarily weak and deficient argument.
I know there is pressure from the INTO on this point and, while I have great sympathy with them in their claims, in this instance they were not able to make any cogent case in favour of this policy. Their reasoning was unconvincing and, as far as I could see, they did not seem very convinced themselves. Able children should not be held back and less able children promoted in their place, with consequent disadvantages for them, simply because of pressure to keep the numbers up in primary schools. That is contrary to any idea of social justice or educational principles. Physical age is not a relevant factor here. The fact is secondary education in other countries starts at 10 or 11. That is true of many countries in Europe. There is no reason why we should say that nobody here may start secondary school until aged 12.
Again, this operates in a discriminatory fashion against Protestant children because, in their schools, it is customary to have a four-year course for intermediate certificate and the normal age at which they leave the primary school is 11. They are now frustrated by this departmental regulation which cuts right across the Protestant educational system. Why should the Minister lay down at what age children move from one stage to another? Is this not a matter for the schools, the parents and the children? Why should there be this ministerial intervention in this kind of educational matter? Here there is quite unnecessary bureaucratic involvement in education. No educationist would recommend anything of the kind. This occurs because the key policy makers are administrators rather than educationists. It is in that situation that this kind of ridiculous regulation can be made and defended by the Minister. I appeal to the Minister to reconsider this. The Minister has made no case for it. The INTO have not made any case for it. Educationally it is wrong and socially it is unjust. Because of the way it operates it discriminates against Protestants. For those reasons the Minister should reconsider it.
In this connection it is worth noting something from the UNESCO document, World Survey on Education, which is quoted in the Teachers' Study Group Report on the draft curriculum for the primary school, at page 45:
The lesson to be learned here is that the child's education should be an organic development and should not involve a significant change of method and matter for him in passing from one stage to another, or from one class to the next, or from primary to post-primary.
The point to be made here is that education is a continuous stream. I do not think there is such a major change either in the kind of teaching or subjects taught at the changeover from primary to secondary. If anything, a bigger break probably occurs at the senior cycle level when the level of teaching is raised to something approaching university level.
We have a system, as most countries do, of education divided between primary and secondary. While such a division may be administratively desirable and a matter of historical fact we should try to avoid anything which places obstacles to movement from one to the other or creates sudden gaps. Again, the Teachers' Study Group Report points out how little co-ordination there is between the curriculum at the top end of the primary and the bottom of the secondary. They argue that the Council of Education's Report on the secondary curriculum is, in fact, completely unsound on this and that there is a very serious problem and they quote chapter and verse in regard to individual subject for cases where there is overlap or a gap. For example, in the history programme topics are suggested for treatment in the fifth and sixth classes which are specifically catered for in the secondary course. They mention some which occur even in the first year course, the year after the pupil leaves the primary school, "Life in a Mediaeval Monastery", "Life Inside and Outside the Pale", "The Reformation", "Life in Penal Times".
On the other hand, there are topics which the vast majority will not study at all in their school programmes from age ten onwards which to us appear essential as they form such an important part of the nation's cultural heritage. They refer to such aspects as studies appropriate to the pupil's age, the myths and legends of ancient Ireland. It would be unfortunate for the student to grow up unacquainted with the richness of this material and without an intelligent understanding of the inherent values of these stories or even the significant part they played in the oral literature of our ancestors through the centuries. Another topic which is not included is the study of the civilisation of Ireland during the Golden Age.
Then they go on to deal with subjects such as mathematics and geography, in each case making the point about repetition, overlapping and gaps. There is no co-ordination between the curricula at primary and secondary level. We have a discontinuity in the system, an artificial obstacle placed in the path of children, a discontinuity in teaching, all of which is disruptive of education.
The Minister should pay particular attention to this problem of transition from primary to secondary. This is something to which, in Fine Gael policy, we have given considerable attention for somewhat different reasons. We were concerned at the sitution in this country that the primary school leaving age is 14 while, in fact, in other countries in Europe the primary school leaving age is uniformly between 10 and 12. In practice, in this country a very large number of children do leave the primary school at 12 because that is the age at which the secondary cycle starts and as more and more children take secondary education—only a small minority do not do so now—the changeover at age 12 is becoming more common. Yet, theoretically the primary system goes on to age 14. One reason why this is continued is, of course, the retardatory effect of the teaching of Irish which, by retarding development for one and a half years means that children may not complete the primary curriculum until age 14 while in other countries they reach the same stage at age 12. There is a serious problem here. In the Fine Gael policy document we looked at this problem and felt that it was desirable that the changeover should take place at age 12. We recognised this was going to involve quite a substantial adjustment on the primary side and suggested that in some instances this could be met by allowing the development of a new type of secondary tops in some of the primary schools, particularly as so many primary teachers are graduates and well able to teach the junior cycle of the secondary level. More flexibility here might be desirable and less rigid division.
The Minister's attempt through the Ryan Tribunal with its unfortunate consequences, the attempt to have a single teaching profession, well-intentioned, although it went wrong, would have helped towards this objective. Within the post-primary scheme itself there is the problem of the relationship between secondary and vocational. I have mentioned some aspects of this already but there are others.
There is the extraordinary situation in which eight years after the Minister's predecessor advocated the close integration of the two, a secondary school which employs a metalwork teacher, trained as such under the Department's course, will not be paid a salary for him and the man himself will be penalised. I mentioned this in questions I put down in the House. It was the case of a man who did this course in metalwork and the secondary school in question, in pursuance of the policy which the Minister's predecessors all laid down of integrating the two streams into one comprehensive stream, employed this metalwork teacher. They were refused an incremental salary for him and the man gets a letter from the Department saying: "As you have failed to comply with the terms of your appointment the Department has no option but to claim a refund of £640 2s 9d in respect of the cost of your training in accordance with the terms of the agreement."
Because this man had the temerity to take a job teaching metalwork in a secondary school in pursuance of the policy the Minister and all his predecessors had advocated he is to be fined £640 and the school is to be paid no salary for him.
I know there are technical problems about teachers' registration and so on but I understand the Minister could overcome these by administrative action were he willing to do so. Certainly, he does not have to press for this fine. There is no law which says he must charge this man £640 for teaching metal work in a secondary school and he could make arrangements for the incremental salary to be paid if he wished to do so. The hypocrisy of a Government Department pretending to be in favour of integration of secondary and vocational education and when, in fact, the school does this both the school and the teacher are penalised, is really deplorable. I have raised this before and I would urge the Minister to change his mind and do something constructive about it.
