Deputy Birmingham gave notice of his intention to raise on the Adjournment the subject matter of the circular issued by the Minister for Education in relation to the repeat year.
Adjournment Debate. - Department of Education Circular.
At the outset I should like to thank the Chair for giving me permission to raise this matter on the Adjournment. Very shortly after the Dáil went into recess last summer the Minister and her Department issued Circular M8/88. It was an interesting document and not the least interesting because of the obligation imposed on the recipients to acknowledge receipt by returning an enclosed slip provided for that purpose. I gather that was the first occasion when that obligation was placed on anybody and it indicates the response the Minister and the Department expected from the circular.
The circular in question is a shabby, tawdry, dishonourable document. It is destined to go down alongside Circular 20/87 as one of the documents of this era and it shows a scant disregard for the academically weak and for those who are disadvantaged or deprived. The circular comes from the same stable that produced the proposals for increased primary school classes and from the same stable that proposed a particular attack on that section of the educational system that historically has been charged with responding to the needs of the disadvantaged, the vocational sector.
The circular deals with the vexed question of the number of years a student must spend at second level education. Clearly, there is room for much discussion and debate on it and I have no doubt that some aspects of it will arise at Question Time in the future. However, I have sought leave to raise one provision of this circular tonight, that dealing with the question of pupils repeating a year. Paragraph 7, the offending paragraph, states:
No pupil may repeat any year of the post-primary course — save as provided for in paragraph 8 — whether in the same school or in any other school, except with the prior approval of the Department. Approval will only be given in exceptional cases such as prolonged absence due to ill-health or change of school necessitated by change of domicile.
Paragraph 8 deals with those who want to repeat the leaving certificate.
When the circular was issued there was immediate criticism from educational interests. To those criticisms the Minister has not responded. She has made no effort to date to explain what the basis of the circular is, what its justification is either in educational or financial terms. I should like to know what basis she says this circular has in any kind of educational philosophy. How is it to be defended? I should like to know what kind of apparent savings, she claims she is going to make. I should like to know if the Minister took any advice as to whether her actions were constitutional because at first sight it seems to me that her actions were in flagrant violation of Article 42 of the Constitution. That Article clearly establishes that the primary role in education is that of the parent but in this instance the Minister has seen fit to ride roughshod over the rights and views of the parents and the teachers.
Let us consider what is involved. What we are talking about is a youngster, perhaps 13 or 14 years of age, who is weak and is not keeping up with the class. In the view of the parent, the teacher, and the school principal, the proper and appropriate course of action is that that child should repeat the year. The Minister takes the view that that is not an educational judgement to be made by the parent, the teacher or the principal but that it is a matter for her and her Department. She is deciding that she is going to say "No" to the academically weak unless they can bring themselves within one of the exceptional qualifications about illness or change of domicile.
What is the justification for that kind of unparalleled intervention? I know of no other area of the educational system where any Minister has ever believed that they have a right to intervene in this type of very individual decision of parent, teacher and principal.
The Deputy should read what Gemma sent out.
What is interesting about this circular is the difference in language between it and previous circulars. Of course it is the case that Ministers for Education have to be concerned at a time when there is emphasis on pupil/teacher ratio, at a time when resources are limited on how many pupils there are going to be within the school system at any given time because that will determine how much they will have to spend. However, on every previous occasion when this has been addressed it has been done on the basis that the interests of the weak pupil have to be considered and on the basis that the people to make that judgment are the parents and the teachers who best know the pupil. What does the Minister, or the Department of Education, know about whether the interests of a 13-year old who has the reading age of an 11-year old are served by waiting another year or not? How can the Minister or any official of the Department form a judgment on that? Should the judgment not be formed by the person who knows best, the teacher, who is with that child in the classroom day after day each week?
