During Private Members' Time, Deputy Byrne, sensitive soul that he is, approached me and challenged me with making certain allegations against him in relation to charges, which he did not make, against the National Council for Sport. I would not like to upset the Deputy in any way. I came into the House when he was about half-way through his contribution and I probably misunderstood what he said. Therefore I withdraw any allegations I made against him. I said he insulted the members of the Youth Council. He did not insult them and I withdraw my remarks unreservedly.
Committee on Finance. - Vóta 27: Oifig an Aire Oideachais (Atógáil).
D'Athógadh an díospóireacht ar an dtairiscint seo a leanas:
Go ndeonófar suim fhorlíontach nach mó ná £10 chun íoctha an mhuirir a thiocfaidh chun íoctha i rith na bliana dar críoch an 31ú lá de Mhárta, 1972, le haghaidh tuarastail agus costais Oifig an Aire Oideachais (lena n-áirítear Forais Eolaíochta agus Ealaíon), le haghaidh seirbhísí ilghnéitheacha áirithe oideachais agus cultúir, agus chun ildeontais-i-gcabhair a íoc.
—(Aire Oideachais.)
Deputies
Hear, hear.
I hope the Deputy will now be able to have a restful night and that he will accept the withdrawal of my remarks.
Before Private Members' Time I had been dealing at some length with the question of national and secondary schools in my constituency. I had made the point that a number of national schools are required in the area and in particular in the south-eastern part of that vast connurbation known as Dún Laoghaire/Rathdown. I said that during Private Members' Time I would avail of the opportunity to obtain figures which would prove my case in relation to the necessity for both primary and secondary schools in that area. The figures I have are interesting. A report was prepared for the Dublin Vocational Education Committee by a well-known firm of architects and planning consultants. This report was presented to the VEC on the 5th May, 1971. It was entitled "Location of Second Level Education Facilities in Co. Dublin South East Suburbs". Its authors were the firm of Delaney, MacVeigh and Pike. The report was produced in a concise manner and is an excellent summary of the needs that I am referring to. A preliminary report by the consultants, dated July, 1970, preceded the production of the County Dublin draft development plan which was drawn up in 1970. The report reached a number of conclusions and I would ask the House to bear with me while I quote from the document at some considerable length because I consider it necessary to have some of their conclusions on the record of the House so as to support my argument when the Minister and his officials are studying the contributions on the Estimate. In the report the following conclusions were drawn:
(a) The Clonkeen catchment area contained approximately 12,700 persons in 1970 and was expected to increase to 13, 350 persons by 1975.
(b) The Cabinteely catchment area contained approximately 12,000 persons in 1970 and was expected to increase to 20,000 by 1975.
(c) The Cabinteely/Shankill catchment area contained approximately 16,300 persons in 1970 and was expected to increase to 24,500 in 1975.
Apart from any sociological observations that anyone might like to make on these figures they must be seen to support fully my argument for the need for increased educational facilities for the areas mentioned, particularly at secondary level.
The draft development plan was adopted by Dublin County Council on the 11th February, 1971. The report tells us that the land use allocations confirm the findings of the preliminary report, and that:
Since much of its contents (objectives) are only concerned with the 5 year statutory period 1970-75, it is necessary to see beyond this period as far as catchment areas for a district educational facility is concerned. The 1970 Draft Plan (p. 83) makes provision for a Vocational School site at Cabinteely and Deansgrange.
The report deals with the need for educational facilities and it has a rather interesting observation on growth development in this south-eastern suburb. It is an interesting survey and those who are familiar with the area realise the vast influx there has been of people into the area over the past decade. I am a native of the Dún Laoghaire/ Rathdown area. I was born in it and I am very familiar with it. There has been a huge influx into this suburb. Land in the area is now at a premium as a result of that influx and, as far as Dún Laoghaire Corporation is concerned, there is no more building land available and the corporation is now using land given by Dublin County Council. That will give some idea of how serious the situation is. I quote again from the report:
1975 and Beyond: Ultimately, development's landward spread will be halted at the Dublin Mountain foothills or base-line. For medium term purposes it is suggested that urban development is likely to proceed as far inward up to the line of the proposed trunk road from the city by-passing Bray and generally known as the Enniskerry bypass.
Those indigenous to the area know where that is.
Drainage facilities would have to be provided for much of these lands but the inevitability of their being developed is not difficult to imagine when it includes premises——
I do not think I should name the particular premises, but there is there a very large tract of land.
In the short term, therefore, the Bray Road would form the landward boundary of the study area; in the medium/long term, the Bray Road would form the axis or spine of a five miles long by one and a half miles deep linear subsurb.
The report then deals with catchments, the Cabinteely and Deansgrange sites and the question of services and transport. I am sure the Department has this excellently prepared report. It is a report which sets a headline for reports. It sets out briefly exactly what the problem is. It discusses the problem briefly and reaches very definite conclusions and all this is done in the space of four and a half pages.
I have a note from Deputy Byrne in which he acknowledges my withdrawal of the charges I made against him. I hope we will now be able to forgive and forget the particular incident. I appreciate the Deputy's note and I refer to it in order to get it on the record of the House.
(Cavan): It is the age of reconciliation.
I wish the Fine Gael Party would remember that when they make charges of sectarianism and so on in the context of education.
(Interruptions.)
Order.
In fairness to the House, I may have been somewhat laborious in putting this particular report on the record, but I thought it wise to do so in order to formalise my point of view and so that the Minister would be able to refer to it in the not too distant future. I know he will take action on what I have deliberately read into the record of the House.
A national school is very badly needed by the Sisters of Mercy in Dún Laoghaire. I have made representations to the Department about this and I have received the usual acknowledgements. I am most anxious that something should be done. The existing school dates back to the middle of the last century and is in a very poor state of repair. It has none of the facilities that are now demanded. I make no apology for describing schools like this as "national schools". I am proud to say that my own children are attending the national school in Blackrock where they are receiving an excellent education. I see no reason for the sort of snobbish sensitivity——
Would the Parliamentary Secretary tell us what size are the classes? It is a fair point.
They are excellent classes.
What size are they?
They are about the size of the Dáil floor there, which is a fair size for any class. I make no reflection on the facilities that were available in my time. Times change. I wish we would stop sneering at our educational system because it only results in bringing all sorts of things into disrepute, not least of all our teachers. A high enough tribute cannot be paid to the Christian Brothers who, through dark and evil days, educated our forebears free and voluntarily. I mention teaching orders generally and laymen and laywomen. They make a great contribution and we should recognise it. I know we do recognise it, but we should remember when we criticise our educational system and engage in this kind of national sneering contest for which we have a great capacity, we are bringing all these persons into disrepute. I personally do not think that is good enough.
I must say that the Minister and the occupants of the Chair must have heard enough on this subject to last them for a lifetime. I can promise that, unlike other Deputies who have spoken, I am not going to talk a lot on education, although I gave a large chunk of my life to being educated and in recent times have given a large chunk of my life to trying to educate other people. One Deputy had great sport with this Estimate. He sported all around the place with it but I will not continue on that line. The Leas-Cheann Comhairle very rightly tried to bring him back to education but he had great difficulty in that matter.
(Cavan): You might find yourself apologising in a few minutes if you are not careful.
I will not be apologising to the Parliamentary Secretary—do not worry. I was here.
On this matter of community schools, there is no question that the Minister did change his mind. I do not hold that against the Minister or against his integrity either. If a man in high office, as a result of serious public pressure, decides that he has to change his approach, I admire that man all the more. I do not believe in this cod that goes on—a man has not got less integrity because he changes his mind. The truth is that he has more integerity.
