The Minister's speech contains a good deal of interesting material and there are matters on which we can congratulate him and welcome new developments of a constructive kind. The speech, however, suffers from the defects his speeches always seem to suffer from of lacking a coherent philosophy and theme. This may not be entirely the Minister's fault in that he is responsible for a number of Votes and his speech is structured to deal with these Votes and as, strictly speaking, this House is debating the voting of money under these headings it is proper that his speech in part, at least, should take this form. I wonder would it not be possible, nevertheless, for the Minister, in making the opening speech in a debate of this kind, having dealt with the specific matters that he is called upon and properly called upon to deal with with regard to the voting of money, to stand back from that and use this occasion to tell us something of the overall philosophy, the overall approach to education that lies behind the detail contained in the speech. This is not the first time I have made this point and I shall have to keep on making it until something is done about it. This could happen by one of two possible events—the Minister accepting what I say and restructuring his speech accordingly or the Government changing to enable somebody on this side to approach the problem in that way. It is a pity, whether it is because the Minister feels constricted by the form of the Vote or for whatever other reason, that this debate is not set off on the right note by telling us something about how the Government see the whole education problem and what is the philosophy of their approach to it and how does this philosophy inform the different administrative decisions taken during the course of the year. I shall try to live up in some measure to the strictures I am levelling at the Minister's speech by trying to approach the problem in this way but it is not a thing that can be satisfactorily done from the Opposition side.
Our difficulty is that we have to piece together the Government's thinking from various utterances at different times, each of which tends to deal rather partially with some aspect of the problem and nowhere can we find an overall view. We have to undertake a fair amount of detective work to try to establish what is the Government's thinking and sometimes to work back from their actions to what impliably must be the philosophy behind action of that particular kind. That does put us at a disadvantage and it inevitably, no matter how we try to put the debate on to a different level, makes it difficult for me to do this successfully. Of course, what the whole educational sector is calling for is a White Paper on education followed by legislation to put our whole educational system on a proper footing. I shall return to this theme later. I shall not dwell on it now beyond saying that the absence of an adequate legislative structure at present is creating very grave problems, indeed, because, throughout the whole educational sector those concerned, be they school managers, teachers or parents, do not know what their rights are and have very few rights because the system is run largely on the basis that the Department provides the money and the Department calls the tune.
It is right in some respects that this should be so but the right of the Department to call the tune arbitrarily and at times, as it would appear to those engaged in the educational sector, capriciously is one which should be exercised within the framework of some legislative system within which those concerned have certain basic rights which cannot be overturned by arbitrary action. This arbitrariness of the system, the capriciousness of the system, and the fact that nobody knows when some bolt from the blue will descend upon them and require them to change everything overnight, or sometimes retrospectively, is something inherently undesirable. While one can understand from the viewpoint of the Departmental civil servant the attractions of the system which gives him complete freedom to change his mind whenever he likes and impose his decisions on those concerned, they lacking any legal protection from this, from the point of view of the country, of the political system, of the Government and of the Government Minister, it is not really a satisfactory way to do business. In a dictatorship things work like that. The dictator does what he feels like doing and there is nothing to stop him. This is the system of government. Sometimes it gets things done more quickly. However, this capriciousness and the fact that it leaves people insecure and uncertain of their rights leads eventually to revolt of the masses and there is something like a revolt of the educational masses in progress at the moment against the way in which the educational system in practice is run by the Department of Education under the authority of the Minister but one sometimes feels not always under his control.
I should like now to approach this whole issue from the same viewpoint as I did two years ago by concentrating on two main themes of educational policy and considering how what has happened in the past two years relates to these particular issues. The Minister may recall that at that time I suggested that we should consider educational policy under such headings as participation of those involved in the system, the effective use of resources with which the Department is properly concerned, the whole issue of equality of opportunity, the way in which the educational system may be used to achieve a more just society, the question of educational standards which can get overlooked under all the other pressures and the question of variety and choice in education, an issue which is a contentious one and about which there are divergent views.
Starting then for no very good reason, with the question of participation of people in the running of the system, there has been very little progress in this during the past two years. The extent to which people feel more and more alienated from the system by its capriciousness and by the fact that they are not capable of exercising any rights within the system has increased the pressure for participation and the people's sense of frustration because they are not being given any role. The only concrete progress in this period has been the concession to parents in relation to boards of community schools. This has been a grudging concession which has been dragged gradually from the system.
Originally, the proposal was a simple one. It was to have four representatives from all the religious orders involved and two from the vocational school authorities. This was the proposal regardless of whether there were in fact two religious orders in the area or whether in fact any religious orders were involved. In one case the existing secondary school is not, in fact, a religious school. That proposal to have the four-and-two system was modified on the basis that the religious orders would appoint two people as parents' representatives everywhere, and not just in Tallaght and Blanchardstown.
Under pressure the Minister has recently announced that in areas other than Blanchardstown and Tallaght the parents will be allowed to elect these two representatives. It has taken nine months pressure to get that concession. We are still in the position in regard to Tallaght and Blanchardstown that the parents are to have no representation, or something which might be referred to as inverse representation. There are parents of the children of an existing school and by virtue of some queer logic in the Minister's mind the school authorities who do not operate schools in the area will appoint parents' representatives, but neither the school authorities nor the parents concerned of the existing school will have any representation. The logic of that defeats me. I have scanned the utterances of the Minister and of the Parliamentary Secretary for any attempt to justify this curious approach, and beyond the negative statement that democracy is impossible in Tallaght and Blanchardstown no explanation is given. No explanation was given as to why, if democracy is impossible in these areas, it is necessary to ensure parent representation for the parents who do not have children at school in the area but not for the parents who do have children there. I would be glad to hear the Minister on this point.
The record of the church authorities in this matter has been somewhat better several years ago than that of the Minister. The church authorities of the Roman Catholic Church brought out an excellent document on the question of parent-school associations. The document set out the need for such bodies and the need for parents' involvement, in terms which were extremely progressive. The document gave encouragement to everybody concerned about parents' rights. It is true that somebody lower down the line sabotaged the document and what was issued later to those concerned was a document quoting the Hierarchy's statement and saying that what was meant by the Hierarchy was that they did not want parent-school associations, but only wanted the parents to drop along and have a chat with the teachers ocasionally. I am paraphrasing what was in the document but I do not think I am oversimplifying unfairly what was in it. How or why that happened is one of the mysteries of the internal arrangements of the Catholic Church in Ireland.
It is fair to say that the Hierarchy in their original statement, before it was modified, set out clearly the reasons why there should be involvement of parents in parent-teacher associations, which would be a step in the right direction. This initiative is an encouraging one. The tradition of church and State in Ireland is not a very honourable one in this respect. They both pretend to propound at appropriate occasions the view that the parent is the primary and natural educator of the child, and then they proceed to legislate in such a way that the parent seems to have no rights whatever in connection with the education of their children. There has been a change of heart, the Hierarchy have given an excellent lead and the Minister—although it has taken a lot of pressure to bring the concession to fruition—is prepared in the community schools to allow parents, if the schools are not in this Dublin area in which democracy is so difficult, to choose representatives to the community school boards. This is a step forward.
What is striking about the community school arrangement, from the point of view of participation, is the absolute exclusion of the teachers from any representation on the management board. I have not yet heard from the Minister or the Parliamentary Secretary any reason for this, other than the reason that on the existing school authorities they are not represented. Even that is not by any means a fair statement of the position because in many schools run by religious orders, the orders manage the schools and are also the teachers and there is, by virtue of the religious order being the body running the school, teacher representation and, in fact, they run the school in that sense. I am not saying that the manager, or the headmaster, or the reverend mother, or the rector of a particular institution is always responsive to the views of the teachers, but there is teacher involvement in that sense. In these community schools the teachers are being excluded from any role in the running of the school. Teachers are being given positions on what is called the advisory board. This needs clarification.
I was present in Tallaght when the Parliamentary Secretary was speaking. He explained that the teachers would, through the advisory body, be concerned with and be the people undertaking the day-to-day running of the school. That seems to be a useful development. If that is the case why are the boards called advisory boards? The one thing an advisory board does not do is run anything. It merely advises others on running something. If it is, in fact, a committee of the management board concerned with the running of the school, let us give it another name. There has been confusion of thought in this matter. If the advisory board is simply a way of enabling teachers to pass advice to a body on which they have no representation that would be very unsatisfactory. If, in fact, an advisory board is going to run the school, subject to overall policy determined by the management board, that is a little better. If so, advisory board is the wrong name. Could we have some enlightenment on the terms of reference of the advisory board, their functions and powers? If the advisory board is undertaking the day-to-day running of the school, it seems that the board and the teachers represented on it should have representation on the management board.
