Seanad Éireann debate -
Wednesday, 4 Mar 1936

Vol. 20 No. 28

Private Business. - School Attendance Bill, 1936— Committee Stage.

Section 1 agreed to.

SECTION 2.

Mr. Johnson

I move:

Section 2, sub-section (1). To delete the sub-section and to substitute the following new sub-section therefor:—

(1) Sub-section (3) of Section 4 of the Principal Act is hereby amended by the substitution in that sub-section of the words and figures "the year 1940" for the words and figures "the year 1936."

The object of the amendment is to confine the exemption from school attendance for the future to the spring period and to delete from the Principal Act that portion of the section which refers to the period 1st August to 15th October. It will be remembered that the Principal Act was one for regulating and making obligatory attendance at school and for providing much more effective machinery to this end than any that had been operating prior to its passing. Section 4, which is referred to in this Bill, gave parents certain liberties. That is to say, it enabled the parent in an agricultural district to keep his children from school during certain periods of the year. The Minister, who introduced the Principal Act, as I mentioned last week, blushed for having to insert such a section in the Bill but, in deference to the pleas put forward by the agricultural community, the section was inserted. The Oireachtas, at that time, definitely fixed the year 1936 as the limit of such exemption, it being then claimed and believed that a period of ten years would accustom the community generally, including the agriculturists, to more regular school attendance on the part of the children. It was pointed out then, as it has been pointed out since, that in certain parts of the country — particularly in those counties where small farmers form the great majority and where many of these small farmers migrate in the spring months—it would be difficult to get in crops in these spring months but for the services of children of from 12 to 14 years of age.

In respect of the harvest, I contend that different conditions prevail. The school year is broken for five or six weeks in harvest time. It is fairly well agreed — it was in the debates in 1926 — that the children's assistance in the harvest period can be availed of during the school holiday period. The section I seek to delete extends the holiday period by ten days — that is to say, by two school weeks. This is really the effect of the exemption. It must be remembered that, in most rural districts, the holiday period is made to fit in with the harvest conditions of the locality. As we go north, the holiday period is later and it is asserted by those who have very close contact with, and knowledge of, the circumstances that, in fact, the period of five weeks — sometimes it is six weeks — is ample to enable children to give all the assistance required on the farms, and that the school vacation can be made to coincide with these harvest needs without the necessity of extending the period by a fortnight. This, in effect, means that out of the 11 weeks mentioned in the sub-section the schools are closed, so far as these children are concerned, for seven weeks. I maintain that, if the harvest conditions in any school area require the services of the children, it is far better to close the school entirely. The educational losses due to broken classes and unsatisfactory attendance — some children being absent this week and some next week — coupled with the general disorganisation of the school, make it desirable that the school should be closed entirely rather than that this exemption method should be followed. It must be borne in mind as the dominant factor in this matter that the children are taught in classes. If the loose attendance at these classes which is invited by this section prevails, the whole of the educational advantage of class work is lost. Not merely are the children who are absent disadvantaged but those who attend are disadvantaged because of the disorganisation of the school. The effect of the amendment is, therefore, to confine the ten days' exemption period allowed in the section to the spring period, from the 17th March to the 15th May, and to make it obligatory that the children of the rural areas, as well as the towns, should attend school in the normal way in the autumn, and that the ten days' exemption allowed at that period should no longer prevail. I think, educationally, there is nothing to be said for the maintenance of this section at all. Economically, there may be something to be said for the exemption in the spring months, but there is no ground either economically or educationally for the continued exemption to the autumn months.

Mr. Cummins

I should like to support this amendment. I wonder is it ever contemplated what amount of work a child of that age is capable of doing in the day. The harvest work does not begin until the fields are well aired. That is generally known.

Senators

Oh, no.

Mr. Cummins

It is quite true. Work begins when the fields are well aired and it is doubtful whether the farmers want that particular work earlier. A child has ample scope for the exhausting of its energies for three or four hours. Three or four hours' work for ten days can be done during the best part of the day. I maintain, although the Minister does not agree, that it has no vocational trend. It is not hard labour, and it means variety; and a child in the evening is quite capable of devoting himself very effectively to three or four hours' work in the field without any damage to his health and with some assistance to the farmer and, perhaps, economic help to him also. I think it is unthinkable that a child should be set to work and should be expected to work the same length of the day as the farmer in the fields.