Deputy Andrews was not accurate when he said that the Fianna Fáil Party were not sectarian about this matter, but they definitely were. I do not know where it came from, and I am not necessarily blaming the Minister for it, but we had a real example of sectarianism by Fianna Fáil in relation to the Bill called the Contraception Bill when they would not allow a free vote to take place. That was all they had to do and there is no doubt that that Bill would have been carried in the House, if there had been a free vote. Both the other parties had allowed a free vote.
I am not going to dilate on that, Sir; I am going to be much faster than various other Deputies who talked for hours on this subject in the past few weeks. I did say while the Parliamentary Secretary was speaking that whatever we may say about Northern Ireland, there has been no sectarianism in education in Northern Ireland. I challenge the Minister: did the Protestant Archbishop of Dublin not speak out about the community schools in the South County Dublin area? Everybody knows he did and I despise this pretence that this has not happened. It apparently is a matter of saying it did not happen and it did not happen.
I may say that I agree with the Parliamentary Secretary on one thing he said belatedly in his speech. I do not agree with the trendy Deputies who continuously attack the Christian Brothers order for teaching boys love of country. I do not agree with that attack and I do not care who disagrees with me. I was never at a Christian Brothers school in my life—at no time was I in a Christian Brothers school —but Deputies who talk in this way against the Christian Brothers order for teaching boys to be national are people—it does not matter how they may think themselves—who decry this country.
I agree with the Parliamentary Secretary that the Christian Brothers gave free education in this country before it was available anywhere else in the world. I was told by one man who had been at a Christian Brothers school, that at the beginning of the term an envelope was handed out to each boy in the class but there was never a comment of any sort if it never came back. I take it that what was in the envelope was "The fee for this term is £1" or whatever it was, but there was never any comment of any sort if the envelope never came back. That is as near to free education as anybody will ever get in this world and I could not care less about what other people think. Having said that, I want to say on the opposite line that I do not agree with physical punishment in schools, although I do think that, provided it is not excessive, it does less harm than sarcasm or cynicism from teachers.
I want to speak about what has been, in fact, a more serious matter in education, that is, the method which was in operation for so long in selecting young people to be trained as national teachers. First of all, there was a general competition in the Gaeltacht and that, of course, ruled out everybody else in the country. In other words, all the people in the midlands and in the eastern parts of the country were ruled out. Then, to make matters worse, the Department proceeded to say: "We are getting too many Kerry people and, therefore, we are going to get a percentage in accordance with population from Kerry, from Connemara, from Mayo and from Donegal". The result of this kind of game is that you reduce the standard of the people becoming national teachers and that is what happened. The result was that the pupils—and I have this on the very best authority— who came from the national schools into the secondary schools in this city in the late thirties, forties and fifties were much inferior to the pupils who came from the national schools in the twenties and early thirties.
I told the House before the kind of education I got in a national school in South Tipperary. It was a two-teacher school—one trained teacher and one junior assistant mistress. At the age of 11½—and I was by no means the youngest boy in the class, so let nobody think that I am engaged in boasting of any sort—what had we done? I was 11½ years of age in sixth class and there were three or four boys a good deal younger. Let me read out what we had done, having heard this cod talked that you must have enormous schools with six or eight teachers and must take children 20 or 30 miles to this kind of school. That one teacher looked after third and fourth classes together and fifth and sixth classes together. The total number of boys in the school was about 50. The junior assistant looked after half and the senior teacher looked after the other half, and in fifth and sixth classes, there were roughly 12 boys in the class. We had done the Merchant of Venice—completed it; we had done algebra to quadratic equations; we had done the first book of Euclid, the whole of it; we had done arithmetic as far as practice and compound interest; we had done mensuration, Greek and Latin roots and a great deal of what would now be called biology, botany and zoology.
This was from a single teacher, a man who, in fact, used to play football with us. It is right that I should pay a tribute to him, the late Richard Griffith. He managed one of the Griffith shoe shops in Talbot Street afterwards when he retired. We have heard this nonsense that you must have six teachers to teach this kind of thing. Perhaps I was lucky, but let me say this, that he never got the Carlisle and Gregg premiums. I do not think he was as good as the national school teachers in west Cork who put untold numbers of men into the customs and excise in the British Civil Service and to whose schools boys came from all over Cork and Kerry and lived in the neighbouring houses so that they could attend there and do the examination. When people talk this kind of nonsense it gets under my skin because I know from my own experience it is not true.
What must be done is to get people who are interested in their vocation and who have a real interest in small children. To do that is to set up a worthwhile system of education. It is codology of the development section of the Department of Education. Where do these people come from? Did these people who are in the development section of the Department of Education ever teach a class? Or if there be one or two who did teach a class what influence have they in the place?
I am delighted to hear that the system of selecting teachers for training, especially national teachers, has changed for the better in recent years. However, why is it that the Department of Education will not recognise the service of secondary teachers abroad except in certain cases, and these not necessarily the best cases? If teachers are in the third world they are not likely to be doing as good work as if they are working in the six northeastern counties of this country or in England or Scotland.
I should really like to know who decided that the two-teacher schools should be closed down. Where did that crazy idea come from? A school is a worthwhile local centre and the minute you start taking the children from the local village into the neighbouring town ten or 15 miles away, you are centralising again; you are doing the exact opposite to that to which every Government Deputy gives lip service, decentralisation. I asked a question here a few weeks ago and I got a truthful answer from the Minister. He told me there were about 1,250 classes in the primary schools in this city with more than 45 pupils in them. If we take the figure 40 as being reasonable, there are 90,000 children in primary schools in this city in classes bigger than 40. I can say from my own personal experience in a secondary school that I was only once in a class in which there were 30 pupils, boys of 13 or 14 years of age. Perhaps, again, luck was with me. It is literally true to say that we learned nothing. I well remember the teacher chasing a pupil over the desks on one occasion, the pupil having given him some backchat or something like that. This was in a class of 30 pupils, not 40 or 50 or 90, as, indeed, there were at times in this city.
The Minister, I know, gave detailed answers that day in the House and said he was now training more teachers than ever before, building more schools than ever before and so on. I do not say the Minister is to be blamed for the situation he finds on his plate, but the fact is that this is a very serious defect in our educational system. What number of pupils can a primary teacher cope with? I ask this question with respect, having regard to the fact that the Leas-Cheann Comhairle knows a great deal more about this than I do. Perhaps I should have consulted him beforehand, but since I did not, let me give my own opinion. I think that 25 pupils is reasonable and fair. The better secondary schools in this city used to have fewer than 20 pupils in a class. Many of them had A, B, C and D classes—I do not know what people think about that: some of them might think it was a bad system—with a mixture of students of different capacities in each class, and this was regarded as a worthwhile approach to the problem.
I shall not delay the House much longer, although I think I have spoken for the least time of any Deputy in the debate. Although the Parliamentary Secretary promised he would be only five minutes, he got caught in some in-fighting with Deputy Byrne and this delayed him considerably. Anyway, the Parliamentary Secretary did not speak too long in the debate, but other Deputies did speak altogether too long. I do not think the longer they spoke the more they contributed to the debate; in fact, I think the less they contributed to the debate.
I want to say a few words about reformatory and industrial schools. I take it most of us saw the former Supreme Court Judge, Mr. Kingsmill Moore, and his wife on television in relation to Marlborough House. Marlborough House conjures up visions of a super establishment, the place where Winston Churchill was born, the home of the Marlboroughs of England. Of course, this Marlborough House in Dublin is a completely different thing as described on the television programme. It consists, in fact, of two rooms, a great barrack of a room underneath and one general dormitory above. In this barrack room underneath and in the general dormitory above there are boys from seven years of age to 17.