It is a basic principle of the management of anything that it will only be successful under modern conditions if people have a voice in management. The concepts of partnership in industry, industrial democracy and participation are all concepts which should now have universal acceptance, because it is recognised that when there is a group of people working together and when they are educated to the point of feeling that they have a contribution to make—and that in our country today means the entire population, after several centuries of education— they are not going to work satisfactorily if they do not have some participation in the decisions which affect the organisation of their lives.
One would have thought that teachers, who are educated people, concerned with the education of the children in their schools, must have a voice in management. It seems that the teachers and the parents together should, in some combination, have this responsibility. To exclude teachers altogether from management is to show an attitude of mind which goes so far back into the last century that it does not seem to be appropriate to any Minister of a modern Irish State. I hope that this will be rethought. I hope that teachers will have direct representation on the management boards just as in any higher level institution, where the teachers elect their representatives to management boards. I see no reason why this should be confined to third-level institutions.
Having said that, it must be said that the long period during which teachers have not had any responsibility, have been deprived of responsibility and when it was made quite clear to them that they were not expected to take any responsibility and when they were denied the opportunity of promotion in so many schools—this long period has had its effect on the attitude of mind of teachers.
There is a dispute apparently pending now between the secondary teachers and the school managers of secondary schools and although I have no direct knowledge of it beyond what I have read in the papers, if what I have read —and having read both sides of it I think I have a reasonable approximation of what the issues are—is correct, then the issues involved in the dispute are, first the question of the guarantee that the teachers concerned will in fact be appointed to vice-principalship. They are not seeking any assurance in regard to the principalship, though I hope that in many cases that will also be open to them and, the second issue, which as I understand it, is rather disturbing—I hope I am doing no injustice and that I have got the right end of the stick—is that, while they insist on a guarantee of being appointed as vice-principals, they demand that there shall be no requirement that vice-principals should do any work outside the school hours or in holidays.
I have to say that that seems, on the face of it, an unreasonable condition. That teachers should seek responsibility, seek the opportunity to play their part in the running of the system is right, but that they should simultaneously say that if they get that they will do nothing except teach and will do none of the administrative work involved, which obviously can only be done outside the teaching hours, seems to me to be unacceptable. Of course, there would be problems. The teacher who is going to have a role as a principal or vice-principal of a school will not be able to play a full teaching role and do all his administrative work outside those hours. Nobody suggests that, but nobody who knows anything about any school will imagine that a school can be run on the basis that whoever is in charge of it or second-in-command of it, arrives at the hour it opens, locks the door when it closes and is not available to meet parents, to meet the management committee or discuss matters with the Department at any time outside those hours. If that is the claim and if I have understood it correctly—I hope I am doing no injustice to anybody—that claim, if pressed, to my mind undermines the claim to vice-principalship. I can understand why this has happened. The long period during which secondary teachers in particular have been excluded from any role in the system in so many of these schools, lay secondary teachers in particular, has undoubtedly created an attitude of mind just as in any group of people excluded from responsibility and the concept of responsibility becomes difficult for them fully to accept.
I hope this dispute will be settled and that any opposition to giving the lay teachers their opportunity of promotion will be eroded and that if there are groups still resisting this when most of the groups concerned accept the principle, I think those groups will have to change their minds. I hope that will be done and I hope to see secondary teachers given the opportunities which they deserve and which they have been denied for so long because of the peculiar structure of our system and that they will take responsibility and will be as willing to devote every hour of day and night that is necessary to the job of administering the school just as the religious principals of the schools give up their time for this purpose.
Education is a vocation; so is the running of a school. Anybody who has not a vocation for the running of a school and for working long and difficult hours and having long and difficult negotiations with the Department of Education and long and difficult talks with parents, should not try to take on the job. They cannot have their cake and eat it on this issue. If the disagreement between the teachers and the managers of the schools is as stated I hope that a compromise will be found by which teachers will be given their full promotional opportunities and will take their full responsibility. I shall be glad to hear from the Minister later what his views are on this and whether the problem is as stated and what action he thinks can usefully be taken to try to avoid a dispute on this issue and ensure that agreement is reached.
In referring to teachers there is one matter in the Minister's speech which I wish particularly to welcome. There is a number of useful innovations in his speech which we are very glad to see but this is a proposal for teachers' centres in different parts of the country. I hope this will be spelled out in detail. It seems to be a very constructive idea. As stated here, it would appear that the teachers themselves will have the opportunity of running these centres—"envisaging centres" as the Minister said, "being run by the teachers themselves with Departmental support and embracing all teachers, both primary and post-primary as befits an integrated profession in pursuit of a common purpose." This is an imaginative and well worthwhile proposal. I am glad the Department have taken this initiative and I hope it will be possible quickly to establish these centres in every part of the country and that by giving the opportunity for teachers to come together, primary, secondary and vocational, in an environment where they will be discussing their common vocation, this will have significant effects not merely educationally in the schools in question but on the whole spirit of this profession.
I also hope that out of this may emerge, since it has not emerged from any other source, an institute of education which educational interests themselves will sponsor, providing a forum for the discussion of educational problems at national level with the possibility of promoting and encouraging research. We have had nothing like that so far. For years past I have been trying to encourage such a development and, while I find everybody interested in it, I find nobody willing or able, perhaps, to take the first step. One of the sad aspects of the division of the teaching profession is that not only are there suspicions on certain issues but in each part of the profession there is a feeling that "If we start something the others may not take to it." There is a consciousness of this division and it is difficult to get any thing started. I hope we shall see a national institute of education established by the various teaching institutes. It should not need the Department to start with; it is wrong that the Department should have to do all these things but I am very glad they have taken this particular initiative about teachers' centres and I look forward to hearing more about them. I hope they will get off the ground quickly. Perhaps the Minister could give us a little more detail as to how many there would be and how quickly they could be got going. Obviously, if they are very few and teachers have to travel a long way to them their effectiveness will be reduced. On the other hand, if there is a very large number problems of cost and organisation might slow down the process of getting them started. There is probably an optimum between the two and I should be interested to get some idea from the Minister as to the scale of this proposal.
Speaking of participation, we have mentioned teachers and parents but there is also the question of students. I think there is a mental blockage in the minds of people. We have become so accustomed to thinking of students as children to be told what to do and not to speak unless spoken to. The Victorian attitude to children, although it has changed in the personal relations of parents and indeed very often of teachers to students, has not changed nationally. At virtually every level, even at a very young age, it is possible for some at least, and as years go on, for a very high proportion of pupils to make some contribution to the development of education. They are the consumers; it is they who see it from the point of view of being taught; it is they who see the defects in the system. Their ability to identify these defects is less the younger the age and it grows with age. Certainly, in the teenage groups whose maturity has increased so much in recent years—we can all look back to our own days as teenagers and be astonished at the much greater maturity there is today and the much earlier maturity and their sense of responsibility and involvement which I do not think any of us shared in our time. Perhaps there are Members of this House who have a few years advantage on me and who belong to a different generation who may have shared this but I certainly do not recollect in my time anything like the sense of responsibility, involvement and commitment which so many young people have today. Indeed, I think it would have been very difficult 30 years ago to have got much good out of students if one sought their co-operation, advice and interest in improving the educational system. Possibly they would have regarded one with some hilarity for making such a suggestion. But there has been a very great change and the concern with and interest in and consciousness of the problems of education on the part of students is a new development, a new development of which we are not taking advantage.
We are not willing to adjust our minds to the fact that the only people who really can know fully what is wrong with the educational system are the actual consumers. Their ability to identify the problems will, of course, because of their immaturity, always be limited and so will their ability to find the answers to the problems but, increasingly, they are becoming capable of identifying the problems; and I find that it is only in talking to school students that I can understand the things that are wrong with the system. One does not get this from the adults, from the parents and the teachers, to the same degree. The consciousness on their part of the difficulties of the system and its extreme bureaucratic character inhibits the adults and there are certain aspects that one can get only from the students themselves and we should, I think, make some organised attempt to mobilise this source of wisdom on the subject of education and bring the anxieties of these young people to bear on the problems.
My party have fairly recently started in my constituency a school students' branch with the particular hope of securing an input into the policy system from the actual students in the schools in the constituency. The students have a very good current experience of education as it is today and already we have got some reports back on some aspects of the problems in education. I hope that in the months ahead other school student branches will be formed. A separate group has grown out of this composed of young people who do not want to be involved in political commitments and party political activity but who want to think about these problems—they have separated off—but we hope from these two sources to get an input of ideas which will help us in the formulation of policy.