There is another matter. In recent years help was not so much required for the simple reason that, in many cases, the introduction of machinery has obviated the need for more help. I quite agree that in the poorer districts in the West of Ireland modern machinery cannot be introduced so easily, and I agree that the farmers there have great difficulty in reaping their corn. At the same time, the loss suffered to the child of the small farmer by long breaks in attendance at school is not compensated for by the help given by those children in the fields. If it is considered that help is necessary owing to the conditions prevailing in some parts of the country, I am in agreement with Senator Johnson that it would be as well to close the school rather than dispense with attendance in the senior classes. That leads to attendance in the junior classes falling off as well. In many cases the juniors will not attend unless their brothers and sisters of the senior classes are there also. There is always a distinct falling off, not only in the senior classes, but also in the junior classes if the elder brothers and sisters are not there to travel with the others. These are some of the reasons that I put forward. I think the help that can be given by children is not a tremendous lot in the autumn time. I believe they could give useful help in putting down potatoes in the spring; but in the autumn, where the school holidays are so regulated as to coincide with the harvest, regulations extending the school period vacation by ten days at the beginning of the academic year is a very serious handicap to the education of the whole of the people.

Another point is this. Rural schools are fast diminishing in their numbers. If that continues in many places we will see facilities for education removed in great measure from those schools. In one county alone, the County Kerry, some 70 or 80 teachers have lost their position or were threatened with loss of their position owing to the decrease in attendances. That has been remedied to some extent by recent legislation, but the loss of a teacher in a locality is a very grave matter. In many country schools the extension of the holidays, and the breaking up of the period of holidays, may be the means of losing the services of a teacher in that locality which is, in itself, as I say, a very serious matter. If this is insisted on, either of two things should be done. The school should be closed altogether for the period, or else the attendance of the children engaged on the farm should be reckoned as attendance at school. The Minister made a good case when he said that this had a vocational trend. If it has a vocational trend then those days spent on the farm should be reckoned and should be paid for as full attendance at school. I beg to support the amendment.

Mr. Baxter

I have been engaged in this kind of debate before with Senator Johnson, who was then on the same side as he is now. I had the same view then that I have now. I am not at all convinced by anything that Senator Cummins said. The Senator ought to know Ireland better. It is one thing to know Kildare; it is another thing to know Ireland. He said that the conditions that this section of the Bill was inserted to meet still exist, and as far as we can see are going to exist for a considerably longer period. I do not think the people in the poorer districts of Ireland want to keep their children from school when the work is done. Small farmers are as anxious that their children should be kept at school as are the parents of children far better off. They will only keep them from school if there is work to be done, and work which must be done, and which cannot be done unless by the children as there is nobody else to do it. If the Senator understood the soil conditions, and the climatic conditions along the seaboard, and in counties like my own and in Cork and Kerry, he would realise the very few days you have to put in your crop in the spring, and the short period there is for the harvesting of certain crops in the autumn season. Any help, at these periods, is very valuable. It is a time when help is scarce and when you cannot get it from anybody else. The sack of corn that cannot be collected then, may not be collected for months. That is the situation, and it was well understood when the Bill was brought in. I think the Minister is quite right in the attitude he has taken up.

With regard to the other point that the children will do the work when they come home from school in the evening; if Senator Cummins had the experience I had coming home from school, travelling a couple of miles, then chased out to the fields, he would think differently. I wonder does he know what the teacher would say the next day when he found the home lessons were not finished. The teacher very often is not particularly concerned about the gathering of the hay, and of the corn; he is more concerned about the tasks that have to be done. That child should not be brought out to do harvesting in the fields in the evening, and if there was one argument I would expect Senator Cummins to make it would be that.