I do not mind what efforts have to be made to deal with that kind of situation. I am not going to say this is a disgrace only to the Government, because it was there before they came into office, even though they are a long time there; it is also a disgrace to the country. I am glad to see there is money here for St. Laurence's Finglas, an increase from £15,000 to £50,000. However, what astounds me is that we were told that St. Laurence's of Finglas was built and completed a year or so ago. Why is it not in operation? We were told by the representative of the Department of Education on that television programme—a great defensive operator, a great stone waller—that it would be in operation at the beginning of next year. What is the cause of the delay in a situation which is so disgraceful to the Government who happen to be in office at the moment and to this country which happens to be a great deal longer in existence than the Government? I should like to ask the Minister a question about this situation. Why is it that the capitation grant for reformatory schools at £4.50 a week is greater than the capitation grant for industrial schools at £4.25 a week? The Government have been more generous than preceding governments in this direction but I do not think much of particular things they have done. I believe they are being misled by the trendy people, the people who attack the Christian Brothers in this House. I do not know how much I have contributed to this long debate in the 20 minutes I have spoken. I will contribute some other time at greater length. I would not have contributed at all but for the fact that the debate has gone on and on and I thought it was about time that somebody came in and said something that has some relevance to education.
(Cavan): It is common enough for a speaker, when rising to speak on an Estimate, to say that the particular Estimate is the most important one which comes before the House for discussion. Some people think that the Department of Agriculture and Fisheries, because it deals with our basic industry, is the most important Department, others think that the Department of Local Government, because it affects the lives of everybody in an intimate way, is the most important. There are Deputies who think that the Department of Justice, which is responsible for law and order, is the most important and I suppose some Deputies could also lean on the side of the Department of Social Welfare or the Department of Health. Anybody who gives considerable thought to it will eventually decide that the Estimate for the Department of Education is the most important Estimate from the point of view of the future of this country.
The Minister for Education and his Department are charged with educating the youth of this country to a stage where they will be able to earn their living in an interesting and gainful occupation but, more important than that, the Minister and his teachers are responsible for educating the youth of the country so that they will grow up and develop into good Irish citizens, who will have respect for law and order, who will have a love for their country and who will have respect for their fellow citizens. Surely that is a very important Department and one which must be run in the most efficient way possible to get the best results.
It is imperative that during his student days a young person should not get bad example from the institution which is educating him. By that I mean that it is essential that there should be harmony in the Department of Education, in each system of education, between one system of education and another and that there should not be squabbles or misunderstandings or fighting for places because all this is bound to reflect on the minds of adolescents and is bound to damage them and set them out in life with the wrong ideas and, perhaps, with warped minds. It is also essential that there should be harmony between those in charge of one system of education and another.
It is essential that one religious group should not be afraid it will be dominated by another. In a new system such as we have had since the era of free post-primary education there are bound to be teething troubles but I think there have been too many troubles and squabbles between the vocational system, the traditional secondary system and to a lesser degree the primary education system. That is due to the fact that we have not a definite policy within the Department of Education and more particularly that a definite plan has not been unfolded to the people and explained to them. They have been left in a state of uncertainty and when one group of teachers are uncertain of their future this causes fear and fear causes agitation. That is what we have going on in the educational field at the present time.
The Minister and his Department initiated changes in post-primary education by means of kite flying and they let the kites go a certain distance. The Minister sent senior officers of his Department to preside at various meetings around the country to try to sell a policy. It was obvious that would not be accepted. These officers must have come back to the Minister with unfavourable reports. There were reports in the newspapers after each meeting about violent differences of opinion and that did a lot of harm. I believe the cause of the trouble is that the Minister did not work out a policy and spell it out clearly and distinctly to the interested people, the interested people being the teachers in all systems and the parents of all children. That was not done. As a result a considerable amount of harm was done. Considerable harm has been done from the point of view that the minority religious group here have become afraid that in some way or another they will be taken over and swamped.
Because they seek information, because they ask the Minister to spell out this and that, the Opposition in this House are blamed for making trouble. As I understand it, the function of any opposition in a democratic assembly is to clarify changes in the law and changes in policy for the people. We were particularly unsuccessful in getting from the Minister a clear indication of what his policy is on many branches of education. The Minister has changed his policy entirely in connection with the community schools. He has departed from the first policy he tried to sell and he now talks about a community of schools. I do not think the people of the country clearly understand what that means. It is thrown out loosely to them. I do not think the Minister's party are happy about his policy. I had an opportunity this evening of looking at the Fianna Fáil Ard-Fheis Clár and the first resolution, under the Minister's photograph, seemed to call on the Minister to vest management of all schools in vocational education committees.
Surely the important thing is how it was received by the Ard-Fheis.
(Cavan): Perhaps the Minister will tell us.
It was defeated by an overwhelming majority.
(Cavan): But it was supported by cumainn from all over Ireland.
Of course. That is democracy. It was defeated overwhelmingly and that is the important aspect of the whole matter.
(Cavan): It was there, anyway. I believe in harmony as between one system of education and another and I agree with the Minister that there should be cooperation between one system of post-primary education and another so that there should not be unnecessary duplication and consequent waste. The way the Minister will get that cooperation is to be frank with all concerned, to be frank with the people, with the vocational education committees, with managements of schools run by religious bodies and of private schools.
The Minister raised quite a storm in my constituency by interfering behind closed doors with the building of a vocational school. I do not wish to go into it in detail here because I did that elsewhere. I will say that trouble arose over the building of a vocational school in Cavan town because of the changing of the site from one place to another. The trouble was that the Minister did not take the vocational committee into his confidence from the beginning. He had sent somebody down before I found out about it in another way altogether. I give that as an example of complete lack of planning in the Department.
Something I heard in the last few days would seem to bear that out. We know that in Limerick an institute for higher education in the form of a technological college is being provided. I am very glad Limerick has got this institute of advanced education. I was at by-election meetings in Limerick when the Minister's predecessor, the present Minister for Transport and Power, promised the Limerick people they would have a full-blown university and he indicated the spot in Limerick where it was to be built. In any case, the university, properly so called, did not materialise. In its place Limerick was given an advanced college of technical education.
It was part of the plan for that college that a training centre would be provided for teachers of physical education. That promise was made about four years ago. A section of the new institute in Limerick was to be used to train teachers in physical education so that they, in turn, would come out and act as teachers of physical education. My information is that that teacher training school in Limerick was to be built and ready for students on 1st September next. On the basis of that assurance, Sion Hill Physical Training College and Ling Physical Training College arranged to close down in June of this year and they arranged with the pupils that from the beginning of the next school year they would be trained in Limerick. Ling and Sion Hill arranged that they would dispense with their teachers and that most of these teachers would arrange to take up duty in Limerick on 1st September next.
However, a gentleman from the Department accompanied by a consultant from England went to Limerick to find that there were no plans and that no steps whatever had been taken to make the necessary accommodation available to receive the students from Sion Hill and Ling. Students from across the water found that the only accommodation available was completely unsuitable, that some rooms were being taken over, widely separated throughout the city. There were only four schools available in which the teachers who would be trained in Limerick could do practical work in their sphere. All this came as a complete shock to Sion Hill and Ling. What is to happen? The 35 girls who were attending Sion Hill and Ling have been told there is no accommodation for them in Limerick or elsewhere in the country. They are being sent to Great Britain to be trained at a cost of £1,000 per head to the State until 1st January next, but if my information is correct they are being told they can return to Limerick on the 1st of January next to continue their studies. Having started in Dublin and having been transported to Britain they have been told that they are coming back to Limerick to continue their education there. My information is that this is quite unrealistic because building has not commenced on the new Physical Training Institute in Limerick. The contract has been signed but the completion period mentioned in the contract is 30 months. As we all know contracts are rarely completed on time. In my opinion these students who have been taken into school in Dublin under false pretences, because the managements of Sion Hill and Ling were misled, will have to spend perhaps three years of their four-year course in England at a cost to the State of £1,000 per three months. That shows a complete lack of planning, foresight and proper arranging for the implementation of policy.