The position about comprehensive schools is obscure. The number of schools built and being built is tiny compared with what was apparently envisaged by the Government at the beginning. The reason why the programme has made no headway is not clear because the Minister or the Department did not disclose why the change in thinking occurred. There are persistent rumours that there has been pressure from the Church or from some churchmen which has prevented this development. The Minister should clarify policy on this. Development of State comprehensive schools especially in areas where, owing to, in some cases, the policy of particular bishops, secondary education is not developed, is a very good policy and welcomed, I think, by everybody. We should like to know why it is not being pursued more energetically. I do not think it is a question of funds but if it is, the Minister should say so.
Of course, these schools are much more expensive to run. You do not get them cheaply with religious orders financing them for the State. The full cost must be paid. In fact, one value of these schools is to show us what is the full cost of education when it is not financed by the religious orders. I should like the Minister to say why so few have been built and why the programme is going so slowly. It is noticeable that in Dublin in the two cases where such schools have been built both are run by religious orders. There is no reason why they should not be but I should like to know if there is any reason why both are. The idea of something being done by religious orders is quite good. The more diversified the system is the better and the more interlinked systems are with each other the better, but is there any reason why there should not be more comprehensive schools in Dublin? The Minister should say if he is inhibited in any way in this respect.
The Minister announced a date for raising the school leaving age which is two years later than the date originally fixed. He has not explained why there is such a delay. If, as he said, the free education scheme has accelerated the process or the problems of introducing it are minimal, why then is it taking two years longer? I can see that if we had not introduced free education the Minister might have had to extend the time but there is something rather odd in telling us that it was to be done in 1970, according to the Second Programme, but had to be postponed for two years because the free education scheme is so successful and that there are so few problems. The logic of this beats me. Can the Minister explain why it has been postponed for two years and why we cannot have the raising of the school leaving age at the date originally promised? Would he also say what plans there are for raising the age to 16, which, in fact, is the age in some countries? Is the Minister contemplating this in the future? What ideas has he on this subject? This is something to which the Fine Gael Party is committed in principle.
In regard to secondary schools, I should like to mention the dissatisfaction which I felt when I asked the Minister about the size of classes and it transpired that he had no information. His attempts at covering up by saying it was difficult to get information were unconvincing. It seems to me that there would be no difficulty in carrying out a survey of the kind carried out in respect of other matters for the Investment in Education report. All you have to do is get a fair sample of the overall pattern and to do that you ask schools to fill up a form saying how many there were in each class at a particular hour on a particular day. We know that there is an interchange of the classes at 11 o'clock and the size of the classes changes; we appreciate the complexity of that but if you just took any hour in any day and got a sample you would have a pattern for that moment of time which would be statistically valid because the changes in the size of the classes would balance out. This would give us some assessment of the size of classes. It seems extraordinary that the Minister has no information on this when he is operating a policy in regard to the size of classes, because of the relation of grants to the size of classes and the teachers. I fail to understand this. I do not see how you can operate a policy intelligently if you have not got the facts to back it up. I would ask him to give us some information on this.
I was disturbed to read about the shortage of finance which is inhibiting the development of secondary schools. The Minister implied this in a roundabout and rather negative way in his speech. He was explaining why there was not enough money and why schools could not be given the amount of money promised to them for expansion and he said:
In allocating the capital amount available priority is given to grant applications in respect of extra accommodation required for the additional numbers seeking admission to the schools. By exercising cost control and by giving due consideration to the degree of urgency attaching to different applications, every endeavour is made to ensure that the funds available are used to the best possible effect. In the current year building grants will be paid to the conductors of some 170 schools for the provision of varying amounts of additional accommodation.
It is the first time I have heard the word "conductor" used in this context; it is usually "manager."
When we hear the Government speaking about "priorities," a "degree of urgency,""cost control" and so on we know it means "we are short of money and cannot give out the money we promised." We have information on this matter in an article by Michael Heney published in the Irish Times of January 20th last. I may say these articles are very valuable. We are indebted particularly to the Irish Times for this educational feature. I find it of enormous help to have so much of my homework done by their very able journalists. The article stated that lack of Finance had forced the Department of Education to postpone 55 building projects for secondary schools which had already been approved. It said that this restriction, which was the first of its kind since the 70 per cent Departmental grants schools came in four years ago, was due to an unprecedented explosion in school building. About 50 of the schools concerned had been told in a recent circular from the post-primary school building unit that they had no hope of money before March 31st 1971 and even then it was not guaranteed. Another 15 schools were told that no money was available as the total provision of £2.46 million had already been fully allocated but that the money might be forthcoming next year. Since last September the Department have issued no money to finance new building projects in secondary schools.
The article went on to say that the circular stated that the Department were faced with hundreds of secondary school building applications, the bulk of which involved urgently needed new school places. They regretted that in these circumstances they were forced to curtail the building plans of certain schools. The principal of one school, the article said, stated that it was a pretty drastic cutback and that schools had often only half their extensions completed and now neither the school authorities nor the architects knew when they would be completed.
This is a most disturbing feature but why do we have to read about it in the newspaper? Why are ministerial speeches always confined to telling us about the wonderful things we have done? Why not tell us the truth about the difficulties? Why are circulars like this not communicated to the House? The House is entitled to know the position. If the secondary school expansion programme is breaking down for lack of finance, if cutbacks on a massive scale have to be effected, if extensions are being left half finished and plans postponed, surely all this is a matter of considerable public importance and the House should be informed. I should like the Minister to tell us about the circular, to explain what his plans are, what time lag there will be, how long the queue is and how long applications put in now will have to be delayed before they are dealt with and how much breakdown and cutback there is. We are entitled to know this and I would ask the Minister to deal with the matter fully.
The Department operate a means test in regard to the free book scheme which is extremely unsatisfactory in its operation. It is a very inadequate replacement of the scheme recommended in "Investment in Education" and adopted in the Fine Gael policy involving the payment of maintenance grants, or in the case of boarding schools, board grants to parents in the lower income groups who have kept their children at school. The money in this scheme is allocated arbitrarily to the schools who then have to operate the means test and in many cases other pupils are aware of the position of those children who are affected. What is required is that parents in the lower income groups should be given some compensation for loss of their children's earnings by keeping them at school and to give the parents an incentive to retain them at school. Instead of adopting the proposal in that report the Government went overboard with the free transport system costing £3 million. We are all delighted to have this scheme although in its operation it is often inequitable and unsatisfactory because of the limitations of its application.
