I desire to draw attention to a certain circular issued early this year by the Minister for Education to the managers and teachers of national schools, in which he set forth his intention to do something which, in my opinion—and I hope to prove later that it is correct—he has no authority or right to do. In view of the several incidents which have occurred in recent times, when the courts had to be appealed to to prevent the Minister from doing something which he persisted in doing, despite strong representations and strongly expressed opinions to the contrary, one would imagine that he would walk circumspectly before purporting to frame or issue regulations which would lay obligations on parents, pupils, managers or even teachers. Evidently, he has not seen fit to benefit by his experience in that direction.
Some 14 or 15 years ago, a scheme was introduced which provided that pupils in the higher standards in national schools might be presented each year for an examination. The papers for this examination were to be set by the Department, and successful students were to be awarded a certificate called the primary certificate. It was optional for schools to present pupils. For reasons to which I will refer later, the scheme never was popular, and, on the Minister's own statement, not more than 20 per cent. of the schools at any time took part in this scheme of examination, and at times it was less than 20 per cent. It does not seem to have occurred to the Minister that there was a good reason for this, that the teachers and managers may have considered that it was not in the best interests of their pupils to submit them to this test at such an early age. It appears that the Minister must have thought there was another reason—possibly, that it was due to the indifference or even neglect of managers and teachers in not submitting the children for this examination—and so the Minister decided to apply the principle of compulsion.
In January of this year, he notified managers and teachers that the old regulation providing for the optional examination had been withdrawn, and that a new rule had been promulgated making the examination compulsory. Here it is that I say he has exceeded his powers, and has done something for which he has no authority in law. The material portion of the new regulation reads as follows:—
"The examination will be compulsory for all pupils on the rolls of the sixth or higher standards who are not absent owing to reasonable cause."
Let us see exactly what this means. There is no Act of Parliament, there is no Statutory Order, or other authority that I know of which gives the right to the Minister to compel pupils to sit for a particular examination; nor is there any authority to empower the Minister to penalise a parent who refuses to allow his child to submit to an examination. I think that must be taken for granted. What then is the force of the regulation? On whom is the compulsion to be imposed? The teacher, of course, is under the authority of the Minister and the teacher is required, according to the regulation, to make certain returns. He has to furnish certain particulars stating the number of children who happen to be enrolled in his school in the Sixth and higher standards, their attendances and other particulars with regard to them. He is bound to do that; he must do it; the regulation compels him to do it. Then this form has to be given to the manager. The manager is requested—he is not required or ordered; I presume the Minister felt he was not in a position to order the manager to do anything—to sign this document and to send it to the Education Office.
Then, according to the regulation, and according to the circular, the whole responsibility for making the arrangements in connection with the holding of the examination—the arrangement of centres, the appointment and nomination of superintendents, what I might call the responsibility for the local work—is placed on the shoulders of the manager. His co-operation is asked for and it is hoped it will be got. But suppose the manager should refuse to accept that responsibility—as I know some managers have refused and will refuse, because they do not consider the examination is in the best interests of the children—what then is the Minister's position? How is the Minister to compel the manager to accept responsibility and what is the force of the word "compulsory" so far as this particular regulation is concerned? It all boils down to this: that the only compulsion he can impose in connection with the examination is on the teacher, and then only to this limited extent, that the teacher is compelled to fill up a form and give particulars of the number of children enrolled in his school in a particular class. Therefore, as I said, to talk of a compulsory examination, to suggest it is obligatory on the pupils to sit for this examination, is, in my opinion, so much nonsense. It is a clumsy attempt to interfere with the discretion of the schools by attempting to compel them to do something that 80 per cent. of them have hitherto refused to do for their own good reasons. I suggest that that is bureaucracy in excelsis.
In the Dáil a week or two ago, on the occasion of the debate on the Education Estimates, the Minister occupied a considerable time in giving a history of this examination. He spent much more time in dealing with that aspect of the case than in pointing out any advantages, if there are any advantages, which are to be derived from this examination. I do not think he referred at all to that aspect of the case. He detailed the representations made to him by the teachers over a long period of years, eventuating in their refusal to co-operate in carrying out the examination. Apparently it was this refusal on the part of the teachers to have anything to do with the examination which finally decided the Minister to make this new departure and to introduce what he calls a compulsory examination. Here are his words. I quote from column 230 of Volume 90 of the Official Reports:—
"In 1941, in view of the failure to achieve co-operation on a voluntary basis, it was decided to proceed with the consideration of a compulsory scheme."