I found the first reaction to our party's educational policy interesting and I say this recognising that it may be misunderstood or, perhaps, misconstrued by people who take my words out of context. The first reaction was that the students found a great deal of educational policy irrelevant. That is not because it is irrelevant. It is because of all the problems with which we are trying to cope, problems which it is vitally important to solve, but, from the point of view of the students, matters of curriculum are more important and, very properly, I think, we excluded these from our policy because these are technical, educational, academic matters on which a political party should not lay down the law. There is, therefore, a gap here.
There are some aspects concerned with practical administrative problems and development in which the students' representative council should have an opportunity to play a part; they should be directly involved in the running of the school. These are naturally interests which relate to the question of management to some degree. There are some aspects like that where interest turns on the whole structure of the educational system in which the students are not really interested. They are interested rather with the curriculum examination side and this suggests to me that, while our initiative is a useful one, and I hope to get useful inputs into this particular area, I hope that the main input that one can get from the school students will be much more academic. If we can get to the stage—not with this Government, I am afraid, but when the Government changes—at which the curriculum and administrative system is taken out of political hands and organised, as it is in Northern Ireland, on a professional basis, then it will be possible to mobilise the input from the school students on the academic side. That will not be done effectively through a political school students' branch but through some other kind of organisation, perhaps an organisation of school students into a nationwide association of some kind.
The difficulty is that the band of interest in these problems is necessarily narrow and it does not become significant really until about the age 14. Sometimes there is only a two year band in interest because of the rapid turnover of the people concerned in the kind of organisation of school students. There tends to be, as we found in Dublin when these were formed three or four years ago, not a very high survival rate. However, the group which started are still very interested. Next year they may not be interested. It is very difficult to keep it going. There are problems of organisation and it will not be easy to so organise the thing as to get the input for the policy system from this vital source. But this must be done and I should like to hear the Minister's comments on this. I have not got the impression that he is entirely with me in this. I may be wrong but, in his reaction so far, I have not detected any instant sympathy with the idea of trying to find from the consumers in the educational system what are its difficulties and weaknesses and how they can be remedied. There is an assumption by too many people that those who run a system know the system best and have nothing to learn. One does not have to do anything more than stop any group of workers in the street and ask them for their views on the running of industry and one immediately gets very acute criticism indeed of management and management's defects. Of course the workers have their own defects naturally and if one consults with management, management will tell one what is wrong with them. People seeing a system from inside and from underneath see defects which people on the top think they know about but, of which, in actual fact, they are completely ignorant. What is true of industry is equally true in education. We will have to discipline ourselves into taking full advantage of this.
I should like to ask the Minister now whether he has any information on the development of student representative councils. This is by no means the most important aspect of student participation but three or four years ago there was quite a development, certainly in the Dublin area, along these lines. My daughter, who was slightly involved at that time, had a record of 22 schools and I am sure her records were incomplete. I would be interested to know has this situation changed. Has the Minister any policy on the development of some representative body within the schools? There is difficulty in their working successfully because they tend to work one year and not to work the next year, but there are schools in which they are highly developed, schools which actually believe they could not run the schools without the co-operation of the students. The students take on a great many responsibilities which would otherwise devolve on the teachers. There is one school in which this has worked very successfully and it would be well worth the Minister's while getting a report and, following on that, giving every encouragement to this development.
At university level student representation is, of course, more readily accepted. That is not to say we have it in a satisfactory form, but it is accepted. The Minister has recognised that by appointing a student to the governing body. This is a step forward but it is, of course, unsatisfactory in terms of the size of the representation. In my own college another student is elected by the students themselves and co-opted then by the governing body using the power of co-option. The size of the representation is quite inadequate and the way in which the representation is achieved is not entirely satisfactory. The Minister has quite properly appointed the current president of the students' representative council to get over the problem of direct representation and to avoid any personal involvement in choosing a student who might be undesirable from his point of view. It is, I suppose, better than nothing, but there should be a proper system. We will have to reorganise the charters of the universities and make provision for direct student representation and for students choosing their own representatives on these bodies. I will come back to the question of charters and university reform later on. I merely refer to them in passing here.
There is a basic problem, however, about student representation or student organisation. There is a choice to be made by students between having a trade union, if you like, for students nationally, a union of students which would concern itself with their interests, and having a body which would reflect not only their interests but the political attitudes of the more active students. The Union of Students in Ireland is a body I have the greatest respect for, and I have said this before in this House. I found them enormously helpful, very well informed and briefed, and the information and briefs and proposals which I have had from them have been better organised, better presented, better researched than those I have had from many other educational bodies, if not most other educational bodies. Having said that, I think there is a problem posed.
When the Union of Students in Ireland decides, if it does decide, to become a politically-orientated body— it is not that I disagree with their politics; they are perfectly entitled to their politics—there is a danger that this will diminish in some way their ability to perform their trade union role. There are really two separate roles to be performed. One is the role of representing students' interests generally and the other is the role of actively representing the views of the more radical students politically and trying to achieve their political objectives. I do not know the answer to this. Combining the two creates some problems, and the Minister has had his own personal experience of this recently. Separating the two may create problems too.
I certainly think it is quite unsatisfactory—and I think this needs to be said in this House, and I think it is felt by many students and by many members of the Union of Students in Ireland—if this body is going to represent all the students of Ireland, going to be a negotiating body with the Department as it claims to be and has been very effective in being and as such invites a Minister of the Government of this country to a function, that it should then, or large elements of it, use this political occasion to barrack the Minister and treat him with discourtesy. You cannot have it both ways. If you are going to run a political organisation, you either do not invite a political opponent along or, if you do, you treat him with courtesy. If you are going to be a representative body, negotiating with the Department and representing the interests of all students and are going then to invite the Minister to your function, you do not have him treated in the way in which he was treated on that occasion. I feel strongly about that.
I attended the previous day and the Minister will be interested to hear that he is not the only recipient of some of the remarks. I did not mind that at all but it is quite different when you invite a Minister along. I sat in on the discussions during the day and various remarks were passed—the "Fascist pig" type of thing but that did not bother me—but it is quite a different matter if you are going to ask a Minister of the Government along to a function and he is insulted in the way in which the Minister was insulted on this occasion. I know—and I say this to the Minister because I hope he understands this—that it was not the wish of most of the students concerned, that there was very grave dissatisfaction with the way he was treated and that many students, though many of them may disagree with his views politically, felt that it was quite wrong that he should have been treated in that way. I think the object of action on the part of a minority, a confused minority, confused as to what the function of their organisation is, needs to be sorted out. I hope my own relationship with the USI is good enough, as I believe it is, for me to be able to make those remarks in friendship to them and indeed with respect to the job they are doing, they will need to consider precisely where they stand on these issues.
I come now to the question of participation of people not just in the school at local level but at national level, and here there is no problem from the teacher point of view. The teachers have organisations and they are represented at national level and are in a position in which they can communicate their views to the Minister. Of course, the divisiveness of the system, the fact that it is so divided, creates problems, but teachers are represented. The people who are not represented are the parents, and here I am disappointed with the Minister's attitude because we have in this country both a parent-school movement, specifically orientated towards education and participation of parents in the affairs of individual schools where the children attend and a National Council of Parent Organisations concerned with wider interests than purely the parent-school relationships in a particular school, and the Minister seems to be tending to keep these organisations at arm's length. I think this is wrong.
Of course at this stage, they are not nationally representative, in the sense that every parent in the country is involved or has a local association he can vote for. Nothing of this kind can start fully-fledged, representing everybody, but these are genuine open bodies whose ability to perform a useful function would be enhanced if the Minister gave them the minimal recognition they deserve. I hope he will encourage rather than discourage them in future, because it is vitally important that the voice of parents should be fully heard, not just at local level but at national level, and as long as the Minister keeps them at arm's length, on the ground that they are unrepresentative, which can be said of anybody starting off in the early years of existence, he is not going really to come to grips with educational problems which at the school level are a matter for parents.
The fact that parents in Ireland have not had any voice in policy—have not been heard, never mind listened to— is a serious defect in our system and I hope the Minister will open his mind more sympathetically to these bodies and give them the kind of encouragement which would enable them to become more representative. You are not easily going to get representative bodies if the public are told by the Minister, "I will have nothing to do with them as they are unrepresentative". Who is going to join such a body? The enthusiasts will, but people generally will feel that this is not going to get anywhere. If the Minister said, on the other hand, "I am quite prepared to talk to you about problems. While you appreciate, of course, that I recognise the fact that there are many parents who are not represented in your organisation, I recognise that you are the voice of the active vocal parents at this stage and I hope you will be able to extend your range of representation. In the meantime, I will be happy to talk and discuss matters with you. The more representative you become, the more I will listen to your voice". That is the kind of positive and constructive encouragement that should be given to bodies of this kind rather than telling them that they should remain at arm's length. The problem here is very much one on the parents' side rather than on the teachers' side and indeed even the students, through the Union of Students in Ireland—at least the third level students—are represented although we still have a problem with the second level students and with the parents, primary and post-primary.