The teachers of these girls are quite upset that these young students should have to go to England. It is not desirable that people who are going to come back here and teach students should be trained in what some people in this House would call an alien atmosphere. It is desirable that these teachers should be trained here. Some of these young girls may remain in England and their services as teachers will be lost to this country. What will happen the present teachers in Sion Hill and Ling? They are completely upset. Where will they go? Has any provision been made for them? They will not be retained in Sion Hill or Ling because, on the information given to them by the Department of Education, arrangements have been made to close down as from the end of this school year. That is educationally unsound. Furthermore, if through some miracle which I cannot see happening, the building of the new college was completed in less than a third of the 30 months specified in the contract, there would be about 140 students, both male and female, coming back to Limerick next January.
The upset caused by the lack of planning is to be deplored. This is a classic example of the lack of planning in the Department of Education at present. The wrong solution has been decided on in this case. These students should not be sent to England. Sion Hill and Ling have been doing an excellent job for the last number of years in training physical education teachers. They should be encouraged and helped financially and otherwise in order to retain the present students in Dublin until their training has been completed. I appeal to the Minister to do that. It would be better to do that than to call the parents of the students together, as I understand it is proposed to do in the near future, and try to sell them the idea of completing the education of these students in Britain. I hope that the Minister on reflection will come to the conclusion that my suggestion is the right one. I hope also that he will have an explanation for the House about this apparent bungle.
Before I come to other points in the educational field with which I wish to deal, I would like to follow up a point which has been raised by Deputy O'Donovan. This point refers to Marlborough House. The Minister's predecessor set up a committee to report on reformatories and industrial schools. That committee were appointed in 1967 and reported in 1970. There were a number of points on which the committee were very definite. The committee did not wait to complete their report but sent a recommendation to the Minister indicating that Marlborough House, Glasnevin, should be closed forthwith. That was done some time after 1967. The committee presented their report to the Minister in 1970. They repeated that recommendation that Marlborough House should be closed down forthwith. In the summary of major recommendations it is interesting to note that when the committee were dealing with St. Conleth's Reformatory, Daingean, they recommended that that institution should be closed down at the earliest possible opportunity and replaced by modern schools conducted by trained staff. They also recommended that the remand home and place of detention housed at Marlborough House, Glasnevin, should be closed down "forthwith". They did not say "as early as possible" in regard to Marlborough House. They wished it to be replaced by a more suitable building with trained child-care staff.
A short time ago I raised the question of Marlborough House with the Minister. I gathered from the Minister that Marlborough House is to be kept open for an indefinite period to deal with some cases which could be called difficult or problem cases. I understood that Marlborough House was to continue to be operated by untrained staff recruited from the labour exchange. That is a deplorable state of affairs. It is deplorable that these problem children who need more care than other children should be housed in this appalling building and should be under the care of untrained people.
I know the Minister did not have an opportunity of watching the television programme "Encounter" because it was screened around the time he was dealing with his resolution at the Fianna Fáil Ard-Fheis. I watched the programme in which a former judge, Mr. Kingsmill Moore, and his wife appeared. They inspected Marlborough House and their description was horrifying. It appears there are two large uncomfortable rooms in which small and big boys are kept. While they were at the house they saw two little boys huddled like little rabbits in a playground. If the Minister had seen this programme I am sure he would have been shocked.
The Minister was represented on the programme by an officer from his Department. I do not want to blame him but he took on a man-sized job. He was trying to do the impossible; he was trying to justify the present system of reformatory and industrial schools and the retention of Marlborough House. He tried to do this in the presence of a priest who was experienced in this kind of work and in the presence of Mr. and Mrs. Kingsmill Moore, who are well known for their interest in young people and in law reform. Mr. Kingsmill Moore practised in the courts as Senior Counsel for many years and he presided in the High Court and the Supreme Court. It is three years since the Minister received a report on this matter and it is at least five years since the interim recommendation to close Marlborough House was made. I am asking the Minister for the good name of the country and in the interests of the unfortunate children to close Marlborough House immediately. There must be other places that could be used.
I disagree completely with trying to run reformatory or industrial schools on the cheap. I disagree with the practice whereby religious orders are given a certain capitation grant to look after children. Through the courts the State deprives these children of their liberty in the interests of the children themselves and of society. Having done that, it is the duty of the State to provide proper accommodation for them and to pay for that accommodation, supervision, training and reform. The State should not depend on the charity of the religious orders who, in the past, have been exploited both in the educational field and in this area of child reform.
It is fundamentally wrong that these institutions should be run on the basis of providing a capitation grant of so much per head and on the assumption that the balance can be got anywhere. Someone, either the children or the teachers, will suffer under such an arrangement. These institutions should be financed as Mountjoy Prison is financed, as are the schools for mentally handicapped children, or as are the Government Departments. This is not the area to economise in; this is not the place to continue the old system of financing that has obtained during the years.
When I was looking for a report I accidentally came across a report of a commission on the reformatory and industrial school system between 1934 and 1936, presided over by the former principal district Justice of the Metropolitan Court, the late Mr. George Cussen. The capitation system was the method used to finance these institutions. The report stated that at that time in school A there were 89 children and the school medical attendant was paid £4 10s per year for looking after them; in school B the medical attendant was paid £6 10s per year for looking after 62 children; in school C the medical attendant was paid £7 for looking after nine children and in yet another school he was paid £11 for looking after 139 children.
I was interested to find out what the State paid in the thirties towards the maintenance of the children. The report stated :
Schedule showing basic scales of State contributions to reformatory and industrial schools under the Children's Act, 1928-1929.
For all ordinary cases, 6s per week; for youthful offenders for the first 13 weeks, 2s per week; for the following 26 weeks, 1s per week.
That is the kind of system we have inherited. In 1972 we should get away from it and get rid of Marlborough House. I am sure that the people were shocked at what they saw and heard on the television programme.
During the course of this debate a suggestion was made that the religious orders, and the Christian Brothers in particular, were attacked. I want to go on record as saying that in the last 100 years the secular priests and the Christian Brothers have carried out an excellent job of work under difficult circumstances and in difficult times. They were inadequately paid and were it not for the fact that they contributed their salaries towards the running of the schools it would not have been possible for the schools to operate. I think my fees when I was in secondary school were £39 a year but it would not be possible to run schools on that kind of money if the religious had not contributed their salary to the upkeep of the schools. At a time when we are changing from one kind of educational system to another, it would not be proper if we did not pay the religious orders the tribute they richly deserve. So far as I am aware nobody in this House attacked the religious orders or the Christian Brothers.
Reference was made to the teaching of history. I regret to say that when I was going to school history and geography were bundled together and taught as one subject in the Irish language to children who did not understand the language and who could not take in the instruction. As a result, most of them at that school did not know any history or geography. Deputy O'Donovan said that anyone who taught children love of country had his full support. I want to say they have my full support also. I believe that boys and girls should be educated to have a love for their country, and to respect their country.
