I thank the Chairman and members for the opportunity to come before the committee to deal with this motion. I served as a member of the committee prior to my appointment as Minister of State. I am happy to return in my new role to present the motion.
I am pleased to be here on behalf of the Minister for Education and Science, Deputy Batt O'Keeffe, seeking resolutions from the Dáil and Seanad approving the draft of the order the Minister proposes to make, reserving 32 places in the first year of the bachelor of education degree course at the Church of Ireland College of Education, Rathmines, for students who are members of the Church of Ireland or who belong to the broad Protestant tradition. Making the order and laying it before the Houses arises from the provisions of the Employment Equality Act 1998 and is designed to ensure that the rights and interests of the college, schools with a Protestant ethos, and the students in those schools are provided for.
The Employment Equality Act 1998 prohibits discrimination on a wide range of grounds, including religion. While it deals primarily with discrimination in employment, the Act also extends to discrimination in vocational training. Such training is defined as any system of instruction that enables a person to acquire knowledge to carry on an occupational activity. Teacher training falls within this definition.
For many years, probably since its foundation, the Church of Ireland College of Education has provided training in primary school teaching only to students who come from the Church of Ireland and the broader Protestant tradition. The purpose of this practice is to ensure that there is available to schools under Protestant ownership a sufficient number of teachers who come from a Protestant background and who are trained in an institution with a Protestant ethos.
Most primary schools in the State are privately owned, publicly funded denominational schools. This system of denominational education is underpinned by the Constitution. Collateral to the right of the religious denominations to conduct schools with a particular ethos is their right to ensure that they have available to them a corps of staff belonging to, and trained in, the particular religious denomination of the school. If such staff were not available, the constitutional rights to free profession of religion and the conduct of denominational schools would be seriously impaired.
To avoid imposing what would, in effect, be unconstitutional restrictions on the rights of the denominations in this regard, section 12 of the Employment Equality Act, which prohibits discrimination in vocational training, makes two exceptions. It provides that, for the purpose of ensuring the availability of nurses to hospitals and teachers to primary schools which are denominational in character, and to maintain the religious ethos of the hospitals and the schools, the prohibition of discrimination does not apply in certain circumstances.
In the case of primary schools, the section provides that an educational or training body may apply to the Minister for Education and Science for an order permitting it to reserve places on a vocational training course. The Minister, with the consent of the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform, may then make an order allowing the body to reserve such number of places to meet the needs for teachers in primary schools as is considered appropriate.
The Church of Ireland College of Education has made an application to reserve 32 places for the academic years 2008-09 up to 2012-13 for students who are members of recognised churches in the Protestant tradition. It makes the case that the reservation of 32 places, which is at present the full complement of first year places there, should be made to provide sufficient teachers for Protestant schools during the coming years.
The grounds for the request, as put by the college, are as follows: the necessity of providing a sufficient number of qualified primary teachers to maintain the distinctive ethos of Protestant schools remains the central concern and motivation for seeking the order; primary schools in the Protestant community depend almost exclusively on the college for the provision of an annual supply of well-qualified teachers from a Protestant background; a reported continuing shortage of applicants for teaching positions in Protestant primary schools, particularly small schools in rural areas; an increasing level of retirement of teachers on secondment or availing of job-sharing and career breaks, as well as an increase in the number of posts for learning support and other specialist teachers; and the fact some of those who enter the college will not complete their studies and also, of those who qualify, some will not take up posts in schools with a Protestant ethos or may not teach at all.
In the circumstances set out by the college, the reservation of 32 places for students from the Protestant tradition appears reasonable to ensure that Protestant schools have available to them a sufficient number of teachers who share their value system and religious beliefs. It is proposed that the order now to be made will continue in force for the next five academic years. In the fifth year of the order, it is proposed that the situation will be reviewed and the Oireachtas will then be given a further opportunity to consider the matter.
Apart from the constitutional requirements from which it flows, the order is a necessary support to the maintenance of diversity of values, beliefs and culture in our education system and in society. Given that schools with a Protestant ethos represent only a small minority of primary schools in the State, there is clearly a risk that ethos could be greatly diluted unless specific protection is provided. The order puts in place a protection the Oireachtas considers appropriate and that will guarantee Protestant schools that they can continue to provide education for their students in accordance with their values and beliefs.