I asked the Minister what savings she believed would be achieved by this and qualified that by asking what apparent savings will be achieved because, in fact, this represents rank bad value for money. What is involved is that the unfortunate people who, despite the considered opinions of the parents and the teachers, will be kept on the conveyor belt and shuffled through the system. That will be despite the judgment of those who know the pupil best that he or she is not in a position to pass on and needs another year. Such children are to be kept moving through the system and we know what that means. It means that the moneys that will be expended on that pupil during the remainder of the period they spend in the classrooms will be wasted because they will not be achieving anything. We know that this is likely to mean an increase in the number of youngsters who are not capable of keeping up. As a result some of them are going to be troublesome, there will be more discipline problems and the quality of education for everybody else in that classroom will suffer.
We have an educational system which pays lip-service to the principles of equality of opportunity and that is all it does. The schools in the State sector are squeezed and their subject options are cut. At a time when we are all talking about languages and the importance of encouraging children to take on extra continental languages, a flagship community school in north Dublin which in the past was able to offer German, Italian and other languages now finds it must return to French only. Higher education continues to be all but closed to children from working class backgrounds. This circular represents further movement in the direction of entrenching privilege and a further blow to those who are already disadvantaged, either because of their social background or because they are just academically below the average of the class in which they happen to find themselves. The circular is unjust and unwarranted. It has aroused ire throughout the educational world. Because it represents a tax on individuals, we have not seen the kind of mass protests on this occasion that have greeted other decisions of the Minister, but this circular is unwarranted, oppressive and, very likely, unconstitutional. I suspect that one of the reasons we have not heard more about it is that, to my certain knowledge, quite a number of schools have decided that they are simply going to ignore it. They have taken the view — I have no idea whether they are right about this — that the Department are quite incapable of finding out whether, if a pupil does repeat the year, he will not be caught out. It may well be that the Department are in a position to exact revenge and will do so when it comes to calculating the capitation grants or whatever. Nowhere in the educational world would anyone, on educational grounds, defend a decision that people are to be channelled through the system, kept on the conveyor belt, put into a classroom for which they are not, in the view of their teachers, equipped and that this should continue. I want to know from the Minister from where did this emanate. What was the thinking behind it and what possible justification for it can she put forward now?
First, I wish to thank Deputy George Birmingham, the Opposition spokesperson on Education, for bringing this matter to the Dáil tonight. I congratulate him on his appointment to the Opposition Front Bench and wish him many years of opposition spokes-personship, perhaps not always in the education portfolio but in many other portfolios as well. I am very glad that we have got together at last. On previous occasions mishaps have kept him from me but I hope that will not be the future role we will adopt.
Before I go into my formal reply to the Deputy, I want to say that I find it offensive that he talked about me in stable terms, whether I be a woman or a man. He mentioned that this circular comes from a similar stable. It is not the first occasion this has happened. I was in the role he is in now and he was Minister of State when I had occasion to say to him that I objected to being harnessed with somebody else. He knows to what I refer. I object very strongly to the terminology the Deputy has used tonight. He has a propensity for doing so. I want to put that on the record.
The Minister is going to have to think——
I did not interrupt the Deputy but I object to the offensive language in his opening remarks.
The Deputy has put to me the question as to whence this circular came. I wish to put on the record immediately — the Deputy possibly did not know this — that Deputy Hussey, when Minister for Education, issued a circular, and I do not refer to it as issuing from a stable, with the heading, "Department of Education, Post Primary Branch, Hawkins House'. That was circular M85/85.
Which refers to the——
Would the Deputy please allow me to speak?
Order, please.
That circular stated that the junior cycle would be of three years duration——
I was——
Please, Deputy Birmingham.
—in all schools and that the leaving certificate course would be of two years duration in all schools. It also stated:"It is the intention, therefore, that virtually all pupils will follow a three year junior cycle course. In so far as the senior cycle is concerned practices that result in a de facto three year leaving certificate course will not be accepted in my Department, with no caveats and no let out”. The genesis of my circular to which the Deputy referred is Circular M85/85, signed by the then Secretary of the Department under the aegis of the then Minister for Education, we want to get that quite clear. The Deputy then went on to ask if anybody knew what I had done. I want to list the various bodies with whom I met after the issue of this circular.
That was afterwards.
Do not be quite silly. The Deputy knows you do not meet with people before you do things. I met with the JMB, the parents, the IVEA, community and comprehensive schools and the various unions. The last meeting took place one month ago. I have had seven meetings on the issue.
