Vol. 452 No. 3
11 Mr. Martin asked the Minister for Education if she will agree to the abolition of junior certificate and leaving certificate examination fees in view of the recent statements by the Society of St. Vincent de Paul concerning the hardship imposed on families by these fees. [8015/95]
24 Kathleen Lynch asked the Minister for Education if she has received communications from the Society of St. Vincent de Paul regarding the payment of exam fees by low-income children; if she intends introducing a waiver scheme in respect of such fees; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [7868/95]
I am taking Questions Nos. 11 and 24 together.
I have publicy expressed my concern about the impact of the examination fees on students from disadvantaged backgrounds. The outright abolition of examination fees would not focus relief on those most in need. It would also be expensive — costing more than £6 million per year.
The Society of St. Vincent de Paul wrote to me last year advising that it had discontinued its practice of assisting with the payment of examination fees and recommending that fees be dispensed with altogether or means-tested.
At present my Department operates a number of measures aimed at alleviating hardship arising from the payment of these fees. A provision of £400,000 has been made available to schools in order that entry fees for the 1995 examinations may be waived or reduced in the case of those experiencing financial hardship.
There is an additional provision of £600,000 for reduced fees in the case of candidates who are repeating the leaving certificate. These candidates would normally be required to pay a higher fee than first-time candidates but where the candidate, parent or guardian, holds a medical card, the maximum fee payable is the fee payable by first-time candidates.
I have recently expressed my intention to review the possibility of abolishing examination fees in the case of disadvantaged pupils as resources become available to me. In line with this intention I have instructed my Department to examine the limitations of the existing arrangements for waiver so that improvements will be directed at those most in need.
Does the Minister accept that in the recent budgetary package on education, following the decision to abolish tax covenants, it was estimated that the figure of £35 million would accrue to the Minister to be expended on education and that she decided to allocate it entirely to one sector, namely, in respect of the abolition of fees for third-level undergraduate students? Yet today she stated that none of that money could be allocated to alleviating the undoubted hardship imposed on many disadvantaged students from low income families as a result of the imposition of examination fees at junior certificate and leaving certificate levels. Does this not fly in the face of the principle of equality enshrined in the White Paper?
I will deal with the specifics of examination fees. A waiver scheme is in place and pupils from homes in which parents are unemployed, where a parent is suffering from a prolonged illness, where there is a large family with inadequate means, single parent families or families where more than one child is sitting examinations may benefit from it. All the examples outlined by the Deputy would qualify for benefit under the scheme. The Society of St. Vincent de Paul raised this issue with us. Up to last year it was involved with the Department in alleviating hardship. The Department's hardship fund stands at £500,000 and will be allocated to schools and the vocational education committees in respect of examinations for 1995. The fund was increased in recognition of the increased number of candidates, but there was no increase in examination fees since 1994.
The Minister outlined that she intends reviewing this matter. Why did she not make a decision in the 1995 budget in respect of it?
I did not take a decision——
Why not?
One approaches one budget at a time. The waiver scheme for examination fees at second level would appear on paper to be generous, but I would like to be satisfied that such a generous scheme would meet the requirements of students in need. The scheme has been publicised and we must be satisfied that those who suffer undue hardship benefit from an alleviation of fees. I have asked officials in my Department to examine the question of the payment of examination fees, but the fees for 1995 were paid earlier in the year. Therefore, the examination being carried out relates to fees for future years.
Questions Nos. 121 and 122 in my name refer to this matter. They request the Minister to outline the amount of money yielded annually to the Exchequer from leaving certificate examination fees. The Minister's replies will probably be in my office, but the Minister could have included the cost of abolishing those fees in her original reply to this question.
We are confining ourselves to Questions Nos. 11 and 24.
Of course I have the information if the Deputy wants it, but decisions about taking questions together do not rest with me.
I am not arguing that point.
I will give the Deputy the information he requested and save him the trouble of going to his office to obtain it.
The information is relevant to the debate.
The total cost of holding examinations will be in excess of £13 million in 1995. Of this, £10 million will be spent on the remuneration of examiners and superintendents, £1 million on supplies and approximately £2 million on salaries and expenses of departmental staff. It is expected that approximately £6.2 million will be collected in examination fees and fee alleviation will amount to £1 million. When everything is taken into account, the overall figure will be £8 million.
Will the Deputy thank the Minister for the information?
It is my basic right.
Does the Minister recognise that hardship is widespread and despite the amount of money set aside to alleviate it, to a large extent, schools must decide who will benefit? I am aware of families in which two or three children are sitting State examinations who have been turned down on the basis that their fathers are employed, despite the fact that they are on a very low income. I assume the Minister's provision in the budget was merely a first step in the reorganisation of education.
Will the Minister agree, having seen the latest OECD figures, that in the area which has the greatest participation in education, namely, primary level, we have one of the lowest financial investments and in the area where there is least participation, the third level sector, we have the highest investment?
The question is over long.
