When I spoke last I stated I would refer to the question of corporal punishment. In this regard, let me state that in my view the basis of all true discipline is love—the love of the wise and prudent parent for his child. This love is not necessarily an emotional kind of love but rather a desire to seek the best for the child and to help him to develop. I doubt if anybody would suggest that the truly loving parent is one who allows his child to do whatever he wishes, overriding the rights of others in the process. Such a child would be ill-prepared for life and would have great difficulty in adjusting himself to a world where his activities would, of necessity, be limited. The wise parent trains his child to act in a considerate manner towards others and the method used by each parent varies.
The teacher stands in loco parentis and he should act as a wise and sensible parent would do; the vast majority of teachers fulfil this role in an admirable way. The teacher must also concern himself with his responsibility to others. Where he finds himself faced with a child who persistently disrupts the class, thus denying the other children the right to education, then there must be some deterrent. In such circumstances I think the teacher should and does act as a wise parent would in deciding to what deterrent he should have recourse.
In this context corporal punishment should only be used as a last resort when all other sanctions have been found ineffective. The vast majority of our teachers have no desire to use corporal punishment and are very pleased that it is being phased-out. There are 15,000 teachers taking care of 500,000 children and the number of validated complaints investigated by my Department is absolutely minimal. This, in itself, is a manifestation of the humane and kindly manner in which teachers treat the children. Corporal punishment is being gradually phased-out and this fact reflects the developing attitude of the community in general in regard to the treatment of children in the context of their educational progress. The increasing co-operation between parents and teachers, the recognition of the limitations of ability of the pupils, the treating of the child as an individual, the introduction of the child-centred curriculum, and the changing methods of teaching are all helping to accelerate the phasing-out of corporal punishment from the school scene.
I may be asked why I speak of phasing-out corporal punishment, why not end it immediately? In my view this would leave a void that would create more problems than it would solve. The fact must be faced that most normal children require correction of some kind and the question arises as to what sanctions could be effectively imposed in place of corporal punishment. The unruly child cannot be allowed to disrupt the education of other children in the class. When we speak of other sanctions the number of alternatives that readily come to mind have their own disadvantages. Do we keep the child in after school hours or impose additional homework? Could such be defended on educational grounds? To suspend the child from school, either temporarily or permanently, would deny him the education which is his right. To operate on the basis, as some people appear to do, that every unruly child is a subject for a psychiatrist is, in my view, entirely wrong and I can think of no greater punishment one could inflict on a child or on his parents than to say that the child should be submitted for psychiatric examination.
If society demands that corporal punishment must end, it must provide an alternative if the rights of others are to be maintained. In this instance society is represented by the individual parents who must make the decision in respect of their own child. I think my attitude in relation to this is the correct one: we are all pleased that corporal punishment is being phased-out.
I shall not waste time by speaking of the NBC film on corporal punishment in Ireland which was shown here recently except to say I was shocked by its selectivity. I am afraid its main effect on our people, who know the exact circumstances, was that they will tend to view with extreme caution documentaries on any subject coming from the United States in relation to other countries. Having listened to some of the speakers on this film who spoke emotionally of our teachers as sadists, it was clear to me that they did not appear to recognise that in the depths of their own emotion they were betraying a streak of sadism and intolerance in themselves. Whatever the merits of an objective we should have learned by now that verbal violence does not destroy violence and that the exercise of restraint and Christian charity could be much more effective in arriving at a solution to this problem.
As I did the last day, I shall continue to try to take the different matters in order and I shall now deal with some matters concerning post-primary education. Some Deputies seemed to think we were not proceeding rapidly enough with our development of comprehensive education and particularly with the building of comprehensive schools. State comprehensive schools will be provided in a limited number of areas only, where other arrangements for providing full comprehensive facilities are not likely to prove successful. This is the keynote. It is not State comprehensive schools we are aiming at but a comprehensive system.
The comprehensive school attempts to combine the academic and practical subjects in one broad curriculum, in that way offering each pupil an education which is structured to his needs, abilities and interests. It avoids the approach to education which is inherent in systems of early selectivity and rigid streaming. Accordingly there is no streaming of pupils based on ability at entry and there is no entry examination. Instead education is offered which attempts to individualise the instruction of the pupil by allowing him a wide range of educational experience and by postponing final curricular choice for as long as possible. To enable pupils to make a career choice suitable to their own aptitudes and abilities, a guidance centre backed by the Department's psychologists is made available, and remedial teaching is also provided in these schools to help the weaker pupils. As the new comprehensive schools cater for all the post-primary pupils in their areas, the schools built to date are co-educational schools. Up to the present the proportion of boys and girls in the schools is roughly half and half.
In regard to the subjects, during the first three years every student is required to take courses of study in certain subjects. These are religious instruction, Irish, English, mathematics, social and environmental studies, including civics, physical education, library projects and musical appreciation. In addition, every student must take at least one practical subject, that is, either woodwork or metalwork, or arts and crafts or home economics.