I wonder if on balance the money provided in the scheme to parents who could afford to pay the bus fares could not be better used to provide assistance to parents of lower incomes to keep their children at school and who now find it difficult to do so. Would the general good not be better served if you had a less stringent means test for the free transport system and instead provide these grants to parents who are less well off. I consider that the priorities are wrong. The Minister will not take me up wrongly if I suggest we should cut back the transport scheme. It would have been better if the Government had done this and thus saved sufficient money to enable them to make the kind of grant I have suggested, in view of the very unsatisfactory book scheme.
In regard to the advanced leaving certificate I would ask the Minister to tell us what the present position is. I was never very clear about its functions, even when it was introduced. Has the position been altered by dropping the grouping system from the ordinary leaving certificate? When is it to be introduced and what function will it perform? Does the Minister envisage the development of a seventh year in school and will there be financial assistance given for this? My own view is that this would be very desirable. It seems clear that in many cases there is a need for an intermediate year between leaving school and going to the university. Even for those children not going to university an extra year would be very valuable before they take up a career. Very little has been said about this recently and we should hear more about it.
I do not propose to open up the question of teachers' salaries. On a Supplementary Estimate we confined ourselves rigidly to the matters involved and we availed of the opportunity to discuss teachers' salaries and tried to be helpful in our comments. As the matter is at conciliation level, I do not think we could usefully add anything to what was said here at that time.
I wish to deal now with the point I referred to on another occasion when I had not my documentation with me. It is not directly connected with teachers' salaries. It arises out of the strike last year. The Minister will recall that I raised the question of headmasters in schools being required to sign a form to the effect that they did not aid or abet the teachers' strike. There was also the matter of their being told they would not get their salaries if the form was not signed. Having asked the Minister about this, I was not satisfied with his reply. The fact as given to me by the Irish Schoolmasters' Association is that some refused to sign this form. It was a most extraordinary thing to be asked to do seeing that they were not themselves members of ASTI. They went to their schools and were willing to work but their employees did not turn up. They were then asked to sign a document— a document not even to the effect that they were prepared to work but that there was no work to be done, but a document saying that they were not in favour of the teachers' strike.
It is intolerable that anybody should have the payment of his salary made contingent not only on his willingness and ability to work, while there, but on whether he was in favour, in his mind, of his own employees' action in the matter. I cannot conceive how any Government could seek to have such a document imposed on a body of people. Beyond that, some of those who signed were still not paid. One of the people was, in fact, ill at the time and could not have been at school; nevertheless, the money was deducted. Of those who signed, some were not paid. The Irish Schoolmasters' Association wrote four or five letters to the Department but did not receive any reply at the time; the first reply they received was in November, a long time after the strike. They simply could not get any response to their letters at the time.
It is intolerable that the Department should ask people not involved in the strike to sign an assurance that they were not in favour of it and that there should be the threat that they would be penalised if they did not sign the document. There is the further fact that the Department did not reply for months to letters addressed to it by the association. A year after the strike, some of the persons of whom I speak had not been paid. Would the Minister explain that? What right had the Department to withhold salaries in that way? The Minister has some explaining to do in this connection. It is an extraordinary performance. I understand it applied to the Catholic headmasters also, some of whom are clerics and who are, perhaps, in a better position because they are supported by their order; they would not starve because they are not getting their salary. It is intolerable that anybody, particularly a married man, should be so treated in these circumstances. Have the salaries been paid in all cases, whether or not they have signed this obnoxious form? The Minister should make the position clear.
I want to turn now to primary teacher training, to which the Minister makes a very vague reference in his opening speech. This is an area where promises which were made have not been implemented and where there is no sign of that happening. I would refer the House to the Minister's remarks on the teacher training course and the qualifications for a teacher. The Minister says he is confident that this matter will be resolved satisfactorily in the not too distant future. How fast can you move backwards? I think it was the Minister's predecessor who said in the Seanad, over two years ago, that a three-year university course, with a university degree at the end of it, would be available to primary teachers from October, 1969. There was a massive diversion of talent from the training colleges to the universities. The average number of honours per student fell sharply in the first year, predictably enough; it was predicted by the Minister's predecessor, too. We are now six months after the promised date when these courses were to start. All the Minister could say is that the resolution of the problems must take some time but that he is confident they will be solved in the not too distant future. Knowing how carefully a ministerial brief is drafted, that, to me, means three years at best—a thoroughly unsatisfactory situation.
I put it to the Minister in the Seanad at that time that his idea of converting, overnight, the teacher training course into a course including a university degree was unrealistic. I put it to him that the possibility of doing this and the taking of a degree that would be treated on a par with existing university degrees was minimal. I put it to him that the teacher training colleges, with their two-year course, were not yet at the stage where this could be achieved. I put it to him that, whereas it might be possible to achieve it relatively quickly in some cases, in other cases it would take longer. I asked whether this was the right approach at all to teacher training. I asked whether teacher training colleges should give the B.Ed. qualification, which would be treated as of a lower standing than a university degree, or whether instead we could give primary teachers university education. In this respect, the B.Ed. qualification has been found unsatisfactory. Either it should be a university degree, and recognised as such, or the teacher should be sent to the university and undergo a separate training course afterwards. Some of the interests involved felt that the Fine Gael idea would be an acceptable solution. My own feeling is that the view of the people in the teacher training colleges has been moving in this direction. Our idea was that primary teachers should go to the university in the normal way and undertake a university degree course. If it is a general degree course, they would accompany it by a concurrent course in teaching theory and practice. At the end of the three years, they would have a university degree. Those with an honours degree would be exempted from the teaching theory and practice course and would go for one year to a teacher training college in order to cover teacher training techniques. I think the present course would be covered by the university course. It would be possible to reduce this time to one year by concentrating on the teaching techniques. The effect would be to double the output from the teacher training colleges and that is something which is badly needed.
Rather paradoxically, the universities are, in fact, very much cheaper than the teacher training colleges because the training colleges, until recently, have been residential. Their costs are very high. Where residence is involved the building costs are much greater than those of the university. I would hesitate to tell the House the difference between the cost per pupil of building extensions in teacher training colleges and the cost per pupil of similar building extensions in the universities. The position with regard to teaching costs is similar because of the mass production which has been forced on us by the Government. The cost per student in the universities is relatively low. One could provide university training, nonresidential, with a year in teaching techniques afterwards at a cost not greater than the cost of residential training at present. The teachers would then have a university degree and have teaching qualifications and training as well. I recommend this approach to the Minister. In the case of St. Patrick's College this may be the better approach. I would not be too dogmatic about it. Perhaps St. Patrick's College should become a university college. This could be done in a relatively short space of time. It is already a major centre of education and research. The staff are well qualified and St. Patrick's College could be a fully-fledged university college in a short time.