Will the Minister agree that, based on these figures, there should be free primary education and, as a first step, that she should abolish the fees for the junior certificate? If we are raising the school leaving age to 16, this will be tantamount to a compulsory examination and there should not be a financial barrier.
The Deputy referred to two areas of common concern, namely, how we arrive at the figure and whether we are satisfied that those who need our help in a waiver scheme are getting that help. The amount allocated to each school in the vocational education committee for the 1995 examinations was based on the results of a questionnaire on hardship issued to schools in 1994. The schools were asked to communicate with the Department about their need for funding on the waiver scheme. The allocations were increased or reduced taking into account particular circumstances which the schools detailed for us.
On the matter of the OECD and investment in primary education, that will be a useful measure of the contribution that I have made in the Department of Education as a member of this Government because the OECD is only a snapshot of the investment made in education in 1991 and 1992, years preceding my arrival in Marlborough Street. If we consider the improvements in the pupil-teacher ratio and the improvements in capitation grants, that is a fairly graphic illustration of the increasing amount of investment in the primary sector. However, I do not believe that we yet have the right balance of investemnt in the primary sector but with the demographic trend and the lowering of numbers in schools to maintain the teaching quota and the increasing investment at primary level, we are somewhat on the way to improving the lot of the primary sector. Those improvements will be measured quite graphically — probably when I am no longer Minister for Education — by the difference between the position in 1992 and the next OECD education figures.
I would like the Minister to reflect on the fact that if there is imbalance at present, she is the author of that also. Will the Minister give us a deadline in regard to the review of the scheme which she has promised? There has been a commitment recently to carry out an examination but no deadline has been put on that examination by the review groups.
Expenditure of this nature is a budgetary matter. By the time the budget is ready for 1996-97 the outcome of the examination may be known. However, I have already had some suggestions arising from various examinations of different schemes and I intend to take time to consider those. With the extension of the school leaving age to 16 all pupils will be sitting the junior certificate and I want to ensure that the examination fees will not be a barrier to any student sitting that examination. We are currently reviewing the manner in which we decide what schools are designated disadvantaged and in this regard the Combat Poverty Agency is due to report to me this month. At the AMCSS Conference in Cork, Mr. Liam Murphy said that not only should we regard some schools as having disadvantaged status but we must also remember that there are disadvantaged pupils in other schools. I must be conscious of that and I believe the remarks made by Mr. Murphy at the conference were timely.
Will the Minister accept that an unhealthy development has taken place as a result of the imposition of examination fees in that many students are embarrassed to go to school at the time when these fees are due to be paid? Pupils are sitting with their fellow students in the class-room conscious of the fact that their parents do not have the money for these fees. This is creating an unhealthy atmosphere for students at second level. This is an important dimension to the whole issue of fees which sometimes is overlooked and it is one that the Minister should accept from the evidence I have obtained from those operating in the field. Will the Minister agree that the costs are not exorbitant and that in the context of the abolition of tax covenants, the revenue was there for the Minister to do something about this in the last budget but she decided against it?
The picture the Deputy paints is a rather sad one. It is one in which the circumstances of the family appear to be alien within the classroom and the school community. I would point to the greater need for parents and schools to realise that they are of one community and that where problems exist people should not be embarrassed in any way to communicate with the principal of the school to the effect that they would qualify under the waiver scheme. The money allocated to each school was decided upon following the results of the questionnaire sent by the Department of Education to the school management. The management furnished the details to the Department and the Department responded accordingly. If the Deputy is painting a picture of many students being embarrassed——
It is not my picture; it is one that was painted for me.
The Deputy suggested he has a lot of evidence in this regard. The information that the Department has came from the schools themselves. Parents should realise that there is a waiver scheme available and I will re-examine the scheme to ensure that the needs of disadvantaged students are responded to in a positive way.
Will the Minister agree that following the bombardment which the education system has been under for the past ten years, particularly in relation to first and second level, and the destruction perpetrated by previous Ministers in the preceding years, the education system will be greatly enhanced by the abolition of education fees at the point of assessment of the young adult? I do not blame the present Minister for the destruction of the education system in relation to class sizes and withdrawal of funding for special remedial teaching.
I am very conscious of the fact that while 74 per cent of students complete second level schooling, it would be reasonable to expect that figure to be 90 per cent. Where barriers exist and people feel they are being driven out of the school system despite the massive investment the State makes in the future of our young people, I must ensure that those barriers are removed. They can be removed by positive intervention on behalf of the disadvantaged who are not getting equal access to education.
The very nature of the curriculum was a barrier because there are and were for a long time sections of the community for whom the academic programme was irrelevant to their life's chances. There is the barrier of funding as well as psychological barriers. The White Paper has gone on sale today at a cost of £5, but of course I have a complimentary copy for the Opposition spokespersons and I ask everyone to look at it. The title of the White Paper Charting our Education Future describes what we are doing. We are spelling out the future direction of education which will ensure that all our children are cherished equally. The Proclamation puts an onus on us all to do it, not only with funding but with psychological enticements responding to the expectations of pupils.