This compulsory core of subjects will occupy about 21 hours of the pupil's school week, leaving him time for three optional subjects in his school week of about 30 hours. The pupil may select the optional subjects from among the remaining practical subjects or he may select them from among continental languages, Latin, history and geography and the science subjects.
There are four comprehensive schools in operation at present: at Carraroe, County Galway, Cootehill, County Cavan, Glenties, County Donegal, and Shannon Airport, County Clare. Further comprehensive schools are being built at Ballymun, Dublin and at Raphoe, County Donegal. It is proposed to build comprehensive schools at Manorhamilton and Limerick. It is expected that the junior division of the new Ballymun schools will come into operation in September of this year and that the other schools mentioned will be completed by the end of 1971.
We are conducting a number of experiments in relation to streaming and setting in these comprehensive schools, and I have no doubt that the information gained from these experiments will be of considerable use to us.
Arising from what I have said in relation to comprehensive education, I come to co-operation between a number of schools in an area. The purposes of this co-operation is, first, to provide the advantages of a comprehensive education in each post-primary centre, secondly, to make the best possible use of the facilities available, that is, teachers, equipment, buildings and so on, and, thirdly, to offer the widest possible choice of subjects or groupings at the leaving certificate level.
I should like very briefly to go back over what has been done since the letter on this matter was issued by a previous Minister for Education, the present Minister for Industry and Commerce. Meetings were arranged with all school authorities in each county where the general situation in each county was discussed. Local meetings at most centres took place at which practical possibilities were examined. Rules and regulations applicable to secondary and vocational schools were brought into line with one another for example, the recognition for incremental purposes of teaching hours in either type of school; the alignment of the school day, the school week, the school year; the settlement of various questions relating to grants and so on; the common basic scale for teachers. New arrangements were also devised to meet with particular situations such as common enrolment, which exists in Ballinamore and in Boyle; local representations on the board of management, as occurs in Oldcastle; extension of the powers of the vocational education committees to enable them to engage in joint management of schools. I hope a Bill to grant such extension of powers to vocational education committees will be introduced shortly.
As regards the working out of co-operation in practice, first, on an elementary basis, there is the exchange of a teacher, for example, of French for a teacher of woodwork; the sharing of a teacher, for example, in physical education, in music; the use of facilities, such as a science room, being extended to another school; a woodwork teacher supplied to secondary school boys and so on.
In regard to the more advanced types of co-operation, there is the sharing of a common block of specialist facilities, like the assembly room, or the gymnasium, the siting of schools beside one another. There is the sharing of the same school building, common time-tabling and movement of pupils for a certain space of time from one school to another. Finally, at the advanced stage, we have something I have mentioned already, the introduction of the common enrolment whereby independent schools work as one unit. As I mentioned a moment ago, there are specific examples of that in Boyle and Ballinamore. Each school retains its own management structure but establishes a co-ordinating committee which is representative of each. All the children are treated as if they had been enrolled in one school and they utilise all the facilities.
A matter arising out of the introduction of comprehensive schools is the question of co-education. I have already stated that the Department has no doctrinaire approach to co-education but in a number of situations, particularly in rural areas, great practical advantages can be gained from the organisation of a school on a co-educational basis. There are many areas where it is possible to maintain a mixed post-primary school where it would not be possible to maintain two single sex post-primary schools. In such areas co-education would provide a wider range of options as well as a better utilisation of facilities. Vocational schools have always catered for both boys and girls but up to recent times the arrangements were more coinstitutional than co-educational, that is to say, boys and girls made use of the same facilities but were not mixed in classes. Until recent times mixed secondary schools were a rarity, but there are now 103 mixed secondary schools—85 Catholic and 18 Protestant—in the country. We also have a good deal of partial co-education with mixed classes for specialised subjects. Another matter of importance which is being given a good deal of consideration at present is the question of guidance. It has been clear for a number of years that a considerable demand exists for the provision of pupil guidance. Many schools have attempted to meet this need on an informal basis by giving career talks, and out of school organisations have held seminars and exhibitions giving career information. Following a study of existing services in other countries a number of concepts were formulated which might be said to be the basis for a policy of guidance. It was decided that the role of guidance should be to try to pinpoint the aptitudes and abilities of the pupils and endeavour to gear their education towards the careers which are likely to be available to them and for which they are likely to qualify. Educational guidance should not be looked upon as a job-finding agency and I think this is an error we are liable to make. We seem to think that guidance means telling the students when they reach the end of their post-primary course what job they should take up instead of directing them all the time along lines in keeping with their ability.
It was therefore decided that pupil guidance should be an integral part of the education provided by the school. This involves assisting pupils and parents in deciding what subjects and courses the pupil should follow while at school and what further study or career they might take up when leaving school. I feel the provision of pupil guidance should be the responsibility of the school, assisted if necessary by a specialist service. Pupil guidance should be the responsibility of a person who knows about education, who knows the system and who knows the children. For this reason I feel that the person undertaking career guidance should be a teacher specially trained for this work. If pupil guidance is to be effective the wholehearted co-operation of all members of staff in the school is essential and I think a member of the staff will be more likely to get this co-operation than an outsider. Specialist services are needed to support the school in providing pupil guidance. Psychological services provide specialist advice on the request of the school. If the school requests it a psychologist may undertake psychological testing and interviewing of the pupils.