I am convinced that no genuine university, giving genuine degrees recognised as such elsewhere, would be satisfied with an overnight attempt to carry out such an operation. This must take place gradually over three or four years. The right approach is to distinguish between cases where a training college can be converted into a genuine university college whose degrees would be fully acceptable and cases where the right answer is for the students to go to a university college and to finish off training in the teacher colleges at a later stage. I recommend to the Minister to have a more sophisticated approach to this problem. This is what I said to his predecessor some years ago. I am convinced of the rightness of this now.
I hope the Minister will have an open mind on this and will not try to force a uniform system on the training colleges. A three-year course which would include the equivalent of a year dealing with teaching, theory and practice and really only two years study of university subjects would not have parity with a university degree. This would be a very retrogressive step. If the Minister is going to elevate the training colleges, or any of them, into university colleges there would have to be a four-year course consisting of three years in the university and then a year studying theory and practice of teaching. The three-year course amalgamating the two types of training would be a second best and would operate to the detriment of the teaching profession. It would make it impossible to achieve parity of status between the different types of teachers. There is no good trying to have a single teaching profession if there are different arrangements for the education and training of the people within the profession.
The Minister referred to career guidance. We must face the fact that career guidance teachers cannot be turned out in three weeks. Such a plan is not acceptable. The Minister is aware that, in fact, a diploma course was introduced in University College, Dublin. This course would provide fully-trained guidance teachers for the schools. The idea of the Department producing a three-week course and foisting it on the schools is retrogressive. The Department is lowering standards instead of raising them. The Minister should not encourage this trend. The Minister should ensure that career guidance is a full diploma course with adequate training.
I come now to the question of university education. I wish to say a word about the merger. At the moment it is difficult to say anything about it because we are on the eve of revelations as to what has been agreed between the Senate of NUI and the board of Dublin University. I am in the happy position of ignorance as to what is contained in the proposals and as to what has been agreed upon. There are various rumours in circulation. The Minister knows that I have been in favour of the merger, though not of the particular form of merger proposed on 6th July, 1968. I was in favour of the merger because I had difficulty in foreseeing adequate co-operation and co-ordination between the two Dublin colleges unless there was some body with co-ordinating power. I was concerned with the fact that we had a proliferation of research institutes in Dublin, such as the Economics Institute, the Agricultural Institute, et cetera. These should, in the ordinary way, have developed within the ambit of the university. Because of the existence of the two universities and the difficulties involved in making a choice between them in locating such activities, this proliferation of institutes exists outside the universities. This has been detrimental to the universities. The volume of research carried out has been very inadequate because all the resources for research are channelled into these institutes and the resources given to the universities are not adequate to provide even sufficient teaching staff, not to speak of providing anything extra to finance staff for research purposes or to provide enough staff so that the existing staff would have sufficient spare time for research.
This has been a most unfortunate development. It has arisen partly from the fact that there were two universities. If there were one university in Dublin it would be easier to have research carried out within it and incorporated within its framework and yet retain the identity of the institutes involved, linking them to the university with exchange of staff. Research staff could teach in the university and university teaching staff could undertake research in the institutes concerned. That was a reason for favouring a merger of some kind. The merger as proposed by the Government was unsatisfactory in most respects. The distribution of faculties left UCD in a very disadvantageous position. The concentration of post-graduate research at one or other institution was unnecessary and potentially damaging to the academic life of the institutions concerned. I was not in favour of the particular merger proposed for this reason. The universities will now come out with some solution. We will not comment on it until we have heard what it is.
The Minister should, when he sees the solution, examine it objectively from the point of view of ascertaining whether he feels it would achieve the aims the Government set out to achieve. The Minister should not get too bogged down in whether it is or is not a merger. The merger as such is not the important thing. It is important whether the legitimate and proper objectives of the merger are likely to be achieved in the solution proposed. If, in fact, they are achieved then the Minister and I, favouring a merger because we thought it was the only solution and we thought the two universities would not co-operate sufficiently otherwise, must reconsider our positions. If, in fact, the solution proposed does achieve whatever rationalisation is necessary—and I have never been convinced that rationalisation is a major problem except in the fringe cases like the veterinary faculty —and if the proposals co-ordinate the two universities, it would be a great mistake to insist on the letter of the merger for the sake of having a merger. It would be foolish to do this against the wishes of the authorities and the staffs of the colleges concerned. This could have unfortunate consequences for university education in Ireland. We must look objectively at the solution from the point of view of whether it achieves the necessary measures of rationalisation of the facilities and whether it achieves adequate co-ordination.
On the question of rationalisation, let me say that from the beginning I was convinced that the arguments advanced were spurious. The original argument was that Trinity were looking for £2 million for a new arts building and the Government could not afford the money and therefore decided to have a merger which would be cheaper and easier. This is all foolish nonsense. The arts buildings in both UCD and Trinity are so large that there is no economy in scale to be achieved by merging. The actual economies in scale in a merger would not amount to more than a couple of tens of thousands of pounds. It is hard to think of any departments you can merge and achieve thereby an economy in scale. There might be something gained in Welsh and oriental languages but the economy would be small, especially in the matter of continental languages. Something might be achieved in the sense of providing a spread of specialists between the two universities but, as I have said, there are very few cases where economies would be effected.
The thing is pointless, therefore, because the idea of rationalisation implies that there are unutilised resources. In both colleges the veterinary faculties are very small and if you took the two together they would still be very small, and therefore there might be a point in amalgamation here. However, in most of the other disciplines there is no spare capacity available.
There could, of course, be economies in the joint use of facilities. Both would be better with the use of one large computer than with two small ones. There may be other scientific equipment in the use of which collaboration might be beneficial. I do not think there is any great problem there. I have examined this in great detail. I did costings in detail for individual departments. I gave size of classes and estimated what the economies in scale would be but found that the economies would amount only to tens of thousands of pounds.
Therefore, I urge on the Minister that if the solution is not a merger he should examine that solution rather as a fact than a prejudice, and if this solution were to cost more in building and staff than the merger, he should examine it most carefully to see if it is worth thinking about. The point is that we should get away from all this emotive talk about the problem. As I have said, any measure of rationalisation would bring very few economies. That is why I ask the Minister to look at it objectively and not to be influenced by the talk about the vast economies to be gained by rationalisation. These economies in practice will not exist.