With regard to the Deputy's further dissertation on his reading of my circular, he has left out a very important point. Paragraph 7 of the circular states that approval will only be given in exceptional cases such as prolonged absence — the Deputy has quite deliberately not focused on "such as" and all the other reasons, for granting exemptions. I take very seriously the element of confidentiality imposed on me by principals and I do not intend to laud here tonight the reasons we have granted exemptions. Many of them are peculiarly personal, private, social reasons which have been given to me in confidence and I do not intend to bandy them across the Floor of this House.
I would like to begin by rebutting the view being peddled here this evening that my Department's Circular M8/88 is in any way different from the circular of 1985 or is a draconian measure devised by a heartless Government to discommode all and sundry. I propose moreover to eschew the hyperbole resorted to by Deputy Birmingham and to place this matter in its proper perspective. I would remind the Deputy and the House that an earlier Circular M85/85 which was issued by Deputy Gemma Hussey, prohibited pupils from repeating a year. In so far as the present arrangements are concerned there are clearly defined procedures and guidelines in operation in my Department which ensure equitable treatment. They allow for approval of a repeat year in a number of circumstances, for example, continuous absence from school, change of school, serious illness, death of parent or serious family trauma, none of which I would put into a circular because they are far too private. Other instances would be in the case of change of subject or of very poor academic progress.
To underline how fair this approach is I would like to cite statistics for the Deputy. In the 1987-88 school year my Department received 449 applications and approved 334, over 74 per cent. In the present school year my Department have considered 700 applications and approved 77 per cent. Other applications are receiving consideration but I have no reason to believe that the level of approval in these cases will show any significant divergence from the current approval rate — 77 per cent to 80 per cent. Those figures should demonstrate that the restrictions on repeat years are not draconian. I have looked back on records and I realise that they are far more liberal than those in the years to which the Deputy does not wish to refer and they are being effected with understanding and compassion.
I would also like to take the opportunity of dispelling any misunderstanding there might be in relation to repeating the leaving certificate. Pupils, and indeed Young Fine Gael, were very quick to ride on the misery, as they thought, of students receiving their leaving certificates on the day they were issued, by making statements which were competely untrue. Students can repeat the final leaving certificate year on a payment of a course fee of £100, the exact same as last year, and an exam fee of £100.
But a further circular is to be issued.
Order. Would Deputy Birmingham please desist from interrupting?
Pupils whose parents are holders of medical cards are exempted from payment of the course fee and are required to pay the normal leaving certificate fee.
I wish to make two other points. The Deputy talked about the vocational education sector and how they were being penalised unduly. I wish to remind the Deputy that it was an amendment by his party spokesperson on education — by consensus it was agreed to by me and by our party — which sought to ameliorate the current situation with regard to vocational schools. That amendment was adopted and implemented by the previous Government, so to talk of it now as unfeeling and uncaring is rather odd. The Deputy referred to remedial pupils. I have made complete arrangements, particularly in vocational schools where they have a remedial class, that that class receive complete exemption which was not allowed for previously. Now they will be allowed the facility to repeat a full year.
Let me repeat, a Cheann Comhairle, as the Deputy may now know, that the date of the census return for all schools is 30 September and all schools know this. The Deputy said that nobody seems to know whether they can include names in the census but from time immemorial 30 September has been the census date for schools. This is not something I invented; it has been there since we started the census.
Let me repeat, 400 pupils applied last year to repeat a year and 74 per cent were allowed. Some 700 pupils applied this year and 77 per cent were allowed. Provision has been made for remedial pupils. Special social cases which are submitted in confidence by the school principal are treated with great compassion and with great flexibility and I have involved myself in that process. There is much greater flexibility and compassion being exercised now with regard to repeat years than was the case with the issue of Circular 85/85, which came not from a stable but from the Department of Education.
I have two questions.
I am sorry, Deputy.
How much does the Minister say she is going to save?
The Dáil adjourned at 10.55 p.m. until 10.30 a.m. on Wednesday, 26 October 1988.