I thank the joint committee for the invitation to make this presentation.
The Church of Ireland Board of Education, of which I am secretary, serves not only Church of Ireland schools but also Presbyterian, Methodist and what are called federal schools, that is, schools with joint patronage, a significant number of which are small rural schools. Many have a principal who must combine two full-time roles, that of class teacher and administrative principal. It is appropriate that the committee should be looking at issues of management during the 30th anniversary of the inception of boards of management.
Boards of management involve parents, teachers, the patron and community representatives and operate in partnership as corporate bodies. It is a system which has served schools, school communities and the Department of Education and Science well during the years. However, the system is based on voluntarism. Each board member has been prepared to make a significant voluntary contribution of time and talent to the work of a board of management. The days when boards of management merely met three times a year — the statutory minimum — are long gone. Each board member will undertake a particular role in conjunction with management, in addition to his or her normal contribution to the board's deliberations.
The Education Act 1998 marked a significant development in the role of boards of management. Until that year they operated under the rules for national schools and the constitution for such boards. Little else of their role was reflected in legislation. Therefore, the Education Act 1998 brought about a fundamental change. It has produced huge challenges for schools, administratively and institutionally, in the past seven years. It has been an energising but energy-sapping time; creative but also difficult for all involved in educational management, including patrons, boards of management, principals, teaching staff, parents and students, although they may not be aware of it.
As these developments have been taking place, it has been overlooked that the system continues to be dependent on the professionalism and goodwill of boards of management. There is a danger that their willingness and that of their individual members is being taken for granted. I was asked to address a meeting of new boards of management in Cork in 2003. I brought various visual aids which were piled up in front of those listening to me. I informed members of the audience that they had a duty of care to staff, students, parents and visitors and that they were required to comply with the provisions of the Education Act 1998 and the Education (Welfare) Act 2000. They now also have to comply with the provisions of the Education for Persons with Special Educational Needs Act 2004. I informed them that they needed to be familiar and comply with circulars issued by the Department of Education and Science, by new bodies such as the National Educational Welfare Board, the Special Needs Council and the NCCA.
When I brought the list up on the powerpoint presentation slides, one unfortunate chairperson, a lady, interrupted me to ask who was responsible and had a duty of care to her and her fellow board members. While I was telling them about their duties, they were worried about the fact that they carried all the responsibility and wanted to know where it was leading. The appropriate answer was that the patron or patronage body had the responsibility and a duty of care to the board of management but the chairperson in question drew attention to the fact that voluntarism was under threat from the increasing burden of legislation and other requirements.
Trinity College Dublin has repeatedly run a seminar called Suing Primary Schools which is constantly over-subscribed and highlights the justifiable anxiety of board members. In addition to requirements under law, there is an endless list of burdens, including recruitment, insurance, community relations, educational development, industrial relations, financial management and fund-raising.
In an eight member board of management seven are volunteers. I do not say boards of management are performing badly. I simply draw the joint committee's attention to the increasing anxiety felt by board members that will make it harder to get people to serve on boards long enough to build up the expertise and ability to continue. It is not a negative picture as schools are managed effectively. There is a spirit of partnership between boards, principals, teaching staff, parents and pupils.
In early June I had the privilege of attending the opening of an extension and refurbishment of a national school in Monasterevin. The board had received a devolved capital grant and undertaken the work. It had done so with the chairperson and the principal being on the site every week throughout the summer, with the two having effectively undertaken to be the project managers. The treasurer had been busy trying to balance grant payments against the stage payments to the builders. The board and the local community were involved in fund-raising to cover the gap between the grant and the cost. The result is a tribute to the Department of Education and Science for providing the devolved grant and to the local community. It is an example of effective management, with a fine building existing which is a fine service to the pupils. Thankfully, there is no debt on the project.
State funding is required for training. In the current session, no State funding has been forthcoming for boards of management. Training has been provided through management bodies but in the past, with central funding, it was possible to provide more frequent training on a partnership basis. In other words, the organisations represented here together with CPSMA, INTO and NPC planned and ensured the delivery of high quality balanced training throughout the country in the past. This was funded by the Department at a cost that was not large, although it was significant that the funding was available for people to come together, to pay for experts and to provide for the cost of board members attending the training. It was a small acknowledgement that people, some of them travelling quite a distance, giving up their time should not have to pay for travel expenses. The Minister referred to funding but to date it has not been forthcoming. Training has continued to be provided by the individual education partners.