The preparation of teachers for their special role in guidance presents a particular problem. It is evident that in-service training is needed and that it is preferable to have teachers with several years teaching experience. For this reason the Department decided to start modestly with short courses and limited objectives and then develop the course content and depth as experienced teachers became available. The alternative to what I have already mentioned would be to start with personnel trained on a full-time university course. In fact, such a course is offered at UCD and is open to all graduates. This would mean that individual schools would employ graduates once they obtained their diploma and became available. Recognition would have to be afforded them either as teachers or as career officers or counsellors in the school. The advantage claimed for such a course of action is that highly qualified people would be available from the start to do guidance work in the school. As I see it, the difficulty of adopting this course is that it would be against the principle of integrating guidance with the general work of the school, something which I feel is essential.
To recap very briefly, as far as the Department are concerned they have initiated a school-based system; they have made time available in the school for guidance work; they have seen to it that accommodation will be available in which to do this work; they have started in-service training; they have granted recognition to graduates with diplomas in guidance, provided they are qualified teachers, and they have set up an advisory committee on guidance composed of representatives of the Department, the school authorities and the teaching organisations.
There has been some discussion about school transport during the course of this debate. When dealing with school transport I think we should take a look at what has been achieved in the very short space of time since free transport was introduced. As Deputies know, until quite recently the education of many country children began and ended at primary school simply because they were too far away from the nearest secondary or vocational school and their parents could not afford the cost of transport. Indeed, in many instances there was no transport of any kind available. The Government decided if free post-primary education were to mean anything to these children then a free school transport scheme would have to be introduced. During the course of the debate some Deputies said they thought my priorities were wrong and that I should not spend so much on transport. It is obvious that at the beginning of a new free education scheme such as ours it is essential to make this free transport available but I am always willing to have a look at it in relation to the priorities as adumbrated by some of the Deputies.
The scheme was introduced in April, 1967. In the normal way transport for up to 50,000 children might have been expected to take at least three years, since the service had to be started almost from scratch. Buses had to be found, drivers had to be recruited, routes planned, insurance looked after and all the numerous other technical details which are involved in a scheme of this magnitude. Most important of all, money had to be made available. In the event, transport was made available for all eligible pupils within 12 months and I feel that this is greatly to the credit of all concerned.
The transport scheme has, as all Deputies here are aware, involved a massive financial commitment on the part of the State. Although the cost was very high last year we have made further money available for it this year. The State has also provided very large sums in capital, several million pounds, for the construction of hundreds of school buses. It is obvious to anybody who sees the increasing number of these buses on our roads that we are making more and more of them available as rapidly as possible. By the end of the school year we will have them carrying 100,000 children to primary and post-primary schools.
Most of the criticism related to the qualifying distances and whether ineligible children should be allowed to travel by bus when there are a couple of seats available. The present qualifying distances for free transport to primary schools are two miles for children under ten years of age and three miles for children of ten years and over. In framing the scheme the Government had to strike a balance between what might be desirable and what it would be possible to do. We are a small nation with correspondingly small financial resources. Nevertheless, our qualifying distances for free transport—and I would underline this— compare very favourably with those of our nearest European neighbours.
On the face of it any proposal that school buses should carry ineligible children where spare seats are available seems to be eminently reasonable but I want to point out here that there are considerable difficulties. In the first place, the initial planning of routes is done in such a way that as few spare seats as possible are available. In other words, the size of the vehicle and the length of the route are geared to the number of eligible children. This is, of course, obviously done for reasons of economy and efficiency. If a considerable number of spare seats are available on a bus then the transport officer has not done his planning properly. This is very seldom the case because most of the complaints we get are from the opposite direction.
If there could be any question of taking up the few spare seats that might happen to be available on a school bus the question arises as to how we would reconcile the conflicting demands. Who would get the seats? Would it be the youngest? Would it be those farthest away? Would it be girls? Would it be children of poor parents? Who would allot the seats? Would it be the driver or CIE or the Department? Who would deal with complaints where children fail to get seats? The number of spare seats could change from quarter to quarter. What would happen when children who are paying have to be put off a bus in favour of eligible children? The present rule is relatively simple and easily understood by everybody. Whenever spare seats are available CIE allocate them on a fare-paying basis and on the basis of first come first served. This is the best we can do in relation to it, considering the enormous expense which is involved.
Deputy FitzGerald when speaking on the Estimate stated that we were not treating Protestant children fairly in so far as free post-primary education is concerned. I want to say that this is completely unjustified. The simple fact is that because of the cost structure in Protestant secondary schools none of them were in a position to avail of the free education system. In these circumstances the Government decided to make a special grant available over and above the terms of the free scheme. In the current school year this grant amounts to the equivalent of £23 10s for each day pupil and £40 approximately for each boarding pupil. To pay these substantial additional grants where nothing was paid previously cannot surely, as was stated by some Deputies in this House, have worsened the position of Protestant pupils.