I have not much hope, however, of the Minister changing his overall attitude to the whole devolution of authority in education. The Minister knows —I shall not dwell on it at length; there is no point in repeating it—the policy of my party on this. We believe that the curriculum examination system should be a matter for a schools committee, similar in kind, though not necessarily identical in form, to that which operated successfully in Northern Ireland for about eight years, from 1961 to 1969, and then was given statutory form in the Bill introduced in Stormont in December, 1969.
I know—at least I think I do—why the Minister and his Department and the Government are reluctant to concede this: because of a desire to hang on to control over the provision making Irish an essential requirement for school examination purposes. This seems to be the reason why the Minister is unwilling to allow any devolution of authority here. This is a political policy, which is not a national policy. Of course, there is a national policy to preserve and revive the Irish language, but there is not a national policy to do it by these particular means. They are in dispute and we are in disagreement on it, and it must not be referred to as a national policy. It is absolutely wrong to pursue the particular political policy of one party as regards the means of achieving the revival, means that we feel are counterproductive. To refuse to allow the devolution of authority for the whole educational sphere to those who should be handling it and to insist on hanging on to control of the written examination system and have it organised and determined by the Minister and his supervisors is wrong. We will challenge this. We will fight it and we will change it in Government.
I come now to the question of the effective use of resources. Here perhaps I am nearer to the Minister. Although I disagree with the way in which his Department have administered schemes to achieve the effective use of resources I have the greatest sympathy with the aim they are trying to pursue. I understand the difficulties involved. While serious blunders have been made in some cases I do not suggest that the problems are easy to resolve.
The rationalisation proposals that we have had are at three levels. There have been the proposals to eliminate the very small primary schools, the proposals for the merger of post-primary schools and the university merger proposals. These proposals are designed to secure more effective use of scarce resources and if there is one scarce resource in this country, the resource is teachers and, in particular, teachers with special skills, particularly those teaching the honours senior cycle level where there is a serious problem and about which the Minister is rightly concerned. The trouble is that an effort is being made almost overnight to undo the damage that has resulted from years of neglect. The attempt to undo in a few short years the problems created by historical circumstances, because of the neglect of the whole educational sphere by both the British and the Irish administrations has led the Government and the Department into a situation of inflexibility. We have sympathy with the Government in this regard and I am sure the Labour Party share this sympathy also. There is difficulty when the problems are tackled suddenly, without warning and without explanation and in an inflexible way.
It is a pity that unnecessary resistance is created in these cases. It is not always easy to know the right course of action. If this party had been in power we, too, would have made mistakes but I think we would have been much more sensitive to the people's responses. There is the problem, on the one hand, of making the progress that is urgently needed for the sake of the children while, on the other hand, trying to ensure that the people go along with the efforts being made. The problem of reconciling the two is immensely complex. It would not be possible for any Government to have the perfect solution. Any Government would be bound to fail in some instances but the failure rate of this Government is a little higher than it need be. Some unnecessary mistakes have been made and some unnecessary inflexibility has been shown.
The Minister should say more about one particular failure of the rationalisation system. This is a failure that may well not be his fault but which he has not explained adequately. I would put it to the Minister that, in his own political interest, he should explain it. A large part of the rationale of the closure of the small schools was not only that it was considered that by having larger rural schools a higher level of education would be achieved but that by this move teachers would be released in very large numbers who could then be used to reduce the size of the classes in schools in urban areas. Therefore, the scheme for the closure of the small schools was designed to tackle simultaneously two problems by one political decision.
This two-pronged scheme which was so attractive from the point of view of achieving something has made it worthwhile tackling a very tricky political problem, a political problem that could bring nothing but unpopularity to the Government tackling it and to the Opposition who supported the Government in tackling it. We went into this with our eyes open and in the knowledge that it would not do any of us any good in rural Ireland to support such a scheme. We have achieved a measure of rationalisation in rural Ireland. Perhaps mistakes have been made in some cases regarding the choice of schools closed but these are matters for argument. What is very disappointing is that we have not achieved any significant alleviation of the position in the urban schools. In response to questions in this House the Minister has given us some figures and the latest of those shows that 77 per cent of the pupils in primary schools in Dublin are in classes of more than 40. My recollection is that comparing these figures with earlier ones, if anything, the trend has been towards an increase in the number of classes with 40 and more children. I admit that there has been a reduction in the number of classes of more than 50 and 60 children but this has been done by creating more classes of more than 40 pupils.
There has been no real progress in reducing the normal class to a reasonable level. There is a clue to the reason for this in the Minister's speech but from his own point of view, that clue should be developed. Why is it that the teachers who have been released from the rural schools are not in the urban schools? I suspect that the reason is immobility of labour, the unwillingness of people to move. That is a very natural unwillingness. This was the reason indicated by the Minister in his speech when he talked about the £200 grant for this purpose being raised to £400. This is a sensible approach to the problem but he should tell us in a little more detail what has happened. How many teachers have been rendered supernumerary in rural schools by the primary school rationalisation programme? How many have moved to centres where they have contributed to a reduction in the number of students in the classes in primary schools? How many have to move yet? How rapidly will the problem resolve itself by a process of retirement and the concentration of all new teachers in the urban centres? Is the Minister diverting the bulk of the new teachers into the urban centres because in so far as there are teachers throughout rural Ireland who are supernumerary in the schools they are in, and in so far as vacancies are occuring in other schools nearby as a result of the death or retirement of teachers, it seems to me to be possible, to a large degree, to resolve the current rural requirements for new teachers from this pool of supernumerary teachers. This pool should be spread fairly evenly throughout the country because the rationalisation programme has been fairly uniform. The majority of the newly trained teachers should be put into the urban schools but it does not appear as if this is happening. I would like some quantified assessment of what has gone on in this respect during the past five years. I would like some indication of the scale of movement and of the number of teachers who are now supernumerary and how long it will take to resolve the problem.
We are badly off in this House for any kind of concrete information. We are told simply that there are problems but we are not told the extent of these problems. We are not given any basis of measuring the problems or of assessing how best they might be solved. The statistical basis for education in Ireland is desperately weak and, disappointingly, all the work done by the Investment in Education Report does not seem to have been continued. Certainly, there is no continuing statistical series published to keep up to date the figures in investment in education. Indeed, we are often forced to seek these figures by means of question and answer in the House. Therefore, people who need data on education, instead of looking at a statistical handbook, must ferret through the debates of the House. That may be a side issue but I mention it now in connection with this particular problem of school rationalisation. It is up to the Minister to provide us with the information we require so that we can help him to resolve this problem. Sometimes the Minister must consider the criticisms he receives to be unfair. Sometimes they are unfair but to some extent the Minister and his Department bring this on themselves by their undue secrecy and by their neglect to publish the kind of data that would enable us to see what progress they are making and to see for ourselves whether there may be good reasons for their not making progress. We do not want to be unfair in our criticisms but it is difficult when we have not got the data upon which to make fair criticism.
At the post-primary level, about which there is considerable controversy, the problem is particularly difficult. I hope nothing has been said on this side of the House that has ever suggested that it is an easy problem or that we have an easy solution. I notice that the Minister in his speech made a few political references to the Fine Gael policy statement on this matter, suggesting that Fine Gael were inconsistent. Fine Gael recognise in a manner, and the Minister should have been more generous on this point, the reality and difficulty of the problem involved. We recognise it cannot be resolved overnight and that it will require much more imagination and flexibility than has been shown hitherto but I am afraid that "imagination" and "flexibility" are words that the Minister equates with "inconsistent". This is not a political attitude of mind but is a bureaucratic attitude of mind. If the Minister has a fault perhaps it is his undue sensitivity to bureaucratic considerations; he is too inclined to take the view of his Department rather than put his own stamp on decisions. The Minister is a politician, as we all are. It is the job of politicians to reconcile people and to resolve problems; it is not to set up rigid bureaucratic systems to satisfy the administrative criteria. It is the politician's job to prevent the excessively rigid approach of the administrator—which may be right in its own context—but it is up to politicians to prevent it damaging human relationships. It is their job to do everything possible to solve such problems. The Minister has not been sufficiently political in that sense in his approach to some of these problems.
We understand the reasons the post-primary rationalisation scheme has been undertaken. We understand the need to tackle the problem of parity of esteem between vocational and secondary schools. Because of the great prestige of the religious orders, in this country the problem of the parity of esteem between the two streams of education is rendered much more acute than in other countries, although the problem exists in other countries also. Many Irish parents wish their children to be educated in the environment provided by religious schools. There may be some parents who are influenced by some considerations of snobbery but, by and large, parents have good reasons and it aggravates the problem of parity of esteem. It has created the situation where we have a kind of class system in education between the secondary and vocational schools.