What Deputy Cruise-O'Brien was speaking about the other evening was not the instilling of love of country into pupils but the engendering, unconsciously undoubtedly, of hatred of another country, hatred of our old enemy, England. That is not good for children. I do not know whether the people who write the history books are to blame or whether some teachers of history are to blame. I do not believe that any good purpose is served for this country or its adolescents by continually harping back to the barbaric injustice inflicted on this country by England in bygone days. That will only make people unsettled and fill them with hate. It will make it more difficult to have an ordered society here. It will certainly make it more difficult to unite the country. I think that is what Deputy Cruise-O'Brien was talking about, and I agree with him if that is what he was talking about.
I want to make a few points which might be helpful in regard to the various levels of education. Strangely enough I regard primary education as the most important. If a child has not got a sound primary education—they used to say a sound national school education; call it what you like— eventually he will not be successful in the field of education. Therefore, it is of the utmost importance that there should be an adequate supply of fully trained teachers in our primary schools. At present we have not got that. It is necessary to make do with the best that is available. People with the leaving certificate, who never spent an hour in a training college, have to step in and take charge of the youngest children. I am not blaming them for doing that, but they are not qualified to do it. You might as well ask me to act as a doctor. I do not know anything about it and I would be likely to do a lot of harm. Untrained people teaching infants are likely to do harm just as any professional man could do harm in a field for which he was not trained.
Reference was made earlier this evening to the teacher/pupil ratio. The Minister admitted a few weeks ago that there are something like 12,000 classes in which there are over 45 pupils. At any rate, he said that there were a great number of classes in which there are over 45 pupils. I am told that a ratio of one teacher to 50 pupils is quite common. This is unsound. It is indefensible. A new curriculum was launched on the teachers in the past few years and yet they are confronted with these huge classes. I want the Minister to give the House an assurance that classes will be reduced to a manageable and workable level.
The Minister for Justice told us that since he became Minister no Garda barracks has been closed down, giving the impression that the policy has changed. I want the Minister, when he is replying to this debate, to tell us what his policy is on the closing down of smaller schools, because it does not appear to be clear. The teachers, the parents and the students are entitled to know. If Government policy were made crystal clear on this point, there would be fewer demonstrations and fewer protests. We want to know exactly what the policy is.
There are complaints amongst the teaching profession about the standard of the text books in the primary schools. The INTO have been pressing, as I am sure the Minister well knows, for up-to-date and more suitable text books. I am told they are complicated and difficult to interpret. Under the new system a child is supposed to be able to understand and do a lot of work on his own and to move from one stage to another, but I am told that the text books are such that children need practically constant supervision and help. Having regard to the size of the classes, which I have complained about, that is just not possible.
Deputy Byrne spent a long time talking about physical education and sport, for which the Minister has responsibility. The Minister should provide adequate playing grounds at every primary school. Some schools have been built in recent years, and no playgrounds were provided. There is not much use in talking about swimming pools, gymnasia and advanced things of that sort, if we continue to build schools without providing them with playing grounds. What is called a general purposes room should be attached to every primary school where the children could congregate on a wet day and amuse themselves and indulge in recreation.
That brings me to secondary education. In this age vocational education, or technical education, should get pride of place. The emphasis should be on it. I know that for the professions we must have academic education, but we are exporting most of the professions, with the notable exception of the legal profession because they are not an exportable commodity. Under statute they are not acceptable outside our jurisdiction. Engineers and doctors are being exported wholesale. Therefore the emphasis should be on vocational education.
The Minister may be interested to note that in my constituency, in the last year for which figures are available, 63 per cent of the students who enrolled for post-primary education enrolled in vocational schools. That is a higher percentage, I am told, than in most counties. It is certainly higher than in Monaghan or in Louth, the other two counties in the region. Therefore, the emphasis should be on vocational schools and I would ask the Minister to bear that in mind. There is a policy at the moment of down-grading certain vocational schools. In my constituency two or three have closed down and others are to be reduced in status and the fear is that they also will close down. The school in Virginia is unique in that it was provided by the people of the area, at their own expense, and handed over to the vocational education committee. There are fears that this school will be closed down. The people of Virginia have no desire to gobble up other educational establishments but they are very anxious that they should be allowed to retain the school which they built and that it should be retained as a fully fledged post-primary education establishment in which the intermediate and leaving certificate courses would be followed. The people of Virginia are not concerned as to where else there may be schools. They are not envious of other towns in the area. They are very anxious that the school which they built and paid for and handed over should be retained.
In the post-primary sector also there are complaints about the grant of £25 payable in respect of a pupil attending secondary school. This amount of £25 was fixed about five years ago. In the meantime, wages have doubled, building costs have doubled, the cost of living has soared, taxation has gone sky high. I know it will take money to increase the grant but if £25 was only adequate when the grant was introduced it follows that it must be grossly inadequate now.
I am also told that there are complaints about the reluctance of the Minister's Department to sanction the appointment of extra staff in secondary schools even when a case can be made for the appointment of such staff. Surely, that is false economy and not in the interest of education?
It has always been regarded as departmental policy that a first-class library is a necessity in the academic type secondary school and, indeed, in any post-primary school there should be a suitable library. I want to ask the Minister now whether a grant is available to a school management which wishes to provide a library and reading facilities for its pupils because a school management recently wrote to the Minister's Department asking whether a grant would be available for the provision of a library and received a reply from the Minister's Department. The person to whom the reply was addressed, having read the letter, could not decide whether a grant was available or not. He solicited the help of the other teachers in the school who in turn studied the letter and they could not know, and do not yet know whether a grant is available or not. The letter was couched in the words of the oracle. Nobody knew what it meant. It could mean anything or nothing. I would ask the Minister when replying to say "yes" or "no", in regard to whether a grant is available for a school library or not.
Canteen facilities in schools are almost a necessity because it is the policy of the Minister to close down small schools and to enlarge schools and to aim at 400 children on the roll of each leaving certificate type school. If the numbers in a school are to be increased the catchment area must be increased. Children of comparatively young age will have to travel by bus at 8 p.m. and return home at 6 p.m. Canteen facilities should be provided. The cost would not be too great. Provision should be made for hot meals for children in all these schools.
There is something that I, as a member of a vocational education committee, was rather surprised to hear, namely, that there is no oral test in modern languages. I understood that grammar was becoming less important in modern languages and, indeed, in the Irish language and that if one could speak Irish in a satisfactory manner the difficulties in regard to grammar would be overcome. In this modern age the whole point in teaching German, French, Italian or Spanish is that the pupils will be able to take up positions involving speaking these languages either at home or abroad. If our tourist trade were not going through the dreadful time that it is going through at the moment we would require many people here who could speak German, French, Italian and Spanish in our hotels. Bear in mind that the teachers, in pursuance of departmental policy, are encouraged to lay the emphasis on the spoken language but, as there is no oral test, if the teachers were to follow the departmental instructions or exhortations and concentrated on the spoken language, a great percentage of the students would fail the intermediate and leaving certificate examinations. It is the leaving certificate that I am concerned with.
The Common Market is dragged into every discussion but it could legitimately be brought into this mater. If we are going into the Common Market and if we will be associating with these other countries, it will be no use being able to read their languages if we cannot speak them. Some slight move has been made: you can have an oral test now if you apply for it. That is to come into operation this year. That is not enough. There should be a compulsory oral test for the leaving certificate.
The late Senator Baxter of Cavan, who was a great friend of the late General Mulcahy, Minister for Education, was instrumental in having an oral test in Irish. He found difficulty in making that oral test compulsory. It is compulsory now and I understand that since it became compulsory the failure rate in Irish has dropped considerably. The failure rate in Irish is as low as 4 per cent and in French it is as high as 34 per cent. I, therefore, ask the Minister to introduce oral tests in modern languages.