I come now to the question of co-ordination. This is very important and I have always laid stress on it. It is very important that where you have two universities and specialists in each in different things these specialists should be accessible to all the students of both universities. If, for instance, Trinity had a specialist in Chaucer, it would be wrong that advanced students from UCD would not have access to this man. Therefore, any arrangement made should ensure the full avaliability of exchange of staff, of exchange of students from one to the other, the students to be given credit for it, the exchange of students who would lecture and the giving of credit to these students. Because there are no real economies in rationalisation, we should be very slow to condemn any other solution that might emerge. No more can be said on this subject until we hear what the proposals are. I think the Minister will have an open mind on the whole subject.
On university autonomy, I should like to say a couple of words on its importance because I am not sure its importance is fully understood. We have been hoping to have autonomous universities. However, very often one does not count the blessings and it is only gradually that I came to realise this. Not so long ago when a professor from the continent talked to the staff of UCD and did not talk about the things we thought he would talk about, we asked him why he had narrowed his lecture to such an extent. He told us the Department in France had told him what to talk about. Therefore, those professors are not free to say what they think. There is a bureaucratic system and there is much more freedom here. The consequences of this may be seen in the illiberality, in the hostility between students and governments.
University autonomy is an integral part of a university system. It involves certain rights. It involves the right of the university to determine entrance and degree standards. It involves the right to determine who should benefit by grants. A university may decide on a particular standard, lower than the standard which the Government feel is required. That is the case at the moment in UCD where the standard of entrance is two honours in the leaving certificate although the Government say it should be four. The Government were perfectly entitled to pick their level for the payment of grants but the university must be able to decide on the standard of entrance.
The universities have the right to determine degree standards and I am glad to see there is no question of that being interfered with by the Government. The university should have the right to appoint its staff. This is a very important one, as is the tenure of staff. I am not sure the importance of this is understood. In the Seanad a few years ago the Taoiseach, as Minister for Finance, discussing the Laying of Documents Bill, inadvertently, perhaps by a slip of the tongue, insisted on the importance of parliament having the right to vet appointment in the universities. I pointed out at the time that what parliament had was the right to approve of the creation of posts, and the Taoiseach corrected himself. However, I was disturbed at his readiness to point to the supposed right of parliament to vet appointments.
I do not think the present system through which we cannot create posts without the consent of parliament. without the order being laid on the Table, is necessary or desirable. Trinity can do it but UCD cannot. The right to appoint staff should be held by the universities and there should be no incursion in that area.
University staff security of tenure is also very important. In the NUI there are two ways in which this right is prejudiced. In UCD, 70 per cent of the staff are appointed from year to year. Up to now, the non-statutory staff have been in the position that they had fears their appointments might be terminated at any time. That has not happened: there has been no case of which I am aware in which it has happened. However, there was a recent case of the termination of the appointments of two part-time junior staff. This has caused great concern among the staff. It is a fact, and I assert it from personal experience, that people fear that if they speak out on some issue or other against the college authorities they may have their appointment terminated. So long as they fear this could happen they will be inhibited. There is no doubt that the failure of the UCD authorities to operate democratically in recent years has had the effect on people that they fear that if they speak out their appointments will be terminated. It is unrealistic but there it is.
At the other end, there is the unfortunate power to extend the term of office of a professor by five years, so that in his later years a professor may fear that if he speaks out his term of office will not be extended to the age of 70 and this, in turn, makes him reluctant to say what he thinks. In any university it is important that the staff should have security of tenure and that they should be appointed for life to a specific age which should not be extended. They should be secure during that period unless, of course, they should be guilty of some misdemeanour when they would be dismissed by due process. This principle does not exist in the NUI so that there is a detrimental effect on the working of the college. It is a principle which must be incorporated in the new constitution.
In the light of what the Minister said yesterday it is important and relevant for me to say that universities should have the right to determine their own fees and the remuneration of their staff subject only to any general incomes policy that may exist. During the past couple of years the Government have made serious inroads in this respect. The autonomy of the colleges has been undermined because the Government, first of all, have interfered by telling the colleges not to increase their fees and this has been compensated for by giving an extra grant to the colleges but this extra grant was offset by a failure to give the full grant requested in the ordinary heading. It is obvious that if the colleges do not increase their fees and get the 25 per cent, the Minister can come back and ask "Why should I increase your grant next year when you could have got the money yourselves but did not do so?" In effect, the Government are determining university fees by prohibiting increases. At the same time, during the past two years, the remuneration of the staff has ceased to be determined by the college. Until then the principle was maintained throughout but the college decided what to pay their staff and the cost was incorporated in a request for money from the Government. When asking for money the college listed the purposes for which the money would be used and these purposes would include salaries of staff and so on but during the past couple of years a different approach has become evident whereby the Department insist on the right to control or veto increases in salaries of university staffs. In fact, it is threatened that if increases are given which do not conform to instructions the Department will ensure that in the case of statutory salaries the margin would be annulled in the House. This introduces a new principle and the erosion of university freedom. Of course, the university must act responsibly in the matter of salaries and if they were to act irresponsibly the Government would be likely to take account of that in paying future grants.
To act responsibly is to act in the way that other private institutions act in determining salaries of staff and if there is an incomes policy of any kind in operation the universities must conform but what is particularly obvious is that some of the interference by the Department with regard to increases in salaries has been to prohibit increases in salaries in line with the salaries of civil servants.
All that has been sought during this period by the universities is that they at least keep up with the salaries of civil servants but this has been rejected and, indeed, an attempt has been made to prevent the full payment of one of the rounds.
Civil servants ensure that they themselves get increases but they then refuse the increases to universities' staffs. This principle is objectionable. The universities should be free to determine the salaries of their own staffs as they should be free to negotiate for funds for various purposes as will be done in future under the Higher Education Authority. One can only hope that this authority when set up will be in a position to preserve the autonomy of the universities and that it will give them the right to act in the way in which any other private institution would act. The degree of interference by the Department in relation to this matter is much greater than that with any State-sponsored body. There is no excuse for this. The autonomy of the colleges can be too easily eroded and it would appear that at the moment there are signs of this type of erosion.
Thirdly, I wish to say a word about the democratic running of the universities. Our universities operate under a very antiquated code. In the case of TCD the college has the power and the right to determine its own statute freely and without any Government approval owing to the letters patent of 1911 but in the case of UCD, however, and the other colleges of the NUI the running of the colleges is laid down in great detail in the Charter, in the Act of 1908, in the Charter of the NUI, the Charter of UCD, the Statute of the NUI and the Statute of UCD so that in order to find out what is the legal position it is necessary to examine five documents.