The Department are right to be concerned about this. Their insight into this problem and their attempts to solve it should command general support. It is wrong to criticise them because they have tried to solve it, but it is right to criticise them because the methods they have used to solve the problem have proved counterproductive in some instances. However, the fact that they have attempted to do something about it after a long period when the Minister and his Department did nothing in the matter is something for which they should be commended. Fine Gael do not fault them for this; on the contrary, we congratulae them for trying to do something, but the attempt to solve the problem has met with difficulties for reasons which could, and should, have been foreseen by the Minister in charge. It is his responsibility if he launches a scheme which does not take sufficient account of the human and institutional problems involved and which must be resolved.
Parity of esteem is part of the reason for the rationalisation programme. The other part of the problem is the need to provide an adequate range of subjects in schools. This is more important than has been realised but, at the same time, it is important that we know what we are talking about on this matter. It is no good generalising about this; we must be clear about the range of subjects that is necessary and why it is necessary.
A recent article in The Irish Times by Father Nolan, CSSp—with which I disagree almost totally—provides a useful basis for discussion on this subject. It was only on reading the article several times that I have seen the kind of fallacies that confuse people on this matter. The article highlights some of the problems involved and enables us to sort out the good and bad reasons. The writer is right in some of his criticisms but I do not think that basically his logical approach is sound and on the key issues he does not tackle the right target.
He makes a number of points which are true but his conclusions do not seem to me to follow. He states that if a pupil is bad at one language he will probably be bad at others. There is a lot of truth in that and I can accept it for a moment. He said that the development of the individual mind requires some concentrated study rather than a wide range of subject matter dealt with superficially. I share that view because I think it is necessary for people to study some subjects in some depth, although I am opposed to specialisation.
Father Nolan states that if the primary school has not done its job some training in basic skills may be needed in the early stages of post-primary education. This is true, although it should not happen. Pupils coming to the post-primary school should have had the necessary training in basic skills and the post-primary school should not have to do this. Of course it does not always have to do it; it is only in the very early years that we may have to supplement any weakness in the primary school and I think it is the exception rather than the norm. Nevertheless, the situation can arise and Father Nolan has a case here.
He also said that too many subjects may leave no time for other cultural activities, for civics, religious instruction and so on. It is true that there can be too many subjects to be studied leaving no time for other extracurricular activities. Children can be put under too much strain and the development of their minds can be inhibited by too wide a range of subjects to be studied. All this is true but his conclusion does not follow. Father Nolan states that many students choose unwisely; again, that is a valid point but his conclusions do not follow.
Finally, Father Nolan has stated that a language additional to Irish and English is not necessary or even desirable for all students. That is quite true because there are some students for whom it is not possible, never mind necessary or desirable; some students cannot learn two languages never mind three or more. All of this misses the point.
The fact that something is not necessary or desirable for all students —in this instance a language additional to Irish and English—is not a reason for preventing everyone from benefiting. Even if some students are unlikely to benefit from a modern, continental language, others will benefit. The students who will benefit should not be precluded because others will not benefit; it is totally wrong to say that they should not get the opportunity to learn the language. We are talking in this case about the range of subjects open to students. We are not talking about requiring every student to study the subject; the Minister is not attempting to impose this requirement with regard to a modern continental language.
My view of this matter is that, having regard to our membership of the EEC, there will be a much wider range of occupations for which a modern continental language or languages will be necessary or desirable in the future. Any person in the administrative, clerical, or business world is liable to find himself in need of a modern continental language. It may happen that he will not be required to use this language but anyone engaged in these jobs would be wise to know a continental language. There are multifarious aspects of the EEC where direct involvement with a business or group may require the use of a continental language. The person who undertakes a manual job in an Irish factory will not be at a disadvantage in not knowing French but people in the administrative, Civil Service or business spheres may, at some stage, find themselves at a disadvantage if they do not know a continental language. This is a new dimension added to our system and account must be taken of it.
The suggestion by Father Nolan that the fact that somebody is bad at one language means he will be bad at others is also irrelevant to the desirability of having a choice available to those who have the ability. The mere fact that students who are bad at French will not be good at German is not a reason for not having French and German available for the students who are good at French and, therefore, capable of doing German. There is a logical fallacy here which seems to run right through the article.
Secondly, the post-primary school is not concerned solely with the development of the individual without regard to content. The implication of the article is that education is concerned with personal development. I entirely agree that the main defect in our system, which the Minister is, I think, through the new primary curriculum going a great way to remedy, has been inadequate attention to this question of the development of the individual personality. This is perfectly true, but in a post-primary system right up into senior cycle, which is preparatory to third level education for many people, you cannot dismiss the subject matter completely. There comes a stage in education when knowledge of a subject becomes an important element. It is not an important factor at primary level; it is not a predominant factor, perhaps, at junior cycle but at senior cycle it is very important. It cannot be dismissed as if, in the leaving certificate course, one is concerned solely with the personal development of the individual and he might as well be studying Hebrew or Aramaic as any other subject. At senior cycle level the particular subject is very important because it is going to be for many people the last chance to acquire a particular skill which they may need later, for example, mathematics, or a foreign language, and for others it will be a necessary preparation for a more specialised course at third level.
Thirdly, the fact that primary education may need to be supplemented by post-primary because of deficiencies at the primary level, is not relevant either. It could only be relevant for the first or second year of post-primary education where a student comes forward who has had an inadequate formation in the primary school and you might try to improve his ability to read. These are exceptional cases which might best be dealt with by exceptional treatment. However, as a reason for not having a range of subjects, for example, at senior cycle, it seems to me to be totally irrelevant.
Fourthly, choice of subject does not necessarily imply, as again is implied in the article, taking too many subjects. There is a confusion of thought between having a choice of subjects and being required to do a large number of subjects. They are two totally different things and one does not necessarily follow from the other. Certainly, if we do not have a range of subjects available we cannot do a range, but having a range does not force anybody, of itself, to take more than a certain number of subjects.
Fifthly, the fact that many choose unwisely is not a reason for depriving everyone of choice. This would certainly be an unfortunate principle to apply. Of course, some students choose unwisely and that is a good reason for postponing choice as late as possible. All my inclinations are to postpone choice in the educational system. I do not like the idea of careers being decided at 11-plus or at 12. One of the merits of our system is that, compared with some other systems, it does postpone choice later. I know this brings its own problem in train, but whatever educational system you choose has its own problems.
The fact that you postpone choice is a good thing. It does not mean that at some stage a choice has not to be made, and to say that because someone may choose wrongly there should be no choice whatever, that a person should be confined to a rigid, narrow curriculum, with no choice in case he might make a mistake is nonsense. It is better that someone should make a mistake but that most should be able to choose what suits them rather than that nobody should be allowed to choose. Again, there is a fallacy in basic logic here.
From all this I conclude that a range of subjects is necessary in a post-primary school, most especially at senior cycle level where many are preparing for further study and many are now having their last opportunity at acquiring a command of subjects. The unpalatable fact we have to face in this House is that at senior cycle numbers are small and that, at advanced level—and this is a point I want to come back to later—they are smaller still. By "advanced level" I mean those who have completed senior cycle but may not be ready yet either in maturity of mind or years to go on to third-level education.
This problem can be very acute. I came across it in a very acute form the other day. I was in Waterford speaking at a parent-teacher meeting at which a number of senior girls were present. After the meeting I had an opportunity to talk to some of the senior girls. One of them said to me that she and a colleague wanted to take honours mathematics but the school was not in a position to provide it. This is understandable, because there are not that many people in the country in the post-primary system teaching honours maths and having the necessary qualifications to do so. The two girls had discovered that in a neighbouring school about 300 yards away, there were six boys in an honours maths class and they proposed that they should be allowed to join the class at sixth-year level. This did not materialise and I will not even say what reason those two girls gave, because they may be wrong about the reason and I do not want to pin responsibility on anybody, but they have had their career possibilities stunted by some bureaucratic decision by somebody somewhere who should have been concerned with nothing but the education of children. I was angry at hearing this. This is happening because there are people in the educational system who are not primarily concerned with the children; there are some other things they put first, although I cannot imagine what could be put before this.