I spoke about the twin subjects of history and geography. Each is a matriculation subject and accepted as such in the matriculation examination and yet in most schools the two subjects are treated as one. In the intermediate certificate history and geography are treated as one subject; in the leaving certificate they are treated as two. Since both are matriculation subjects they should be treated as separate subjects from the beginning so as to provide pupils with a wider range of subjects, something about which we hear so much. This cursory treatment of Irish history as not a very important subject to be bracketed with another has the result mentioned in this debate by Deputy O'Brien.
At Question Time I raised with the Minister the high rate of failure in mathematics. I did not get a very clear answer. He said it was difficult to give. I was talking about failures in mathematics, physics and chemistry. He did not give a definite rate but I gather from what he said that the failure rate in these subjects is around 40 per cent. If we get a failure rate in these subjects of over 30 per cent we must look for the cause. This could be because the papers are unnecessarily difficult or because we have the new system of teaching mathematics which is completely foreign to older teachers who may have difficulty in imparting the knowledge or in getting the students to follow the instruction. If that is so, there should be many more refresher courses for teachers who are past their youth to enable them to deal with the new system.
It could also be because mathematics is a difficult subject which not everybody is capable of learning and becoming proficient in. If that is so, such students should be channelled away from maths at an early age, certainly at intermediate standard, if not earlier. The high rate of failure in these subjects calls for an investigation into the programme and system of teaching in these subjects.
Any politician is struck in the course of fulfilling his constituency duties by the many young people and their parents who come to him in September and October of each year, parents of students who have completed their secondary education. These students have no idea what they want to do except that they want a job. I tell them that is the hardest thing they could ask; that if they tell me what they want to do I can see if there is any vacancy and do my best to get a post for them. The students have no idea of what they want. The cause of that is that there is no proper career guidance course which is a "must" in this age of young people who are sons and daughters of parents who did not enjoy—this is a compliment to the Minister's predecessor — post-primary education and who are not, therefore, well qualified to direct their children as to what career they should follow. They need help.
There is no use turning out students with leaving certificates without guiding them as to what they should do. There should be a career guidance officer or teacher in each school who would take an interest in the students, their background and aptitude and try to direct them towards one career or another. Some schools in my constituency really do take an interest, particularly in the girls, and get them interested in banks or Guinness examinations or something like that, but far too many are left not knowing what they want to do. This applies particularly to boys.
We come back to the Minister's proposal to aim at a target of 400 pupils in a school qualifying for the senior cycle. I think that is not practicable, certainly in rural Ireland and if insisted on it will mean there will be one or two leaving certificate centres in the county and that children will be travelling too far on buses. That is not in the interests of education.
I hope the points I have made will be of help to the Minister and that he will take them seriously. I have not dealt with university education but one matter that has been brought to my notice is that in certain subjects students may pass their first examination, particularly in medicine and some other subjects, and then find that they cannot get a place in the second year and have to spend another year in the first year group and sit for the examination again. Surely there is something wrong there and I should like the Minister to look into it.
Deputy O'Donovan dealt with the question of physical punishment. It is my opinion that in this day and age physical punishment should be avoided. Any teacher who cannot control a class without resorting to physical punishment is lacking something. If there is an isolated case of a child who cannot be controlled otherwise, such child should not be sent to an educational establishment at all. I was interested in the word "sarcasm" in the context in which Deputy O'Donovan used it. I do not know whether sarcasm from teachers is as prevalent as it used be but it is something that can cause much hurt and damage to a child and can result in leaving him with an inferiority complex. In the past it was much too common a weapon.
I know that the Minister is not responsible directly for handicapped children. I think he has responsibility for children who are handicapped physically.
Educationally mentally handicapped.
(Cavan): I would appeal to the Minister to do everything possible to fit these children in so far as possible to earn their living. Of course, the Minister is not responsible for housing mentally handicapped children but there is a waiting list in this respect that would make any self-respecting public representative blush. Somebody suggested here today that there should be a place in industry for the physically handicapped. This would present a difficult problem because it would result in interference with private enterprise but it could be encouraged. As I have said here before, the biggest employer of labour by far is the State and its subsidiaries, the local authorities. I know of no reason why a percentage of places in the State service and in the local service should not be reserved for those who are handicapped physically whether they have been handicapped from birth or became handicapped as a result of polio or some other disease. They could be employed as telephonists and in many other spheres but one could not demand of private enterprise that they employ any particular person. The State has a maternal responsibility to the less well-off citizens and the unfortunate physically handicapped are among those. So far as the mentally handicapped are concerned all we can do is look after them. The physically handicapped are at a disadvantage on the open market.
The last matter I wish to mention relates to the building of schools. A school may cost as much as £200,000 to build but in all cases there should be proper playgrounds and in the case of vocational schools there should be facilities for rural science as well as for recreation. It would be a scandal if the Minister should permit schools to be built on inadequate sites. That is all I have to say on this subject. I would not be doing my duty as a public representative if I did not contribute to the debate which concerns a subject that is fundamental to the welfare of the country both for today and for tomorrow.
The one outstanding characteristic of education in this country is its resistance to change, its total inertia. That is a most undesirable trend. What should characterise education is dynamism, progressiveness and the flexibility to adapt itself to a changing society in a changing world. The utter stagnation in education has been brought about by a number of factors and these are, first, education is administered by a central authority —a Civil Service dependent on the Government of the day; secondly, the place of the churches in the education system; thirdly, the lack of professional educationalists; fourthly, the total lack of co-operation between teaching interests and the Department and, lastly the lack of a White Paper on education, a lack of an overall statement by the Government outlining aims and policies for education.
Our present system has been moulded down through the years by the interacting forces of Church and State. The result has been the growth of a system that is essentially rigid. The basis of this system goes back to the Intermediate Education Act of 1878 and from then a forced uniformity was imposed on us. To this day that same uniformity is with us. That was a system that made Pearse remark in "The Murder Machine" that "The programme bulks so large, there is no room for education". The only major change that we have made since the establishment of the Ministry of Education in 1922 was the abolition of the payments-on-results scheme which was abolished in 1924. Since then no major initiative in the educational field has been undertaken. Undoubtedly a few offshoots have been developed on the original system but the same uniform system remains. We have developed no national philosophy for Irish education. All we have done is to try to inspire and foster the national ideal and we did this by giving the Irish language, literature and history pride of place in our schools. I must say that we managed even the language question very badly. This was referred to by Deputy Fitzpatrick and by Deputy Cruise-O'Brien. I now wish to refer to it.
I maintain we overdid this nationalism. We overdid the fostering of the national ideal. All we succeeded in doing was establishing a narrow biassed concept of nationalism which, in essence, was anti-British. Down through the years we have perpetuated a craven intellectual subservience, the sort of subservience demanded by our erstwhile overlords, and we have made no attempt whatsoever to lift our educational system out of that hideous morass. We have forced a so-called academic education down the throats of our young people irrespective of whether or not they were mentally equipped to receive it. We have given no cognisance to individual aptitudes, talents and skills. We have ignored completely international developments in science and technology. We have made no attempt to equip our system to meet the demands of a changing society. Instead we have continued to orientate our pupils through this imposed system into stations in life for which they are neither equipped nor suited.