It was established for reasons pertaining to the then balance of power between the Irish Parliamentary Party, the Irish Hierarchy and the Liberal Government in England each of whom had a particular interest. The particular structure that evolved might have been appropriate to 1908 and it might have been appropriate to 1914 but it bears no relevance to the present day situation. Again and again, university authorities and staff are inhibited in their thinking and cannot do as they wish. For example, while the view of the college is that students should play a part in their own disciplinary procedure, the authorities cannot bring this about because of the structure. Of course, in this day and age one cannot expect students to accept a disciplinary code in which they have no say and the more they are involved in their own disciplinary process the more effective that process will become. However, we are told that there are legal difficulties about this and that the charter is so specific as to how this power should be exercised that it is impossible to implement such a process. We are told that the governing body have no power to delegate any functions because the charter lays down the condition that they must perform all these functions themselves including a refund of 30s to a student who had overpaid.
University reform is badly needed. The Minister will recall that a little more than a year ago there was a movement in UCD called "Gentle Revolution," the resolution of which proved extremely difficult because of the rigidity of the structure that exists. If we are to avoid any further explosion the charter must be reformed and when this is being done it is important that the new charter shall be flexible so that if, in future, it transpires that it is desirable to change it, this can be done without an Act of Parliament. On the other hand, it must contain certain entrenched principles to ensure the democratic operation of the institution. This is something we must consider as soon as the merger issue is settled and I would hope that, when framing the new charters of the NUI and TCD, the Minister will have full regard for the views of the staff and students of these colleges. It will be a difficult and delicate task to frame a charter that will ensure the democratic operation of the universities and when he is doing this I hope that the Minister will pay heed to the advice he receives from those directly concerned.
We have been very lucky that we have survived for so long under the existing structure. We have been lucky that last year's difficulties were overcome and that we have been able to carry on for another year. I must say I was more pessimistic and did not think we would have been able to carry on. I regard the reform of the structure of the universities as a matter of great urgency. No doubt the Higher Education Authority will receive from the staffs of the colleges and the students also their views on the subject before long and I hope when these views are submitted the Minister will be prepared to act quickly to reform the structure in line with the wishes of the staff and students.
On the question of grants and scholarships for university students the differential of £150 between the present grants is inadequate. I do not think the Minister can seriously believe the extra cost to parents of keeping a student away from home is only £150. The grant given in respect of the student living in the university city particularly, if it is increased to cover the increase in fees, is reasonable. If the Minister intends to revise these grants upwards to take account of the increase in fees he should look again at the rural grant. The Fine Gael policy proposed a differential of £200. We underestimated it and should have made it £250. The Minister should increase it to that amount.
I mentioned the four honours requirement. The Government have a perfect right to lay down conditions for university scholarships but they ought to consider as soon as possible lowering the requirement to, say, three honours. Four honours does limit these grants to a small minority of possible students and some easing of this, when it becomes financially possible, would be desirable.
The whole question of entrance policy will come up in the near future. The capital provision announced by the Minister and, indeed, the very limited current provision in this year's Budget, even if you add to that the amount to be secured from increased fees, raises the question whether universities can continue to accept an expansion of the numbers entering. The growth of numbers was restrained slightly by raising the entrance standards to two honours. This only had a temporary effect. In fact, it has not held up the growth of numbers very much. The staff-student ratios in our colleges are very much above the appropriate level. In the arts faculty in UCD the staff-student ratio is 26 to one, that is, about three times the British level. This is intolerable. I do not say that our level should be the same as the British level, because owing to the fact that we have very large classes of pass or general degree students whereby there is an economy involved in lecturing, we can have the same standards of lecturing and tutorials or the same number of students per tutorial as in Britain with a somewhat less favourable staff-student ratio. I thought the suggestion of the Commission on Higher Education of a 12 to one staff-student ratio as a target for 1975 was a reasonable one. We could come very close to British standards on that basis. What progress are we making towards this? None. In the arts faculty the position has deteriorated in the last two or three years. The ratio has gone from 25 to one to 26 to one. The extraordinarily small funds available to us have not been sufficient to do more than pay the extra salaries and pay the increased costs of running the college, particularly with the increased costs of moving to Belfield in the case of UCD.
It has not been possible to improve the staff-student ratio. In fact, it would be physically impossible in the time remaining now to achieve a 12 to one staff-student ratio by 1975 in faculties like arts in UCD even if the money was available. You simply could not more than double the staff in five years in the arts faculty without the dilution of quality. There are not that many sufficiently good post-graduate students or people willing to come from abroad to enable us to double the staff in five years.
The neglect of the Government, the inability to provide funds, the persistent granting to the colleges of less than they have looked for, the persistent failure to face up to the implications of the 12 to 1 staff-student ratio, have created a situation where it would be impossible, at least in the case of arts in UCD, to attain the targets even if the Government now provide the money. The present staff-student ratio position is disastrously bad. It imposes a very severe burden. It limits the amount of research the staff can do owing to the burden of teaching. The contact between staff and students is quite inadequate. In the case of first-year students they have virtually no personal contact with the members of the staff in UCD and I do not think they have it in the other colleges either. The inability to break down groups into small tutorials means the students do not even get to know one another. One student remarked to me in his first year that it was hard to get to know anybody else in first year, that the chances of sitting beside the same person twice, even if you tried to do so, were minimal because the classes are so large.
It is intolerable that each year the universities put in their requests for funds to the Government saying: "We need this much for an increase in salaries"—and until this year the increases in salaries have not been questioned by the Department. "We need this much for the increase in costs if we are to move at all towards the staff-student ratio recommended by the Commission on Higher Education. The total bill for this is so much"; then the Government send back half or less than half this amount without saying which bit is to be cut. If you then say: "You have not given us enough money to increase the staff" they say: "We did. We gave you more than was needed for that." Then you add: "But there was not enough to pay for the extra costs." Then they claim:"The money was for that too." It is a kind of three-card trick arrangement.
If the Government get a request for funds from colleges they are entitled to examine it and question it and if there is some miscalculation, if the college is looking for more money than is necessary, the Government should say: "We think your request for money under this heading is wrong and we have decided not to give it to you." But to give a fraction of the amount asked for without any indication as to the inappropriateness of what has been asked for is unacceptable. Was it last April we were promised legislation in respect of the HEA? Perhaps the Minister would tell us when we shall get that legislation. The sooner it comes through the better and the sooner the universities channel their requests for funds through the HEA the better; and the sooner the Government decide whether or not they will provide adequate funds for the universities the better.
If the Government do not provide adequate funds then the universities will have to restrict entry. They do not want to do it. The tradition of our universities has been liberal on the question of entry. In fact, we have been far too liberal in increasing the number of students without having an adequate staff to teach them or adequate buildings to accommodate them. If the universities must restrict entry the blame for that will not rest on the universities, who have resisted this long beyond the time when they should have accepted the need for it, but on the Government.
