I am delighted to participate in this debate. Like other Members I received two copies of the White Paper, one a pre-production copy which was a modest document and the other a heavy, glossier document. I compliment the Department of Education on its presentation and on the wonderful justice done to the Minister in the magnificent picture on the foreword. In that regard she is only trotting after her colleague, the Minister for Arts, Culture and the Gaeltacht.
The White Paper is the outcome of one of the lengthiest and most comprehensive processes of consultation ever undertaken and by that I do not mean the lengthy process in which either the present or previous Minister was involved. Many of the matters contained in it go back to 1984 and I am not sure they were original then. There have been proposals for local education councils or boards since 1984 when the former Deputy Hussey was Minister for Education.
The White Paper covers a wide range of issues. I welcome the statement of objectives for educational policy set out by the Minister — the promotion of equality, pluralism, partnership, quality and accountability and the protection and promotion of fundamental human and civil rights, together with the promotion of social and economic wellbeing. That is what she calls the philosophical rationale of the document. While these are laudable objectives and I would not dare enter into a debate of substance on them, I have a different concern.
If the policies contained in it are followed, the White Paper will shape education policy for many years. It would be absolutely wrong to undertake a major recasting of our educational structure if we were not determined that the new structure to be put in place would be durable. However, given my background I am surprised there is very little in the White Paper or in the Minister's comments on it, about the resources which will be used. In introducing the White Paper on 4 May the Minister dealt with the treatment of resourcing and while this is interesting and instructive — I do not find it at all surprising for reasons which I will come to in a moment — it does not get us anywhere. I strongly urge the Government to get more clarity on the question of resources before it goes any further with the process, which includes a number of Bills.
Reading the comments of the Minister on 4 May I was reminded of the last minute in the twelfth round of a professional heavyweight fight. The Department of Education in the White Paper has launched a ferocious assault on the Department of Finance —"the Government will aim to provide during its period in office the resources for the development needs identified in the White Paper". However, this haymaker of a punch is blocked by the Department of Finance which replies with a left hook —"within the framework of the budgetary parameters set out in the Government of Renewal Policy Document". It then delivers a right cross, "including the acceptance of the Maastricht Treaty convergence conditions" and follows this up with a body blow "the amount which can be made available in any given year will have to be decided by the Government in the context of its financial position and its other public expenditure priorities at that time".
That looks like the end of the match so far as the Department of Education is concerned but it makes a counterattack by referring to the needs of education and the principle informing the approach to funding, which we are told implies prioritisation on those with greatest need, diversified provision to meet varying abilities and aptitudes and that provision for education must take account of the nation's overall resources. The Department of Finance is not without resources and makes a counterattack, "this latter dimension embraces the priority needs of other social services, for example, the health and social welfare services and the budgetary and fiscal parameters underpinning the management of the public finances, including Ireland's international commitments, specifically (and this is the final body blow) its commitment to the Maastricht Treaty convergence conditions".
What are we to make of all that? I know what goes on there having sat in on innumerable arguments of that kind where the Department of Finance, which is trying to retain some control of the future course of expenditure, is countering all the arguments other Departments bring up. When it cannot convince one by referring to what it is doing today, it puts it in a wide context and says this is important socially or politically or it puts it in an even wider context and says we cannot be the only people in the world who do not do this. This type of toing and froing and punch and counter punch is clearly set out in the Minister's speech.
At the end of that exchange the two participants are absolutely exhausted; they are in a clinch and there is no clear winner. All we have is blood on the canvass and sweat all around the place and nobody knows what the outcome will be. We then find there is a rematch and there is another short sharp bout. The Minister for Education comes back and puts the whole process of education policy into the context of wider economic and social planning by saying "This integral linkage of education into economic planning processes builds upon authoritative reports in recent years from national and international bodies, for example, the National Economic and Social Council and the work of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. It also reflects the central place afforded to education in successive national understandings with the social partners". That is a very shrewd shaft indeed, it is telling the Department of Finance it is unaware of the wider important context of the argument and it is just being bloody-minded by refusing to give carte blanche or an open cheque for this whole process.
The Department of Finance then comes back with a very crafty counterattack and says "Though it may not always have been recognised, the debate on the allocation of resources to education is at the centre of the debate on economic policy. In short, in the context of funding of education the White Paper establishes the importance of investment in education rather than seeing education simply as a social service expenditure". That looks fine and eyes light up in the Department of Education because they think they have made their point. However, then comes the killer blow, "Accordingly, the White Paper establishes key benchmarks for the continuous evaluation of investment in education by the Government in the context of the annual consideration of the priorities for public expenditure". We are back again to stalemate and are still none the wiser about what will be done to put all these principles into effect.