Speaking as a former teacher, I am firmly convinced that our educational system has hampered our development mentally culturally and technologically. Because successive Governments have given insufficient attention to education the whole system has been allowed to drift. The Department of Education, I am sorry to say, have assumed the role of guardian of the system. This is a tragedy. Let me emphasise the existence of a fixed pattern in a very rigid academic system with an example or two. In a survey carried out on the 1962-63 leaving certificate the results showed that almost all boys took Irish, English and mathematics; 88 per cent took Latin; 30 per cent took physics and/or chemistry; 21 per cent took French. In the same academic year, 64 per cent of girls took French; 4.7 per cent took physics and/or chemistry. I should like to have the comparative figures for more recent years. I regret I have not had time to obtain them, but I have no doubt that a similar survey today would show very little change. A report on a survey published in The Irish Times on 4th May, 1971, showed that the number engaged in technical studies at post-primary level per 1,000 engaged in predominantly academic studies in the year 1965-66 were as follows: Austria, 520; England and Wales, 240; Finland, 670; France, 120; the Netherlands, 440; Ireland, 31. Those figures tell a very obvious story. Unless our school population is very different indeed from that in other countries, many pupils here are following courses which are totally unsuited to their talents and attitudes. Corrective measures on the part of the State are required to strike a more equitable balance between the academic and the vocational sectors of the system.
I contend that the Department must become the originator and initiator of policy, ideas and development. We must break out of the set pattern of two distinct and separate streams— on the one hand, private, denominational and academic and, on the other, public, non-denominational, with a curriculum mainly practical in character but for the most part outdated. The Government can no longer neglect their responsibility. Problems besetting education of geographic selection and curriculum must be overcome if we are to utilise fully our existing resources. I fully realise that the Minister is doing much to solve this very complicated problem, to say the least of it, but this cannot be solved by producing blanket schemes for the whole country, especially without consultation with all those involved—the parents, the teachers, the managers, the committees and the different church hierarchies.
Each specific case must be given individual treatment and changes and developments must depend entirely on local circumstances. Catchment areas cannot and should not be strictly defined. The wishes of the parents and pupils must be given due consideration. A special case must be made for small colleges. Here I have in mind in particular the non-Roman Catholic colleges because we all know that such colleges could not survive if their catchment areas were strictly confined. Their viability depends on drawing pupils from a large area.
Now, if any system is going to work, the teachers must be given their due posts of responsibility. Furthermore, their promotional prospects must be assured. A realistic scheme of allowances in respect of qualifications and responsibility must be introduced. I am sure the Minister fully realises that the existing system of allowances for qualifications is an insult to the profession. For spending an extra year at university, for example, reading for and obtaining a higher diploma in education the allowance is, as far as I remember, something like £25. I should like to know how far that kind of money would go in the life span of a teacher towards paying for that one year. I do not believe it would go very far. The system of political appointments of teachers and political allocations of posts of responsibility must be discontinued. This is doing a great diservice to education as a whole. This system is in existence, as we all know, in the vocational education controlled schools. Unless and until the Department are adequately staffed with professional educationalists no true progress can be made towards rationalising the system and up-dating and modernising the approach.
The Minister is a teacher and he should know that teaching is not just a job. Teachers should not be regarded by the Department or anyone else merely as clerks. They are, after all, charged with the mental, physical, moral, social and religious development of our young people. That is a tremendous responsibility and we should endeavour to select only those who are fully equipped to carry out that task. For too long the standard of entry into the professions has been far too low. This applies not alone to teaching but to many of the other professions as well. Medicine is another that comes to mind. Many factors are responsible for people unsuited to those professions becoming members of them. The lack of vocational guidance is a very big factor and we find, particularly at university level, that people undertake courses of study for which, on obtaining a degree, there are very few outlets and many drift into teaching for want of a better job. Another factor is that the salary of teachers has been much too low to attract any qualified and capable personnel. Others are called into the professions for proficiency in a form or forms of intelligence manifested in a written State examination.
I submit also that the training given to teachers is totally inadequate. In some cases this is merely an extension of the leaving certificate course in a boarding college where the same rules and regulations still apply. In one such college, I believe that the female students were not even allowed to wear patent leather shoes in case they might act as mirrors. This is laughable and tragic but it is true. Such a system of training certainly does not enlighten the future teachers and it certainly cannot possibly broaden their horizons and cannot equip them to develop the full personality of the child. It cannot equip them to help the child to realise his or her full potential in life. It is stunted and it damages.
I also think that the higher diploma in education should be altered. Its scope, first of all, is not broad enough. The academic side is overplayed and there is far too little emphasis placed on practical methods of teaching and teaching practice. I also think that the course should include a series of lectures on the humanities and the sciences so that students would at least have a working knowledge of these disciplines. I suggest to the Minister, and this is just an idea, that instead of having a higher diploma in education constituted as it is now, it would be more beneficial for the students to be engaged in full-time teaching for a period of, say, six months from September to the end of February, with a further four months to the end of June, to be engaged in a full-time course of lectures, with specific times set aside for the continuation of teaching practice. This, I think, would be beneficial because in a course of studies such as the higher diploma, the students learn of methods of education and the psychology of education and they are dealing with situations which they have never experienced. If they had at least a few months of full-time teaching practice, such a course would be much more meaningful and beneficial to them.
I think also that during the first six months or so of full-time practical teaching regular work study sessions should be held with inspectors and psychologists during which there could be an exchange of experiences, problems and ideas and in that way many difficulties that arise in a classroom would be overcome. Furthermore, it would help to weed out those who have no vocation before they had taken their examinations. This must be followed through. There is no point in having such a course for 12 months and then dropping it and having no follow up, but I will come to that in a little while.
I believe that corporal punishment should be abolished once and for all. Again, speaking as a former teacher, I know that it is administered only by those who should not be in charge of pupils. It demonstrates without doubt a major defect in the personality or character of the teacher who administers it. Such people have no place in a classroom. The true teacher, as Deputy Fitzpatrick pointed out, should be in control of his subject or subjects and should exercise a discipline by his very presence, a discipline based on respect. Again from experience I can truly say that if the teacher is not respected and not in command of his subject material, in order to exercise discipline, he must have recourse to corporal punishment or to sarcasm which, needless to say, is much worse.
Many teachers have very serious problems and they need help by way of subject material and psychological advice. I suggest to the Minister that this could quite easily be made available by way of summer courses which should be organised on a massive scale and cover a wide range of subjects. To make this really effective the inspectorate and the psychological service must be greatly expanded. I am sure the Minister is fully aware that the psychology of education and the methods of education are shamefully neglected.
I had the honour once to conduct a summer course for teachers on nuclear physics and I can say that that course was highly successful, but we have heard practically nothing about it since. The subject material is increasing and becoming more complex every year. There is need to concentrate, revise syllabuses and there is need to conduct summer courses for teachers every year, not alone on purely subject matter but, as I say, on the psychology of education and the methods of education.
I recommend to the Minister that we adopt here something along the lines of the American system, the system known as the credit system whereby teachers are given recognition for summer courses attended and examinations passed every year. Teachers there are given considerable incentives to attend such courses. They are given reasonable living allowances and if they are married they are given an allowance for their families as well. The credits result in greater remuneration for them. That is a very worthwhile system. It is a system that would not involve any great capital outlay and I would strongly urge on the Minister that he would introduce it as far as is practicable.
There is need for involvement and participation on the part of teachers if our educational system is to be a success. By means of such summer courses, at which teachers should be invited to read papers, their interest and enthusiasm can be fired. At the moment they are being stifled through frustration. Teachers very easily get into a rut. In their first year they are very enthusiastic; they prepare notes but you very often find that they are still using those very same notes 20 years later. That is a very bad system which should not be allowed to continue. Again by means of refresher courses this system can be changed.