I do not understand the Minister's statement that for £15 million we can get what the Higher Education Authority said would cost £24 million. This, if true, would be a quite extraordinary condemnation of the HEA, if their margin of error could be as great as that. Does the Minister mean that the Higher Education Authority have miscalculated to the tune of £9 million, made the cost 60 per cent higher than the true cost, or that there are some wonderful new methods which will reduce the cost of building by that amount? Would the Minister say in replying what precisely are these economies, how cuts of this magnitude were achieved? Does he seriously mean that the full accommodation requirements proposed by the Higher Education Authority can be secured for this sum?
A comment in the papers this morning from a member of the Higher Education Authority suggests that the Minister is not being accurate in his statement here. If universities will not be given the funds to expand at the rate stated to be required by the Commission on Higher Education and later by the Higher Education Authority the sooner they know it the better so that they can cut back their expansion in numbers. The Minister will need to explain to universities the basis of these cuts and what the economies are. When we know what economies the Minister proposes—perhaps we are all to be put in prefabs—the Higher Education Authority can decide whether they and the universities believe it is possible to provide the required accommodation for the amount provided.
I want to mention the teaching of theology in the universities. I am sure the Minister has received a document on this subject from the Irish Theological Association and I think a document has also been published by the Irish Federation of University Teachers which is not dissimilar in tone. I hope the Minister will consider these documents. There is almost unanimous agreement between staff and students that the absence of theology in universities is a serious defect. While recognising that there are problems in introducing theology the NUI feels the present ban under this antiquated charter, which was introduced by the Liberal Government as part of its anti-clerical activities in 1908, should go and that theology should be allowed to be taught.
Theology must be taught as an academic discipline and this requires the appointment of staff to be in the hands of the colleges concerned. We recognise there may be problems of a denominational character and that provision will have to be made for certain posts which are denominational in character. The proposals in the Irish Theological Association's memorandum as to how this can be achieved are good proposals and I think the Minister should consider them seriously. As he knows, the arrangement is that the university advertises, selects people and then presents the list of applicants which they consider to be suitable to the appropriate body of the religious denomination concerned, if it is a denominational body; and that body has the right to veto anybody if it feels he is not in a position adequately to represent the theological views of that particular denomination; and the university will then choose its appointee from the remainder. It is also important that anybody appointed cannot be dismissed except in very special circumstances. Provision is made in this memorandum whereby a university would be required to dismiss someone holding a denominational post only if he were found to be guilty of heresy. With these safeguards of academic freedom I think universities would welcome the introduction of theology.
The next point I want to make is one outside the Minister's scope of responsibility, and I shall not, therefore, dwell on it, and that is the ban on Trinity. The Minister will have read the document published by the Irish Federation of University Teachers. I hope he thinks it was well put. I regret, and I hope he regrets, that reaction from the hierarchy has been so negative and, in a sense, so political. Their reason for not acting is a political reason because of the present uncertain situation and doubts about how the merger will evolve. I cannot see how these doubts should prevent them from doing the right thing if they believe it is the right thing to do. The ban is long overdue for removal; in fact, it is widely ignored, and I hope it will be removed before very long.
I would urge the Minister to look into the question of hot school meals. I am sure he is aware of the work done by the North Cork parents association and the study carried out by Mr. Terence O'Brien of the Magee College, Londonderry. Hot school meals are provided in some areas but I hope the Minister will look into the provision of hot meals in all schools. Mr. O'Brien's study suggests how this can be done efficiently and economically and I hope the Department will have due regard to it when making plans for the school meal service.
There are defects in the present school transport system. I was in communication with one of the Minister's officials on the subject of a person who made representations to me and who was prepared to pay his child's fare to travel on the school bus. He had applied in April but had received no reply from the Department and in desperation he came to me. I wrote to the Department and eventually the parent got the necessary permission on 10th October. It is ludicrous that a man should have fruitless correspondence with the Department, then approach a TD—in this case he was not in my constituency—and have to wait six months before being allowed to pay for his child to travel on the school bus. Again we have this extraordinarily lethargic bureaucracy. Surely, if there is room on the bus anyone willing to pay should be allowed to travel on it without having to enter into a six months long correspondence, bringing TDs into it as well, just to get permission to travel on the school bus? I cannot understand why the system has to be so cumbersome. Will the Minister give an assurance that if someone wants to send his child to school on a school bus and is not entitled to free travel, he will be allowed to pay? This would reduce the cost to the State and would be of benefit to the children concerned. I hope the Minister will deal with that in his reply.
I would like the Minister to consider extending the school health service to non-aided primary schools. I know the Minister has to have regard mainly to national schools and that he must not take any course of action which would favour non-aided schools as against national schools but this scheme favours the pupils rather than the school and I would urge the Minister to extend the school health service to these people.
In a previous debate I pressed for an assurance that the £100,000 made available for youth services would be spent. I should like to congratulate the Minister on having made arrangements to spend this sum fully. It is most satisfactory that it has been done and I am glad the matter has been kept under close review. I hope it will be possible to widen the scope of the scheme.
I was concerned to learn that the money provided for educational research has not been fully spent. Reference to this fact was made in the Public Accounts Committee last year and was published in the press recently. The reason given by the Secretary of the Department for not spending all the money was that they could not get enough good projects. I do not blame the Department because there are not enough good projects but the Minister should concern himself if he cannot find educational projects on which to spend £10,000. There is something wrong with the country if that is the situation and if there are projects and the money was provided for them, then there is something wrong with the system of administration.
Our educational statistics are inadequate and antiquated. The Investment in Education Report made a great breakthrough in providing us with new and relevant figures because the figures we had up to then were irrelevant to our needs. What has been done to keep the figures up to date? The development unit was established with the aim of ensuring that we did have a continuous flow of figures but in many cases when one seeks information in order to up-date the report one cannot get the figures. I understood the aim was to ensure that all the figures would be kept up to date regularly. I am continually getting complaints from secondary teachers that they cannot get up-to-date examination statistics which they feel are a very important educational guide. I am talking here about people genuinely concerned about education. I had a communication from one educational expert who said:
At this juncture in Irish education nothing is more needed——
that is possibly an over-statement——
than constant communication between the Inspectors and the schools; standards of learning are in danger of slipping, the new syllabuses and somewhat reformed examinations are an occasion of stress and worry and bewilderment for teachers. It is impossible for a member of a Standardising Committee for a subject to extract even minimal statistics upon which judgments of standards etc. might be made. The Department pleads overwork and inadequate staff.