Mr. Boyle

Quite irrespective of Party affiliations, I am going to support the Bill as introduced by the Minister, and to oppose the amendment. The arguments adduced by Senator Johnson, Senator Cummins and Senator Farren do not by any means seem convincing. With much of what has been said about the disadvantages to education accruing from the granting of these concessions in spring and in autumn, I find myself in agreement. I certainly do not agree with that part of the argument put forward by the Minister in support of the Bill where he contends that this "light agricultural work" should be regarded as vocational education. I am not unacquainted with vocational education matters and I have no hesitation in saying that the educational value of this work is so very slight that it may be disregarded as negligible. The sole justification for this Bill lies in the economic necessity which obliges the small farmer to avail during the periods specified in the Bill of valuable help which his children can render. The necessities of farming and the fickleness of the weather, which so often necessitate the getting of help hurriedly, justify the renewal of these two sub-sections of the original School Attendance Act. I am quite satisfied that there is sufficient justification, especially in view of the increased tillage policy which is being pursued by the State. Regarding the suggestion by Senator Johnson that the school as a whole should be closed rather than grant this exemption from attendance, I am afraid he does not fully realise what rural conditions are. The concession is for ten days, but the farmers do not do their work simultaneously, and surely the Senator does not seriously suggest the closing of the schools for two or three months at a time. As regards the effect of the sub-sections on attendance at schools, whilst it is highly undesirable that there should be any interruption in the regularity of it, I do not believe that there has been on the whole any serious abuse of the concession. The relevant statistics are rather satisfactory.

I do, however, make one or two suggestions to the Minister. To my mind, in the enforcing of the Act care should be taken to see that the children to whom the Act applies do this work only on the holdings of their parents, and that the work done should be such as properly comes under the definition of "light" agricultural work. Another point that strikes me forcibly is the advisability of considering the operation of these sub-sections from the point of view of the children's health. The medical inspection of schools is proving of invaluable service in promoting the health of the rising generation. Has the Minister considered that children, and remember, we are dealing with children who may not be more than 12 years old— has he considered that some of these young children whom the county medical officer of health may deem by no means physically fit may be put out to do agricultural work that should certainly not be regarded as light enough for them? I hope the Minister will consider these points.

With regard to the proposal in the amendment to substitute the year 1940 for the year 1936, if Senator Johnson had proposed 1938, making the period after which this question would come up for revision two years rather than one, I might be prepared to support him, but so far as I can judge at the present it would be a very serious thing to tell the farmers that in the succeeding spring or the succeeding harvest they would be deprived of the very limited but necessary and useful services which their children have been accustomed to render at these busy periods. I do not differ with Senator Johnson, Senator Farren and Senator Cummins on many of the points they have made. I would like to say that the question of declining averages should be considered apart from the question before us. The general question of the effect of declining averages is one which should be put up forcibly to the Minister, and it is up to him to consider if teachers are thereby losing their positions what he should do about it. A day's light agricultural work, whether looked upon as vocational education or not, if done on the home farm within the terms of the concession granted in the Bill could be regarded as a day's attendance just as days spent in a hospital or clinic under the medical inspection scheme may be so reckoned.

Minister for Education (Mr. Derrig)

Senator Boyle apparently does not agree with Senator Cummins on this question of averages and I think Senator Boyle's point of view is right, that if there is a question of averages it ought to be dealt with directly. In fact, it has been dealt with. Formerly teachers in whose schools the attendance had fallen over a period of two quarters were jeopardised in continuing to hold their positions, but recently that matter has been rectified to the extent that the attendance must fall over four quarters before teachers' positions will become jeopardised. I have had figures prepared in the office showing the effect of this exemption on the attendance but these are restricted owing to the ages of children involved and also because the periods in question did not fall into definite periods of the year. The two periods in question overlap two quarters each — the earlier period would be distributed over two quarters and the later period over two quarters also. In any case, the effect of the concession was that the reduction in attendance was infinitesimal. I think it is well below 1 per cent., and I can definitely assure the House that it was so small as to be practically negligible. Had it been a serious matter we should, of course, have adverted to the fact in deciding to re-enact the sub-sections but it is very noticeable that the question has not been raised until it was raised this evening. I was surprised, because I think the concession of four quarters met the teachers, and it was generally admitted by representatives of the teachers that the matter was settled satisfactorily.

In regard to the question of light agricultural work, it would be hardly possible for the Department of Education to get the Civic Guards to ensure that the children were actually employed on the land and also to see that parents would not overwork their children if they were in a delicate state of health. We must leave that to the parents concerned.