This is not what a White Paper should do; it should not leave us in a state of total uncertainty about what will be done. Unfortunately, this White Paper does this because it contains no projections for the future and no plan, however aspirational, on how the principles enunciated or the practices recommended will be given effect. It does not say what this means in terms of education or investment and it does not set out the kind of investment, the period or the balance between the different sectors of education. All we are told — I understand this is subject to confirmation — is that the implementation of all the proposals set out in the White Paper would involve the expenditure of some £1.2 billion over the coming decade. We are not told how much of that is current expenditure or capital. Neither is there any breakdown by sector — we are not told how much of that will be for primary, second level or third level education, special education or education for people with special needs. Other Deputies may have heard more about this than I have, all I have heard is that it has a price tag, not officially confirmed, of approximately £1.2 billion over the next decade. That seems to be a lot of money and in all conscience it is.
The four Estimates for 1995 that are principally involved in education — the Office of the Minister for Education, first level education, second level and further education and third level education — come to just short of £1.9 billion. If the proposals in this document cost £1.2 billion over the next decade I assume that is £1.2 billion in current money terms. If that were spread evenly over the next ten years it would be an increase of 6.3 per cent per annum in educational expenditure in addition to whatever else is involved in maintaining the current level of services or the current provision. It may be that a case can be made for spending money in that way. It may be that I am wrong to assume it would be evenly spread. Some of it could be front loaded, some of it could be back loaded. If that kind of expenditure is the realistic ballpark figure for what is involved we are talking about a further increase of a very substantial amount in annual expenditure on education and it begs several questions.
If we agree to spend, over the next decade, £1.2 billion more on education than we would otherwise spend, are the measures set out in the White Paper the best way of doing it? If we find that over the next decade we can spend £1.2 billion more than we would otherwise, would we necessarily come to the conclusion that we would spend it all on education? Are there other ways in which we could use it to the greater benefit of the national community, to people with disadvantages, to people who suffer some of the handicaps of not having access to the kind of education we would wish for them, rather than putting it into the measures contained in the White Paper? I do not know and it is very difficult to judge that because we are not given any breakdown in this document of where the different expenditure items would fall or what the result of it would be.
On page 24 of the White Paper there is a shortish section dealing with the provision to be made and the means of making provision for students with special needs. I do not find anything there to which I can take exception. In fact, I would support it. Like many other Members I frequently meet people parents, managers of schools and people in voluntary organisations who are up against the problem of dealing with the educational needs of children with disadvantages of various kinds. While it is easy to say we should make better provision for them — I am happy to say the provision is improving year by year — I do not think they ever get the kind of consideration they should get. I am sure other Deputies will agree that the tendency is to look year by year at what more we can do for the education of children with disadvantages of various kinds to see whether we can fit in some other little bit of progress in the context of what is available that year. It is looked at on a kind of incremental basis and year by year we add in a little here and a little there and gradually we will make some improvement.
I had hoped the White Paper would have reset the context and would have looked at the total provision. I am thinking principally of primary level, but of primary and second level education in total, and that we would have looked at the total context of education at those two levels, the way we make educational provision for children with disadvantages, to decide whether a reordering of the priorities and the resources in those two parts of education — and particularly at primary level — would not give us a more equitable, compassionate and efficient result in terms of the achievement of our objectives in education, bearing in mind the special needs of some groups in our population. That does not seem to me to be what is proposed in this White Paper. I have read it very closely and I cannot find any real indication of that kind of reordering. If that is not involved in this White Paper then I think an opportunity has been lost which the Minister should seek to regain when she comes back to us with the measures which are required to put this White Paper, or so much of it as will require legislation, into practice.
I come to the question of investment. I have no information on how much of this £1.2 billion extra cost would comprise capital investment. I find it difficult to envisage any major improvement or reshaping of our educational system over the next decade that would not involve some substantial amount of capital investment, perhaps not in buildings where on the whole quantitatively we are reasonably well supplied although not qualitatively. If we are serious about some of what is contained in the White Paper we will require investment in equipment in our schools and in third level education. There is no specification here.
In page 37 of the document an item entitled "Framework for Funding" deals with primary level. All the tables stop at 1995 and do not say anything about future years. On page 40 under the heading "Investment in Primary Education" there is a warm picture of a teacher with four young primary school children and three paragraphs of text. The sharpest thing I can find in the text is the following:
The provision of adequate resources for primary education will continue to be a priority. National and international research indicates that primary education is fundamentally important in determining children's life chances.