Waterford is a large city and there are, of course, other schools in it, but if in two large schools in the city of Waterford with 30,000 people there are only eight pupils to do honours mathematics, how can one envisage throughout the country, in every town and village secondary schools providing a senior cycle up to honours maths level? We are miles away from this. In fact, we are so far away from it that I am not sure that even the Minister's proposals, radical and acceptable to many people though they may be, are adequate to deal with the problem. When you come to a problem like honours mathematics where the number of teachers are so few, it is improbable that even the measure of rationalisation the Minister proposes will meet the issue. In a case like this where the skill is so rare and so badly needed, even if we have to make special provision at senior cycle level, with children going as weekly boarders to a school some distance away where there is an honours maths teacher, we should be prepared to do so. No bureaucratic considerations should stand in the way here. I should like to hear from the Minister that his concern in this matter goes not only to the point of taking unpopular decisions in some cases in regard to rationalisation of the schools system but to willingness, where that proves inadequate, to take special steps to ensure that nobody is deprived of the opportunity of developing a skill which not only they have a right to develop as individuals but which this country badly needs.
That Waterford case indicates how acute is the difficulty we have here and shows clearly how much we must have lost in the past. How many young pupils have there been throughout the country who were never able to develop particular talents they had because the school they were in was not able to offer honours maths or a foreign language? The Minister's concern to resolve this problem is something which we accept. We may think he has not always handled it well, that in putting the case across his Department has not always shown the necessary ability and that we have more problems on our hands than we need have if the matter were handled more tactfully. We are in sympathy with the basic thinking behind it and I hope the fact that we do understand the problem, and are trying to help, will assist in some way in resolving it.
I wonder whether we are not forced to consider, in a country with such a low density of population, where you have this problem at the senior cycle honours level, something a bit more drastic than what the Minister is thinking? Are we not also in a situation where the level of our school leaving qualification is such that a very significant minority of pupils are capable of attaining that level at a physical age, and, perhaps, at an emotional age in the broad sense of emotional maturity, before they are either eligible by the age requirements of third level institutions or, perhaps, emotionally ready for third level institutions?
There is a bit of a gap here. The Minister had a proposal some years ago for an advanced leaving certificate which might provide the answer. Here I am coming back to a point I dealt with before and with which I am in total disagreement. He has imposed an entry age of 12 years for post-primary schools. This carries with it extraordinary consequences for individuals. The whole approach is wrong. He has tried to resolve the problem of the fact that our school leaving qualification is set at a level which most people can attain and the honours level is set at a level which, although most people cannot attain it, quite a big minority can attain a good deal younger than the entry age for third level institutions.
He has tried to get over that problem by saying: "Let nobody go to post-primary school until they are 12 years." Stop them going. Hold them up. Stunt their growth at that stage so that we do not have the problem of what to do with them if they finish too early. I am totally opposed to that approach. The effect of this on the individual children concerned can be disastrous. I have come across this repeatedly. They are ready to go to post-primary school. They are the bright children in the primary schools. They are told by the schools: "The Minister will not let us take you. If we take you, you will have to pay the full fee because we will not get a grant for you. The Minister will not allow it." The child is held back.
This is quite wrong because, if you hold children back at that point, they cannot benefit. There is nothing you can do with children aged ten or 11 years who are bright and ready for secondary school. If they go to the secondary school and work their way through and finish a year early, then you have a chance to do something for them. That is the time when you can really help them. That is the time when children having achieved the leaving certificate with the necessary honours for the university, but being too young to go, could attend a course which would give them a real preparation for the university and give them a head-start there. They could go away for a year and get experience abroad. They could work for a year. They could go to a technical college for a year and improve their skills in, for example, the scientific subjects as some children do who come to Dublin from the country for this purpose. There are all kinds of useful things that could be done at that stage.
There is nothing much you can do for a child of 11 years who is held back in the top class in a primary school who is more than ready to leave. I appeal to the Minister who is concerned about education to rethink this attitude. I have discussed it with him before. I have discussed it with the INTO. No good reason has been given for it. I asked the INTO representatives several years ago to explain to me why they were in favour of it. I had to say to them at the end —again it probably was not a popular thing to say—that I did not think any argument they put forward was educationally sound and, in the absence of any educational argument, I could only conclude that their reasons were not educational. We left it at that.
I came across it again in Waterford with young people there. The Minister compounds it because some children starting at age 12 years—or may be they got in before the Minister's rule came into operation; I do not know— will get their leaving certificate with quite a large number of honours. They will be ready to go on and, at that stage, the Minister will not let them into the training colleges, I understand. I have not checked this with the training colleges but one of the girls told me that she will get her honours leaving certificate and she cannot go to a training college because she is too young. I can accept that, the university having its rules on that point. Perhaps there is a reason for it. I am not in favour of it but I will not argue that point at the moment.
She has to wait for a year and then what happens? She is told she cannot go in because she has not got a current honours leaving certificate. That is what the girl told me and she has gone into the matter. If that is right it is absolutely intolerable. Apparently she has got to do an honours leaving certificate at the end of the course, then she has got to sit around for a year and do another honours leaving certificate—at that stage she has wasted a year—in order to get into a training college. If that rule exists the Minister should get rid of it. It should not exist.
Let the training colleges have their entry age and the universities their entry age. I am not keen on this. I do not think physical age is relevant but it is not as damaging at that stage as it is at the post-primary stage. There should be no rule that requires a girl, instead of doing something useful to develop herself for the year, to hang around repeating her leaving certificate. I hope the Minister will have a look at that and do something about it.
The advanced leaving certificate idea had something in it. I am sorry that it seems to have gone into some kind of a limbo. We have heard nothing about it since. I should like the Minister to discuss it a bit further. In any event, whether or not you have such a certificate, there are a significant number of children who are capable of—and who if they got in before the Minister's rule are doing so—completing their education before they are of an age to go on elsewhere, perhaps before they are old enough to get the benefit of going on elsewhere.
These pupils need some kind of facilities. Some of them will take jobs. Some of them will go abroad for a year. We need to give more consideration to them. They may be a minority but, if we could give them a useful boost at that point, and give them some kind of special treatment that would prepare them more fully for the university, their ability to benefit from university education would be enhanced and they would start with such an advantage going into the university, or technical college, or whereever they go on to—and pupils with this degree of brilliance normally will go on to third-level education and in many cases to university—that they would be able to get more out of the university. They would not be so pushed to keep up all the time with the work because they would start with an advantage. They would relax more and benefit more from the intellectual atmosphere of the university.
We need some kind of course at that level and this has not existed to any great extent here. I had the benefit of such a course about 30 years ago now. I understand that until two years ago there was no provision for girls in Dublin for this purpose. Indeed, I tried to make a co-educational arrangement with one of the schools. They were quite interested but they were not able to make the accommodation arrangements at the time. It was for a boys' school to take in girls. One convent in Sion Hill provided such a course and an excellent course it was. My own daughter benefited from it.
The Minister should see what can be done in these cases because undoubtedly a significant number are still coming to the university too young to benefit from it. If there were some intermediate stage for them that would be beneficial. There is a gap in the system. I do not think a terminal examination for school leaving can be adequately used as a university entrance examination without creating some of these problems. If it is a terminal examination for school leaving the standard has to be such that the great majority can get it and that a fair proportion of people with ability can get it at the age of 18 years. There is bound to be a number who will get it earlier. A problem is being created there. Something should be done to fill the gap that is involved.
Coming back to the question of the range of the subjects because I have digressed a bit from that, what range of subjects should there be? I should like to hear the Minister's views on this. I simply do not accept his view that you need four or five subjects for four or five groups and that is that, that range is sufficient and you do not need any choice between individual groups. It seems to me that you must have Irish, English and maths to an honours level so that those who have the ability can go to that level, history, French and German, a classical subject such as Latin, music and art, hand to eye subjects, the scentific subjects such as physics, chemistry and botany and an economic subject as well. That kind of range is necessary for the senior cycle.
I am not dogmatic about that. It may be that the Minister has a different view. He may feel that the range should be wider or narrow. I should like to hear his views on the minimum range of subjects. How would he define the minimum range of subjects necessary at senior cycle to honours level to give children the kind of opportunity they should have at that point? I should like to see this spelled out. The schools are entitled to have it spelled out and to be told what is being aimed at.
Having said all that, I do not know what conclusion one has to draw from that with regard to the size of schools. I am unconvinced, frankly, by the kind of figures the Department of Education have been putting out. I am sure it is true that to achieve an absolutely minimum cost and full utilisation of all teachers at the honours level you would need quite a large school. I know something about cost curves in other walks of life, including our transport system, with which I was involved for 12 years, and I think you would find, although you might need a school of 800 or more to achieve an absolutely national economy, the diseconomy of moving down to, say, a school of 400, in terms of the extra costs involved for pupils who are not getting the fullest utilisation through having classes a bit below the 22, or whatever it may be, that you want at senior cycle level would be quite small. I suspect that when you get down below that they begin to get greater and when you get down to the level of 100/150 they become quite considerable. I do not think it is sufficient for the Minister to assert that you have to have schools of this size to provide this range of subjects economically. The adverb "economically" begs the question: "How economically? How uneconomically?" This is a country of low density population. We have to face this. There are all kinds of diseconomies involved in it. The cost of providing electricity to everybody in this country is much higher than elsewhere because of the low density. We do not say to people: "You cannot have it. Come into the towns and we will give it to you." We face the fact that you have to provide electricity to people at a higher cost and this is true of a whole range of services. I do not think we can simply say in the case of education that we will only provide education at the absolutely minimum cost and if that involves having schools of 800 or 1,000 and if that involves pupils having to travel 30 miles every day that is too bad for them.