It is very difficult to teach a subject like one of the practical sciences without a suitable laboratory and suitable equipment. I found that the secondary schools in the bush in Africa were far better equipped than our secondary schools here. That surely is a very poor reflection on us. I would ask the Minister to make liberal grants available for the equipment of schools. It would also be an incentive to increase the number of university scholarships and it would certainly be an advantage to teachers to really introduce a career guidance system. We have made a very small attempt at doing so. A few years ago a summer course was held for teachers on career guidance, but the system is not working and it never will work, because it was envisaged at the time that teachers or a particular teacher who attended the course on career guidance would be given adequate time during the week to attend to this subject. Most teachers have a very heavy schedule and they are not released from their regular work to attend to career guidance. Hence I think it is true to say that it is practically non-existent.
It would be of considerable assistance to all teachers and to education in general to expand the inspectorate and to change its role. The inspector should really be an educational adviser. He should be able to help teachers with their problems and make suggestions to them regarding methods, et cetera. Instead I think it is fair to say that the average inspector is a glorified clerk. The psychological service is also understaffed and is not satisfactory. A lady teacher in Cork who had a number of neurotic children told me that on numerous occasions she has asked for their assistance, but her requests have been repeatedly ignored. They probably had such a very heavy workload that they could not possibly attend to all queries but one would imagine that at least her requests would have been acknowledged. We have, too, in Cork a system known as Part 6 Education, that is, one day per week to comply with the school leaving age. I asked the Minister quite some time ago if it was intended to end this system and I still have not received an answer from him.
I was asked to raise this point and I would be obliged if the Minister would let me know about it. It is serving a very useful purpose at the moment and it would be a shame to abolish it.
I would like the Minister to expedite the building programme for Cobh. As he is aware, the technical school there has very little accommodation and they are trying to run classes in an old dilapidated hall, which is not fit for occupation.
I have received a complaint about the free school books scheme. I believe money is being given to vocational education committees every year to give to the less well-off pupils for the purchase of books. In many cases £8 and £10 is given to pupils. Needless to say the books are not purchased. Those in charge of the scheme are not permitted to give any money for the purchase of books to pupils whose parents are not medical card holders. There can be borderline cases and the regulations should be relaxed to facilitate such people. It would be far better if the teachers bought the books, kept them in the schools and let the children use them during the year. They could be collected at the end of the academic year and most of them would be suitable for use the following year.
The Minister should make as much money as possible available for the education of the mentally and physically handicapped. It is true to say that we rely on the generosity of people to provide money for the special schools for mentally and physically handicapped. They deserve consideration and financial help from all of us.
I agree with what the previous speaker has said about the free books scheme. Under the scheme if a boy's parents are medical card holders he gets free books. At the end of the year he can sell those books to a neighbour's child who is not entitled to free books. The first boy can then go back to the school and get another set of books in his new class. This is a loophole in the free books scheme. I agree with Deputy Cott that it would be much better if the teacher kept the books in the school and the children were given the use of them. I am sure the Department have received many complaints from the teachers about what is happening under this scheme.
I should like to say a few words about the Irish language. I was not here when the Minister introduced this Estimate. When I got the Official Report to find out what he said I discovered his speech was in Irish and that he had not said anything in English. My Irish is not sufficient to allow me to read and comprehend the Minister's speech. We hear a lot of talk about the Irish language. We had a half-hour of nonsense about it on Telefís Éireann last Saturday week when we heard and saw different people arguing for and against the language. A vocational teacher had great difficulty in trying to put forward his point of view.
It is the fault of most of us that the Irish language is not spoken as much as it should be today. People like me who were born after 1922 grew up under an educational system in which we left school at 14 or 15 years of age, or with our leaving certificate, with a very good working knowledge of the language. Since then we have not used it in our everyday lives. We all talk about our love for the language and that we will never see it die. If we tried to speak the language more we would make ourselves better understood to the fluent Irish speakers. If the language dies it will be because we have let it die. It has been left to die by people who are full of great thoughts about the language but who will not use it. If we do not use the language in the ordinary course of conversation in Leinster House, in the bars and elsewhere, we cannot hope to see it revived. It will be a great tragedy if the present generation do not revive it and carry it forward again.
Somebody made the point that when we stand up here to speak on education we have our minds focussed on 20 or 30 years ago and that many things have changed since then. One of the things I was glad to see changed was the method of teaching Irish. I can see from my own children that there is now much greater emphasis on ordinary conversation and much less on grammar. I heard Professor Seán Ó Tuama say that if we could revive conversational Irish in the next 50 years we have a million years in which to revive the grammar. The grammar will come from the spoken language. The important thing is to converse in the language, no matter how ungrammatical we may be.
At one stage this evening there were only four Deputies in the House, including the Minister, Deputy Cott and I. Three of them were teachers. I would say there are more teachers in Dáil Éireann that there are members from any other profession. That being so, this being the legislative Assembly and the teachers being in the engine room of education, as it were, one would think greater influence would be brought to bear on the Department of Education to bring the educational system up-to-date, to make it what it should be, for the formation of the youth. I am less qualified than any of the other three Deputies now in the House to speak on the subject of education. On the other hand, I am a parent, and parents form a vitally important part of the educational system. If there is not an atmosphere of encouragement in the home which gets children to assimilate what they are being taught, I do not think we will succeed in making the necessary progress in education.
With the advent of free post-primary education in the past few years it became highly important that there should be a willingness on the part of parents to send their children to school. This has become all important. We seem to have been thinking on the line that we educate our children so that they will get better jobs on passing the leaving certificate. There has been a pounds, shillings and pence mentality about education. The mentality has been that if you send a child to school until he gets the leaving certificate and then he goes out digging roads the four years he spent at post-primary education have been lost.
Education should be regarded as an end in itself, not as the means to getting more money and better jobs. We have not got this across yet. Lots of leaving certificate students who came out in the past few years and who failed to appreciate this have become frustrated and disenchanted with post-primary education. If we cannot educate the parents to the idea that boys and girls on leaving post-primary schools at 18 years will not necessarily get better jobs, we will not be succeeding. We will have turned out a lot of graduates who are not educated and who will have made very little use of the ten years they spent in post-primary education, mainly because they thought it would earn them more money than somebody else. I am afraid this is not easy to rectify. We must bring it home to parents and students that there is not a guaranteed amount of money for the child who has secondary education. Indeed, we would hope that the levels of income for all sections of the community would rise to such an extent that all boys and girls at 18 years would have the same level of income.
Deputy Cott and other Deputies spoke about physically and mentally disabled children and the necessity to provide more money for them. There is the story in the Bible about the man with the five talents. That is what an educational system should do—teach man not to bury his talents but so to better himself that he can increase the amount of understanding and goodwill he can bring to the community in city and country. In this field of the physically and mentally handicapped, most progress has been made in Cork due to the efforts of the polio after-care association. As the Minister knows, they have set up factories for the mentally and physically disabled. This has filled a great need. The schools under their care are more advanced than similar schools in England or in many parts of America. At the moment people from America are studying the system with a view to applying it at home.
Deputies last week got a circular from Dr. Daly asking them if they would fill in "Yes" or "No" on the question of corporal punishment in schools. The circular was to be completed and returned in seven days. I got one of those circulars and I agreed with the sentiments expressed in it. However, instead of sending it in within the seven days I kept it for nine days. Then I wrote into it that I did not favour the prohibition of corporal punishment but neither was I in favour of using it.
Progress reported; Committee to sit again.
The Dáil adjourned at 10.30 p.m. until 10.30 a.m. on Thursday, 2nd March, 1972.