I do not think the Government has been well served by whoever put that draft together. Quite honestly if I were asked to produce a statement about education I would be ashamed to produce that. It seems to be so banal as not to need repeating: "that primary education is fundamentally important in determining children's life chances". I believe that and it is so much part of my being that I have a hobby horse about education which does not appear in this White Paper because it is probably not the popular or politically correct way to think about education. I honestly cannot see that we will have additional expenditure of £1.2 billion available over the next decade on top of what is already built in, in terms of expenditure growth in education. I suspect the Government did not see that that is available because if so it would have said it.
From what I know about education and from what I hear as a Member and from meeting people constantly I come to fairly simple conclusions. As with all simple conclusions they are capable of attack and outrage on all sides but there is a virtue in them. If we believe what the White Paper says about the importance of primary education — which I believe firmly — surely it would be valid for us to ask whether we should take the following approach. Since there is going to be a limitation on our resources and since we want to get an efficient result, should we not decide that for a period of years any extra resources we can put together for education should be devoted exclusively to the improvement of primary education, without which we will not get educational, social, spiritual, morale or economic value for money out of second and third level education?
Should we not say that whatever period it takes, three or five years, that will be our period for getting things as right as we can in primary education and that we will follow that up by doing the same thing for second level education in our second period and then go on to third level education? Unless we do that, not only will we do an injustice to a great many people, we will also frustrate part of our action at primary school level.
Other Members will have had a similar experience to mine quite a number of years ago when I was amazed to be told by the principal of a vocational school in my constituency that one third of the pupils entering it for the first time were unable to read or write, although they had been through the primary school system. He told me that his school was perhaps not typical of all second level schools but that it was certainly typical of the entry classes to vocational schools in areas with a similar population mix. That indicates a major failure or deficiency in our primary education system. There is not much point in spending more money on second and third level education if the primary level is inadequate.
After all the consultations, we should have seen an analysis of that kind in this document, but we did not. I suspect there is a good reason for that. If the Government wants to produce a policy document with which everybody in every sector will agree, that document will not contain priorities because no group will admit that another group should have a higher place at the table. The parents' association of a secondary school, diligent, well meaning and well motivated people who are doing their job as they see it, will not agree that primary schools should get a better shake out of any resources allocated to education. However, it is the job of Government to decide those priorities and there is no analysis of that kind in the White Paper. It suffers as a result and is less useful as a guide to what we should do for the development of education in future.
I could say more in a similar vein about second and third level education. However, my point is that this White Paper does not deal properly with the priorities that should be dealt with if we are serious about getting the maximum impact from the very considerable resources we properly devote to the education of our children.
I can impart education, but the process is a mystery to me. I can learn, but that process is also a mystery to me, so I will not speak on the educational theory in the document but will leave it to others. I will deal with the proposed structures. One of the principal parts of this document deals with the establishment of education boards. That idea seems to have been around at least since 1984. The Minister for Education at the time, Gemma Hussey, proposed it in a White Paper. The proposed boards were slightly different but they were still education boards so the idea was not new even then. I was suspicious of it in 1984, and nothing I have heard or seen in the meantime makes me any more seduced by it today than I was then. These boards are supposed to improve the quality, equality, efficiency, relevance and flexibility of delivery of all educational services but I cannot see how establishing ten education boards will improve quality, equality, efficiency and relevance. It may do something about flexibility of delivery, but that is compromised by other factors referred to later in this chapter. It is not, therefore, obvious that splitting the operation into ten different boards will do any more for the delivery of education services than eight health boards do for the delivery of health services. This thinking was fashionable and current and perhaps even relevant in the 1960s and early 1970s, but it is far less relevant today. If people looked honestly at our structures of public administration they would rapidly come to the conclusion that we do not need eight health boards, and I mean no disrespect to the people working in the health boards, the people working under the aegis of health boards or the members. However a different structure is required today. Eight health boards were needed in the days before we had facsimile transmission and the kind of technology that allows us to put medical data on-line at the end of a computer terminal anywhere in the country. They were a major improvement on the kind of fractionalised delivery we had from county health committees and it is not obvious that they are the kind of structure best suited to the requirements today. Nor is it obvious that setting up ten education boards has any great advantages for our education system now, particularly in the light of the restrictions on what they do. We are told in the White Paper of what is called the desirability of releasing the Department of Education from much of its current involvement in the detailed delivery of services to schools. That is fine if we want to do that.