We have to recognise that our low density of population makes impossible the achievement, without a greater social and cultural cost, of the range of choice we have to give at absolute minimum cost. We should forget about absolute minimum cost and try to establish, looking at the cost curve, what kind of extra costs can we afford in order to give this range of subjects in schools which will not be excessively large and will not be excessively remote from the pupils attending them. I do not believe this exercise has been published. Perhaps the development branch of the Department have done it, but like so much of their work and contrary to the whole intention of establishing that branch it seems to be secret.
Could we have some publications from that branch? There should be broadsheets issued every few weeks setting out the calculations and seminars should be held with educational interests to discuss them and to get other views. That is how policy should be formulated. To formulate a policy about the size of schools behind closed doors with figures that are never published, using vague adverbs like "economically" without defining what it means, is totally unsatisfactory. It is unsatisfactory not alone because you do not get the right answer behind closed doors, without discussing things with people but because the problem is to convince all the educational interests that the policy as implemented is a wise one. If you are going to convince them of that you must put your cards on the table. They are not going to take from any Minister or any civil servant a bald statement: "It just has to be a school of 800. Forget about it. We have told you. That is it." They want to be told why. They want the chance to examine the figures. If you go over the figures with them and if you can show them that a school of 250. 300 or 400 is necessary and what the cost margins are you bring them with you eventually. If you are never prepared to put your arguments, if you are never prepared to quantity them, if you are never prepared to discuss them you will not bring people with you.
A large part of the tension that has built up in our educational system has been this total failure of the Minister's Department to handle it in the ordinary, open, straightforward way, formulating policy openly in discussion with those concerned and then putting it across to them by arguing the case factually so that people are faced with the realities and have no choice but to accept whatever logical consequences flow from it. At the moment, anybody who does not like what the Minister is doing can simply say gladly: "He has never given us any argument in favour of this, I do not believe him." They get away with saying: "I do not believe him" because nobody can say whether he is right or wrong and others cannot say whether they are right or wrong.
This is the basic defect in the running of our educational system. It is not the philosophy of the Department as such. The basic thinking is sound enough. We will argue about the emphasis but it is the way that it is being handled that has done the damage and has prevented us achieving the objectives which we all share. Some of these remote rural secondary schools for some reason or other seem to be extraordinarily good in what they achieve because of the dedication and skills of the particular teachers. They seem to be able to achieve extraordinary final results which compare very favourably with large urban schools in many cases. These are facts. We cannot just let our preconceptions wipe away these facts. Where there are such schools, and where it would be possible to provide in such a school a range of subjects of the kind which the Minister and myself would feel was roughly appropriate at a cost somewhat higher in terms of financial cost and teaching manpower, and if you rationalise the whole lot, I think there is a price there to be paid.
I would like to know what the price is before I decide but I am not convinced by being told "we cannot afford it". What is the cost? How many of these schools are there? We are told, and again there has been no announcement—this only leaks out in some way—that there are 13 schools that have been told they must close their doors. I have heard various reports of this being to close the doors this year or in 1975. I am not quite sure which is correct, because we are told nothing. It just leaks back to us as politicians from the particular areas in which the schools get these letters. I would like to know what are the costs involved? How many additional teachers would be needed to keep these schools open, compared with the number you would save if you closed them? What is the cost and how great is the problem? I would much prefer to see, in cases like this, the school continuing with special provision made for individual pupils who have a particular aptitude at the senior cycle level than to have the school closed. We are almost at the point where schools are being closed because there are one or two pupils who want honours maths and who, at the senior cycle level, could be sent, with a boarding grant of a few hundred pounds, somewhere else and the school could be left open. Is that the problem?
We have not identified them because we have not quantified them. When I say "quantify" it is not because I have a particular aptitude for quantifying but because you can only reach a decision on a matter of this kind by measuring the scale of the problem and taking a decision based on that measurement. If we are told it is not economic to keep them open that means that somebody has measured the cost. I want to know what the cost is. I am not opposed to the basic policy. I am with the basic policy but in a country with a low density of population we must be prepared to pay some cost, even if it is fairly significant. We do it in other spheres and we should be willing to do it here.
We want a White Paper on this alone. We want some kind of document published setting out and quantifying the problems, showing by a few case study examples the scale of the problem involved and identifying what the cost is and how many additional teachers will be needed. It would be better, if there are particular children who need particular training in a particular subject, if they were dealt with individually by generous grants rather than that a school should be closed basically because they cannot be catered for in that school. The way we have implemented this policy may well be wrong. I feel in the case of schools like those in Durrow, Cloughane, Ballycastle, a number of these schools with very high standards indeed, their closure would be a tragedy unless it is absolutely necessary. The Minister has convinced no one that it is absolutely necessary because he has not attempted to convince anybody. I am convincable. If the Minister produces a compelling case in regard to any of these schools that the cost would be so enormous, and that generalised through the whole country would involve such a provision of teachers at high levels of skill that are unobtainable, then I will accept the logic of that. We have not had a case put forward in this way. I am not prepared just to take it because some civil servant somewhere says it. We have to be given the facts and figures to make up our own minds in this matter.
That brings me to the basic issue of community schools. The Minister did not say very much about this. I would have thought he would have made a few announcements about certain changes which have already appeared in the papers. Here, as in some other places, he skipped gently over the particular area. He had a good deal to say about Opposition spokesmen. One almost had the impression that the Minister and the Cardinal had the same speech writer at certain points because the same accusations were made but not documented. I cannot speak for anybody in my party but myself but I do not recall having said at any stage—I have been right through every speech I have made on the subject, and I have kept copies of them all on this particular subject—that this proposal for community schools originated with the Hirearchy, the Catholic Church authorities, religious schools or anything like that. On the contrary, I find throughout my speeches a clear statement—and I recall also in discussion after these speeches bringing this point out and hammering it home —that the initiative for this came from the Government and, indeed, I have at each time said that it comes from the Government for good reason. The basic reasoning behind what they are trying to do is something that I think we all agree with. I have never suggested that the initiative in any way came from the side of the Church. The Church authorities were faced with a Government initiative undertaken for good reasons and the Church authorities reacted as they are perfectly entitled to do by saying: "If you are proposing this change, we would like the following arrangements made." That leaves it to the Minister to decide what he does.
I may fault what the Minister did. I do not fault the Minister's initiative in raising the matter. I do not fault and could not fault the reaction of the Church authorities in stating their position. I may fault and I do not fault the conclusion the Minister drew having consulted the authorities of one Church only and I think that he made a mess of it. I am entitled to that political view.
I should like to be told, before we have any more of these accusations from the Minister, where and when and in what speech made where, I am supposed to have said, if it is me, and if it is not I would like to be exonerated on this, that this thing was initiated by the Church, because I said the opposite throughout and, in fact, I think I was the first person to bring out the fact that, contrary to the impression given by the leak of the original document in The Irish Times of October, 1970, in fact, this was not originally raised with the hierarchy at all or communicated to the hierarchy but, in fact, the original document arose in a communication between a particular bishop, who happens to be His Eminence Cardinal Conway, the bishop of the diocese in which Ardee is situated, writing for information about the philosophy behind the proposals for Ardee. I was the first person to bring that out as I was concerned that there was a wrong impression being formed that the Hierarchy were initiating something of some kind and pressing the Minister on it. The Minister will recall my raising this issue and pressing him to make it clear and he did subsequently at the Fianna Fáil Ard-Fheis make it clear how that thing arose. I am not prepared in those circumstances to have it suggested that I was putting forward the view that this was some kind of a plot by the Church authorities on vocational schools. The Church authorities reacted to a ministerial proposal by making counter proposals. The Minister, in my view, was wrong in accepting them as put forward. The Church authorities had a perfect right to put them forward and it was not their initiative.
Before we have any more speeches of this smear kind, I would like to have chapter and verse as to who said what. I may say I do not recall anybody else saying it either but my recollection may be at fault. I can only be responsible for my own speeches, not for other people's. It may be that somewhere, sometime, somebody on some other benches said something of the kind but I think the Minister has a duty to be specific in this. He is claiming that the stories were put about from the Fine Gael benches. I should like him to give chapter and verse for it. It is important to get that out of the way first because of the confusion caused by the Minister's speech and may I say also by the fact that the Cardinal refers rather vaguely to politicians and publicists and not everybody will recall in detail the speeches I have made on the subject and will recall the trouble I have gone to to identify the source of the initiative. There is a danger when vague accusations are made that they will stick to the wrong person.