In particular, the role of treasurer has become very onerous and technically demanding. In small schools, payment of part-time caretakers and secretaries must be made by the treasurer. The funding comes from the State but the treasurer must arrange tax and PRSI deductions and remit them. This must be carried out in the correct manner.
There is a useful book on self-evaluation for schools, entitled Looking at our School, which is produced by the inspectorate. It refers to the quality of procedures for the management of the school’s financial resources and efficiency of expenditure planning. If such terms are mentioned to the average treasurer, the person will look askance as many do not have accounting expertise. These people carry out these tasks with goodwill and to the best of their ability. Ideally, schools need a skilled administrator or accounting technician who would perhaps serve a cluster of schools and provide administrative backup for principals. This would ensure that boards could achieve a benchmark set out in assessing schools. The trouble is that the current ancillary services grant leads to boards paying at the level of or just above the minimum wage. At the very least, funding for expert training must be made available for treasurers and other roles discharged by board members.
Training is complemented by an advisory service in schools that I represent. The efficiency of this service is dependent on the briefing and opportunity to interface with the Department of Education and Science, and the opportunity to be consulted and briefed on current developments. We welcome this as the process has always been beneficial. Regrettably, we were not briefed this year in advance of the introduction of the general allocation model for special education provision, and this made it more difficult to advise the schools on this service. We welcome the general allocation model and it will be beneficial. However, many glitches were evident in working out clusters etc. which may have been overcome if consultations had taken place in advance.
We acknowledge the improved capitation grant and other funding. The benefit of the increase is rapidly eroded with increases in local service charges, insurance, heating and lighting etc. The removal of the local contribution was a welcome development, but in reality the majority of schools still undertake significant fund-raising because central funding is not sufficient to provide the range of equipment and services required. While the increase in capitation grant in recent years is welcome and we congratulate the Minister, the increase must be on an ongoing basis. The resources must be enhanced, particularly now that the general allocation model is in effect. Funding must be given to schools to provide necessary supports for teachers providing special education services. The current grant, when it was introduced, was very small.
Small schools have utilised the concept of clustering for sharing services. A potential benefit could come from using clustering for shared management. Many schools belong to different clusters for different reasons. Clustering for management would need stability and a commonality of ethos if it were to work effectively. Some work has been done in this area and the opportunity for piloting should be considered and further developed.
I referred to the raft of legislation and compliance requirements. In an ideal world, it would be wonderful to seek these for simplicity and clarity. It is very difficult for a board trying to carry out its duties to look at legislation, no matter how well drafted. It is ludicrous that the rules for national schools were published in 1965, although they have been amended periodically since then. The only printed edition remains the 1965 version. There is no up-to-date edition, yet the rules are quoted in many types of legal situations. This is a very simple thing but it is time consuming. We have discussed with the Department the need to allocate one person, probably someone like a barrister, to work through the rules and update them. This task must be done as one cannot be expected to drive a modern car with a manual for a model made in 1965.
With regard to the complaints procedure, which I know some of my colleagues will refer to, a structure is in place where a parent raises a complaint. We have discussed and worked on a revision to this procedure over a number of years. Much of this work was complete but the process stopped because of a drafting issue. We are therefore still working with a format formulated a long time ago and which needs to be urgently revised.
I have referred to boards of management in general and in particular as corporate bodies. I am not overlooking the person charged with daily management of the school and who is responsible for the creation, with the board, of a school environment supportive of learning. This is the role of the principal as the ex officio member, and the principal is clearly pivotal to the delivery of management. The board supports the principal and ensures that the vision and tradition of the school and its community are reflected through the life of the school. In the context of this presentation it is impossible to examine this role in detail, but I have no doubt the committee has looked at and will again consider the issues surrounding principalship.
It is worth noting, as I have a particular concern for smaller schools, that the advent of administrative days, as opposed to the terrible term "release days", for teaching principals has been a welcome development. Training is still hindered in some small schools by a lack of principal's office or even a staff room which might be used as the office or by insufficient secretarial support. This is again a small issue but it points to a need to make boards of management and principals as efficient as possible by giving them the most effective resources and training.