Deputy Jim Higgins has been given permission to raise the need for the Minister for Education to carry out an in-depth analysis of existing structures, possible plans for rationalisation, school organisation and financing in the light of the falling school going population, especially at second level.
Adjournment Debate. - Second Level School Structures.
One of the most positive initiatives from this Minister was the establishment of the Review Body for Primary Education. That body carried out an in-depth analysis of the whole primary school sector, analysed in depth and made 75 very worthwhile recommendations. It was very analytical, very practical and gave us an overview as to where we stand in relation to primary education, its needs and its deficiencies, the strong points and the weak points and where we should be going. I am asking the Minister to do precisely the same thing at post-primary level.
Massive sea changes are taking place structurally at second level. The Department of Education predict that second level pupil numbers will fall from 342,000 this year to 262,000 within 15 years. The number of Catholic religious in secondary schools is dropping much faster than predicted. In many communities we have two, three, four and sometimes five schools in close proximity, sometimes side by side. Because of contracting numbers these are very often in a frantic, unedifying scramble in the canvass for students. Instead of co-operating we have in some cases rather more than vigorous competition. I welcome competition, but competition for numbers is essentially bad. We have duplication and triplication of facilities and subjects, yet the Minister and the Department have thus far essentially withdrawn from the process and seem for some mysterious reason to be afraid to get involved.
They seem to be allowing the situation to drift, allowing a fight to the death to ensue, with the survival of the fittest being the order of the day. We are very much on the brink of an educational civil war at second level unless urgent ministerial and departmental intervention takes place. Community schools and colleges seem to be the exception rather than the rule and they are being built essentially in greenfield sites.
I am asking the Minister and the Department to oversee the situation. It is their duty to promote, encourage and assist the rationalisation process. Rather than the Green Paper promised in the Programme for Economic and Social Progress, a review body should be set up immediately to deal with the matter.
The House will recall that the former Fine Gael Ministers for Education, Richard Burke and Gemma Hussey, both mooted the idea of local education structures during their terms in office but they were not accepted at the time. The recent OECD report, however, recommends in the context of decreasing enrolments that a consolidated, co-ordinating regional authority could help to avoid the fierce and very detrimental competition for students in many local catchment areas which we are now witnessing. This we will witness with greater vigour in the future.
At present we have 465 secondary schools, 276 vocational schools and 65 community or comprehensive colleges. About 200 of these will go to the wall. In Macroom, for example, the De La Salle school is about to be handed over to the management of a lay authority with no definite structure in place in relation to who will manage same. In Ballycastle and Lacken in County Mayo we have two schools, one of which has been sanctioned by the Minister for a grant.
The Deputy is writing letters to me about the other one.
The other school fears educational cannibalism and being gobbled. What is obviously needed is intervention, management, organisation, co-operation and a little bit of courage. Tough decisions are badly needed.
I thank Deputy Higgins for tabling this matter. I am speaking to him as an older person and the first thing he will have to learn is honesty. He is writing to me about the situation in Ballycastle. He is coming in here to make pious statements and writing me different letters from outside.
I asked the Minister to set up a meeting of the authorities.
The Deputy is not entitled to come in here and spout pious humbug.
That is a lie. I asked the Minister to arrange talks at local level. It is on file.
I know it is on file.
Deputy Higgins has made his contribution. Order.
A lot of humbug.
If Deputy Higgins persists in interrupting I shall ask him to leave the House. The Minister, without interruption. This Adjournment debate could cease quite quickly.
It is very nice to see that Dick Burke is back in flavour. I am delighted, he is the flavour of the month. For a great number of years he was not the flavour of the month or the flavour of the year.
I accept that what Deputy Higgins has put down is a very valid proposition. I will not be proceeding with a review at second level because I have initiated a very comprehensive programme which will consist of a Green Paper, a White Paper and an Education Bill. Within this framework all the points the Deputy has raised will be debated by the public at large. This will lead to many interesting debates. I intend to write a preface to that paper. I want everybody to be honest so that we cannot have people parading in here saying "protect our school" and then running out calling for rationalisation and saying that the Minister and the Department are scared. I am not scared of anybody or anything. I know quite well what I have to do. I will not have a situation where Deputies of whatever party decide they will get out of their duties and responsibilities by lumping it back to the Department and to the Minister when the proper democratic way is for local agreement.
That is what I asked.
I encourage local agreement. I do not encourage the type of scéal put forward here tonight as being proper educational provision.
What is wrong with it?
Seeing that Dick Burke and Gemma Hussey are flavour of the month, I am not about to indulge in another layer of regional bureaucracy. As long as I am in the Department of Education there will not be a further layer of bureaucracy.
No democracy.
Plenty of democracy. Regionalisation is not democracy. I am going to bring it to local level. I am going to make every school involve its own management and parents in their own decisions. There can be no greater democracy. When the Deputy talks about regionalisation he does not know what he is talking about.
I know a lot more than the Minister.
When one talks about regionalism in the European sense, one of the regions of Italy would be twice the size of Ireland. All this muffled jargon about regionalism and devolution does not amount to proper devolution. Devolution should be to the people who are running the schools, not another layer of civil servants, beautiful and expert as they are.
That is regionalisation.
That is something I do not agree with in educational terms.
The third thing I want to say, and I said it when I met with the Deputy last week, is that I hope the Deputy will be here for a long time and that I will be here for a long time. I would like to say that the Deputy should not take himself too seriously. I listened to him on the monitor tonight and he cut down every educational provision he could think of while teachers, parents, unions and the wider public are praising them. The Deputy should give himself some leeway and praise something. From time to time that does one a lot of good. I hope I have finished the lecture.
I was glad to hear the Deputy praising Tom Murphy. It was the first word I heard from any Opposition party Member in praise of that review. There are not 75 proposals but 107 in it and they are all being carefully worked through at the moment.
To go back to what the Deputy put forward, I am not about to embark on a special review for second level because I have already done so in the whole educational process. PESP includes all the matters which have annoyed us all for a number of years. We are getting the policy right now that we have the plan right.
With regard to amalgamation and rationalisation, I ask each community to face it clearly and honestly. We will have a further contribution from Deputy Finucane and I will be kinder to him because he approaches these matters in a better way.
The Minister has not heard him yet.
He knows what he is talking about. The matter of rationalisation has to be faced honestly with no running to packed meetings and preaching that it is the fault of the Minister and the Department. That is all I have to say on that.