I do not see the point in the line of demarcation that Senator Johnson draws between the spring and the harvest. I think Senators have shown clearly that the help of children is necessary and that it is an economic necessity, perhaps even greater in the harvest when weather conditions count so much, than it is in the spring season. While I do not say that in certain instances there has not been a certain amount of work done during the holiday period, we cannot be sure that all the necessary work can be done during that period. A certain amount of work might be done in thinning turnips in June, and the picking of potatoes is done in the later period of the year. In certain areas I know, children are kept away from school for the potato picking, that is, in counties like Donegal. Therefore, I think there is a case of definite economic necessity. That is really, as Senator Boyle pointed out, the great reason for this Bill. It might be difficult to defend it on strictly educational grounds and in mentioning that this work had a definite vocational trend, I simply suggested that it had. I did not try to argue that it has overwhelming educational advantages but stressed the fact that it has vocational advantages and gives the child a liking for the soil and helps to prepare him or her for life on the land.

I do not think, A Chathaoirligh, that there are any other points beyond the special point of economic necessity, which is, as I have said, the main cause of the Bill, as the House fully appreciates. There is the fact that the concession in question was agreed to, as Senator Baxter has pointed out, in 1926, and if we depart from the understanding — to my mind it is a clear understanding — in regard to one period it seems difficult to see why we should continue the enactment merely for the spring period. I regret I cannot see my way therefore to accept the amendment.

Mr. Johnson

I agree entirely with the Minister when he says that there is a certain illogicality in deleting only the autumn period of the year and leaving the spring. I oppose both spring and autumn but I contend that there is a somewhat stronger case on the ground of economic necessity in respect of the spring period, because of the fact that there is no holiday in the spring except the Easter holiday, which does not coincide with any particular period of the year and is the same in all parts of the country. The autumn holiday, however, has been varied of design to accord with the harvesting conditions of the particular school area. That is why I wish to make the distinction. This talk of economic necessity might apply to the whole of the country, towns as well as rural areas. Take the economic necessity of the mother of a girl of 12 years of age who wants to go out to work and leave the young children in charge of the elder one. Is there no economic necessity there? Yet you compel the child of 12 in the town — the daughter of that mother who wants to go to work — to attend school. There is no word in defence of this particular section of the Bill that cannot be applied with the same strength to the child of the poor person in the town. But this is an Education Bill — a School Attendance Bill, and the case that was made to-day against this particular section was made by Senator Baxter in the Dáil against the Act as a whole.

Mr. MacEllin

No.

Mr. Johnson

Someone is contradicting me, but I was there.

Mr. MacEllin

I was there too.

Mr. Johnson

I did not raise the question of averages. I am not speaking on behalf of the teachers. I am pleading on behalf of the children and I am backing up the purpose which the School Attendance Act of 1926 sought to serve. It is quite clear that I am not going to get much support in this House. In 1926 we had a fortuitous combination of Deputies Thrift and Good and O'Connell, with the then Minister, Deputy O'Sullivan, and Deputy Mulcahy — quite a mixed combination — but a combination at one in believing that this particular section was a bad one, but that it might be conceded for ten years. Now the Minister for Education comes along and without any apology asserts that it is important that it should be renewed for a period of four years. Senator Boyle suggested that it should be let run for two years. Why for two years? If it is a good principle it should be permanent. Is it that Senator Boyle thinks that the agricultural conditions are so terribly bad to-day but will be improved in two years' time? He is then ranging himself alongside Senator Baxter who in 1926 said that agricultural conditions were so bad that he pleaded and emphatically demanded that this period should be increased— not that it should be merely a ten days' period, but that it should be extended and made to cover a much longer period. Senator Boyle says that to-day, and he is at one with Senator Baxter.

Mr. Baxter

What did Senator Cummins say about the attendance?

Mr. Johnson

I am leaving Senator Cummins to defend himself. I cannot do it. When I have Senator Cummins making the case which he has made and Senator Boyle ranging himself with the Minister for Education I am afraid I am not in very good fortune but, nevertheless, I will ask the Seanad to approve the amendment.

Question put and on a show of hands the amendment was declared lost.

Sections 2 and 3 and the Title of the Bill put and agreed to.

Ordered that the Bill be reported.

Report Stage fixed for next Wednesday, 11th March.

The House adjourned at 7.28 p.m. until 3 p.m. on Wednesday, 11th March, 1936.