The reason for this community school proposal is evident. I think it arises largely out of the failure of attempts to get co-operation between schools and in the absence of co-operation the Minister rightly felt that some other more radical proposal should be put forward. He may have had in mind—I would not blame him if he had—that if he put forward a more radical proposal he might get a sudden rash of co-operation as a result and achieve his original objective in that way. That would be quite a good political tactic from that point of view.
Let us just run over this and see how it has been developed. I do not want to recapitulate on the way it has evolved. The October statement sent to the Cardinal in relation to his request with regard to Ardee school was the beginning of it. The next overt act that I am aware of was the Fine Gael statement of January, 1971 in which specifically we criticised the total absence of any reference to the religious issue in the Minister's document, pointing out that this issue had to be confronted, that there were obviously going to be difficulties either way, that religious schools would be reluctant to give up private religious schools to the public authority inter-denominational system and that the inter-denominational vocation schools would not easily accept that they were going to become religious schools, which would be unsatisfactory for some of the denominations attending them. This we pinpointed at the very beginning as a basic gap in the Minister's speech.
Now, a lot happened over that period of which we knew nothing but, subsequently, in reply to a Dáil question, we got some information on it. It is worth while to recapitulate the events of those months as subsequently disclosed to us. The Minister entered into consultations. It is interesting to see with whom, when, in what order and how frequently. The original document was sent to Cardinal Conway on the 12th October, 1970. On 10th December, 1970, the Minister met representatives of the Catholic Hierarchy and what he described as the council of managers. I am not quite clear what body this is. It is described in the relevant Dáil reply in small letters but presumably it is the council of all school managers or is it only a council of Roman Catholic school managers? I am not clear about that. The Minister might clarify that. Four days later, on 14th December, 1970, he met with the major religious superiors. I take it that is a reference to the conference of major religious superiors. I think the Minister, by the way, might have been more careful in his reply to the Dáil question in being specific as to the particular groups he met. On 2nd January, 1971, he met with representatives of the Catholic hierarchy again; 14th January—meeting with the Vocational Education Association and a further meeting with them on 19th February; on 19th March —meeting between departmental officers and representatives of the Catholic hierarchy; 7th April, 1971—I quote here—please note the quotation marks —"matter referred to" at a meeting with representatives of the House of Bishops of the Church of Ireland. I should like to know what was said in that reference. I think the Minister could tell us just how fully he referred to it, how fully he disclosed his mind, what consultations took place there. The use of the phrase "matter referred to" implies to me a certain coyness, implies to me the reference may have been a rather elliptical one. Perhaps I am unfair to him and, perhaps, he is understating what happened at that meeting but Ministers rarely understate anything to their advantage. Anything that would be to their advantage would be fully stated, I think.
On 23rd April, 1971—"clarification meeting"—not a consultation meeting but a "clarification meeting" with the Vocational Teachers' Association. They were not consulted; only clarified; 28th April, 1971, "clarification meeting" with the ASTI. That is how teachers are treated. You do not consult these people—they are not worth consulting—but you clarify things to them at a certain point; 3rd May, 1971 —meeting between departmental officers and the Vocational Education Association and, finally, 8th May, 1971, meeting with representatives of the Catholic hierarchy.
That is the record of meetings. It is no harm to put it firmly on the records of the House. It may have been lost in the record at Question Time. We can see how this thing evolved, what consultations took place, who the first consultations were with, who the last consultations were with. We can see what group had the matter referred to when they met and can see what group had things clarified to them—a very interesting pattern, indeed, but it does not suggest that the Minister really was concerning himself with the educational aspects of the problem primarily.
Those are the consultations. Then the announcement came in May and following that I referred to it in my Ard-Fheis speech immediately afterwards and have spoken about it a number of times since then and in order to make our position perfectly clear we issued a policy statement in January, to which the Minister has made reference.
What has been the reaction to these proposals? We do not know the reactions at these secret meetings of which the country was told nothing. We can only guess at what was said from what happened subsequently. We know the public reactions of various people in May, the adverse reactions from chief executive officers of vocational education authorities. We know what happened at the five centres where meetings were held. In June we had adverse reaction from the Vocational Education Association which had been consulted on three occasions, actually, during that period in the spring. Just going through my files, I find an adverse reaction from the Monaghan Vocational Education Committee, they being particularly concerned, of course, with the interests of the religious minority who make very full use of the schools in that area.
We had the criticism from the Presbyterian General Assembly followed by the Church of Ireland Gazette, Dr. Kenneth Milne's remarks, Dr. Poyntz's speech, the criticism by the Church of Ireland Archbishop, Dr. Buchanan, the Church of Ireland Board of Education, who subsequently wrote a letter to the Minister, the National Youth Council of Ireland also strongly critical, the mixed group of clergy who sent a petition to the President, the National Council of Parents' Associations, which the Minister does not recognise but which nonetheless exists, and latterly the Diocesan Council of Youth of the Church of Ireland in the Dublin area. I do not recall any of these statements having been anything other than critical in terms ranging from denunciation to sorrow rather than anger in some cases. It is not a record of success and for the Minister to suggest that all this is just political opposition by people trying to make party political capital is unconvincing and worries us little accordingly. The Minister knows perfectly well it is not party political capital. He knows that in pressing an issue which concerns 5 per cent of the population, particularly in a country where it is easy to be misrepresented to the other 95 per cent, the political capital is more likely to be on the liability than on the debit side of the balance sheet.
The Minister knows that in raising the issue in the way we did we have been deeply personally concerned with the disastrous effect of this in relation to Northern Ireland and to the minority in this part of the country. The fact that they were not consulted and the Minister did not consider them worthy of consultation was itself a slap in the face which will not be forgotten for a very long time. The Minister has explained why this happened. He has explained he thought from consultations he had with various Protestant groups that they were not interested in the vocational schools. He had no right to think that. Every Catholic educational organisation which has talked to him for years past has pressed him, I am sure unremittingly, for assistance for Catholic religious schools. Did he assume from that that the Catholic Church in Ireland had no interest in vocational schools as places to be attended by Roman Catholics and that therefore there was no need to consult them about vocational schools? Oh no. Why then did he assume because he met Protestant school authorities concerned quite properly with maintaining their own denominational schools that they had no interest in vocational schools when he would never assume the same thing in the case of the Catholic Hierarchy? He should not have assumed that. It was a mistake. I know it was an error of omission rather than anything else. I know the Minister is not a man of whom personally it could be said that he is in any way sectarian. If anything said in the heat of any moment in this House suggested that. I gladly withdraw it; but the effect objectively of what he did was sectarian. Objectively he acted in a sectarian way, but his intent was not to be sectarian. He had no thought of being sectarian. I accept and appreciate that. But when you consult one religion only, when you ignore the others and when you give as your reason that you assumed from talking to them they were interested only in the secondary side, having made no such assumption from entirely similar contacts with the Catholic ecclesiastical authorities, then you are being unconsciously sectarian and the objective results of what you do are sectarian in their effects because they induce in the minority of the community a feeling that they are not treated equally and on a par with the majority.
It is no good the Minister saying this is party political talk. Every Protestant body and spokesman who has spoken on this subject has been explicit on it. Are they all active members of the Fine Gael and Labour Parties prodded into action by Deputy Thornley and myself? Is that what the Minister thinks of the Presbysterian General Assembly and the Church of Ireland Archbishop of Dublin? He does not think anything of the kind. He knows perfectly well that in accusing us of promoting a party political campaign he is saying something that is not true, making a political point. Perhaps it is fair party politics and perhaps we stung him into it because he was so upset to find the situation he got himself into and because that criticism of him was trenchant and to the point. Naturally he has reacted, and I do not hold it against him, but let nobody think this is a party political matter. It is a matter which concerns a religious minority in this country, all of whose representatives have spoken out, and this letter was written to the Minister in July last making the position of the Church of Ireland entirely clear.
The Minister should never have got into this position. He should have consulted at the beginning and he would have arrived as I believe he is now going to arrive at, some kind of solution without all this bruhaha and the damage done to relations between North and South. Let the Minister not underestimate that damage. I am not making a party political point but saying what is a cold fact. In my contacts with Northern Ireland—Deputy Cruise-O'Brien, who has accompanied me on some of these occasions, knows what I say is true and can give witness to it himself—I can see that the one thing above all that has aroused Protestants in Northern Ireland genuinely, as distinct from the propaganda Unionist line from the Unionist Party, about us down here, apart from the question about whether we do or do not deal with the IRA, has been the community schools.