He then presses for the independent school committee which I mentioned. He says:
An Independent Board could press for adequate staff, for adequate facilities by which statistics could be assembled and made public; and such a board would make public its annual report to the Minister.
This is another good argument for having a proper examination committee, as in Northern Ireland. It could do what the Department, in its present state of overwork, cannot do, at least produce some kind of statistics and some kind of basis for considering the validity of the examinations. In this country we have been terribly neglectful of this field of study. In the universities also we are to blame. We have not done the work we should do on our own examination statistics. I did a minor job last year on one particular examination and got some very interesting results, suggesting wide variations in standards in different subjects. There is no provision for this. It is nobody's responsibility to examine examination statistics and moderate examination standards. It is done on a very general scale on the leaving certificate and the intermediate certificate examinations in the Department but there is no adequate study of examination statistics with a view to improving the whole system of examinations. This is something that should be looked at. The slowness in producing figures is a defect of the present system.
I welcome what the Minister had to say about reformatories and industrial schools. We are all pleased that, at last, the sums of money provided here have been greatly increased. It has been a mystery to me why this was not done long ago. I thought one of the most important features of the 1965 Just Society policy of Fine Gael was the section dealing with this. We had the assistance of several experts here and what we learned from them of the pressure put on these institutions by inadequate finance and the conditions which they were forced to provide for the people in them were horrifying. I do not understand how we could have been so long about it, the sums of money are so small. The Minister should be congratulated for doing something, however belatedly, about this and I hope he will be more generous in the near future until we have really satisfactory conditions in these institutions.
This debate also covers the National Gallery, the National Library and the National Museum. On the National Gallery I am not competent to say much except that as a member of the Public Accounts Committee I was concerned at the evidence given by the accounting officer, the Director of the National Gallery. He gave evidence some time ago that he had got approval in principle for more staff which were badly needed. He had completely failed, however, to get the staff. He had also failed to discover why he did not get the staff. For the Director of the National Gallery to get approval to employ staff, not to get them and not to be able to find out what has gone wrong or who is causing the delay is an extraordinary example of bureaucracy at work. There is something wrong with a system that works like that. I can quite understand the Director of the National Gallery looking for more staff and being told he cannot get them. I might not agree but it makes sense if somebody is trying to save money. However, if staff is approved in principle and then months and years pass and he cannot get the staff or find out who is stopping him from getting the staff or what he should do to overcome this obstacle, there is something very wrong with the system. I recommend that the Minister should look into it. It seems to me that between his Department and the National Gallery and the Department of Finance something is wrong. There is a channel blocked somewhere. I hope it is not in the Minister's Department.
The Minister will be aware that a group has been formed recently to promote the interests of the National Library. The Minister has himself appointed an internationally-known library consultant, Dr. Kenneth Humphrey, to prepare a report on the subject. The space our National Library has and the funds it has are a disgrace. The National Library works in appalling conditions. The increase in space it would need to do its job properly is not just a percentage increase; it is a four- or five-fold increase. Ministers have talked for years about this. Promises have been made. We had one Minister who did show a real interest—Donogh O'Malley— but with his death the thing seems to have lapsed again. I recommend to the Minister to do something drastic about it when he receives this report. We have had so many different projects. One was the project to develop on this site and link with a tunnel to the Trinity Library. Then the library was to move out to Morehampton Road. Then it was to go to the Canal. I forget even the order of these events. At present they are thinking of staying where they are. There is a good deal of property in Kildare Street that could be acquired for development on that site. I am not competent to say whether there is enough, but certainly it is something that should be considered. It may well be that the answer is to provide some of the space not on this site but elsewhere. The British Museum stores some of its material, which is not in normal use, outside London. It may be uneconomic and unnecessary to have all the material in the National Library in Kildare Street but space is needed somewhere and certainly much more space is needed than there is in the National Library. I hope the Minister will take seriously the report that he will receive on that matter.
The National Library should be a great cultural centre. Unfortunately some collections of documents have gone outside this country which should have remained here. We are enormously indebted to Senator Michael Yeats for the donation of his father's papers. As somebody has remarked to me, those papers are almost certainly worth more than the entire National Library building that they are in. This reflects two things—the remarkable generosity of Senator Yeats and the Yeats family and the total inadequacy of the National Library. The Government should always be generous if funds are sought for the retention in Ireland of collections of papers of national interest whether they are historical or literary. I hope we will never be in the position where documents, which are vital as part of our national archives' collection of papers, go outside the country simply through lack of funds. That would be extremely shortsighted policy.
On the question of archives generally the position is regarded by historians as extremely serious. There exists, the Minister probably knows, a divergence of view as to whether, in fact, our national archives should be centred in the National Library or whether there should be a separate public office and national archives. I am not competent to adjudicate on that but I do know that the position is regarded by historians as extremely serious. The amount of material that has been lost irretrievably is appalling. Until recently the neglect of Government Departments to retain documents of historical interest has been deplorable. In other countries there is a system under which every document, before it is thrown out, has to be considered as to whether it is an item of historical value. Nothing of the kind has existed here, though in the last couple of years there have been signs of a greater interest in the subject and some thought has been given to whether documents should be retained or discarded. However, I do not think the present situation is in any way satisfactory and there is still danger of an enormous amount being lost.
There is a shortage of trained staff. In fact the staff position is worse than it was 50 years ago. I shall quote from the Report and Recommendations by the Irish Committee of Historical Sciences:
Fifty years ago, the Public Record Office of Ireland was a well-staffed institution comparable in facilities and reputation with archives elsewhere. Today, there are fewer professional archival personnel in public employment in the Republic than in the County Record Offices of many English counties. Poor facilities and inadequate staffing have elicited unfavourable comment from visiting scholars, and adverse comparison with the Public Record Office of Northern Ireland.
Indeed Northern Ireland is a model, I understand, in this respect. We have a lot to learn from them here as in a surprising number of fields.
I would urge the Minister to look into this whole question. It is something with which the Taoiseach has some concern also. It does not concern only one Government Department. Indeed, I have spoken to the Taoiseach on this subject. The views of historians should be considered and we should first of all ensure that no further destruction of documents of value takes place, and, secondly, that adequate archive arrangements are made, whether in the National Library or elsewhere, is a matter for decision. The cost involved is tiny and its importance for future generations of Irishmen is enormous. I hope the Minister will have a look at this because the professional historians are very concerned. There has been some evidence that, even though recently there has been more alertness in the public service to the danger of loss of records, quite recently a number of important records may have been lost.