There we have in the Minister's own words the reason which impelled him to make this attempt to impose his will on the schools. We know that whenever the Minister is asked to set up a council of education or some body which would advise him in matters of educational administration, or when new departures are being entered upon, he makes the point that there is no necessity for any such advisory body, that he is always ready to consult the teachers and ascertain their views. That is quite true. It is only right to say that the present Minister has never refused to meet the teachers, to listen to their representations and discuss educational problems with them. But it is equally true to say that, in the case of many of the major changes which have been made in recent years, the representations made by the teachers have been completely disregarded. He is quite willing to meet the teachers and listen to their views; but there does not seem to be much use in that if, having listened to them, he disregards them, as he has done in a number of cases. I am not referring to cases which concern the personal interests of the teachers. I am thinking rather of such questions as the supply of teachers, school attendance legislation, school programmes, and so on. Senators will remember the Minister's attitude to the carefully prepared and documented report of the teachers in regard to the teaching of Irish; how their views, founded on evidence and temperately stated, were treated by the Minister, and their motives even misrepresented. The misrepresentations were repeated a week or two ago on the occasion of the debate on the Education Estimates.
Here again we have the case of the primary certificate in connection with which strong representations were made on the part of the teachers that that certificate achieved no useful purpose, in fact that it was injurious to the interests of the children under their care. These representations have been disregarded. When the voluntary scheme was introduced 14 or 15 years ago the teachers agreed to give it a trial. They did not feel justified in objecting to it, as they had no experience of it, apart from purely theoretical views. After it was in operation on a voluntary basis for six or seven years, opinions began to crystallise amongst the teachers and from time to time objections were raised to it. In 1938 the teachers' executive took a referendum of the branches and invited the teachers to give their views. The general view of the teachers, as expressed through their branches, was that not only was it impracticable in operation and difficult to operate, but that it was actually injurious to the interests of the children.
Having got the views of the teachers in that way, the executive of the teachers' organisation decided that they would make inquiries and investigations as to the position in other countries with regard to this question of examinations. They learned that investigations into the question of examinations had been going on in other countries over a long period of years and that just about that time two important international investigations had taken place and reports had been issued. I wish to quote from an address by Dr. William Boyd, head of the Department of Education of Glasgow University and one of the founders of the Scottish Council of Educational Research. Speaking on the subject of examinations at the New Zealand Conference of the New Education Fellowship in 1937 he said:—
"Examinations have had their critics, but never so many or so well-informed critics as to-day. Within the last ten years there have been two important inquiries regarding the working of the examination system in different countries, one by the New Education Fellowship and the other by the Carnegie Corporation of America. Approaching the subject from different angles, they have reached a similar conclusion, and the joint effect is most damaging. Under examination, the examination system in all its phases has come out a rank failure. It proves to have two very serious weaknesses, (a) the measurement of human capacities and their products, which it professes to make, is most unsatisfactory, and (b) the effects on the educational and personal sides of school life are demoralising."
Some time before this, the joint advisory body in England, which is made up of representatives of the local education authorities, the teaching organisations and the Ministry of Education, or, as it is called there, the Board of Education, had conducted an inquiry into this question of examinations. The inquiry extended over two years and a huge mass of evidence was obtained and examined—evidence from the local educational authorities, from teaching organisations, from inspectors and from educational experts of various kinds. They produced a very valuable report, running to something like 300 pages, and here is a significant extract, which seems to be specially applicable to the issue I am now raising:
"We deprecate the preparation and entering of pupils in elementary schools for external examinations for the purpose of obtaining certificates at as early an age as 14."
What I am saying here is no news to the Minister. The views of the teachers and the result of their investigations were embodied in a long memorandum and submitted to the Minister in September, 1938. I should say that the teachers, in giving their views, were not in any way influenced by these expert views which I have quoted, because they were not known to the teachers. The investigation made by the executive was not made until after the teachers had given their own views, so that the teachers gave their views entirely on the basis of their own experience. It is interesting to note that the conclusions arrived at by the teachers spontaneously, and, as it were, haphazardly, as a result of their practical experience, their common sense and their knowledge of the children under their care, were almost identical with those arrived at by experts after long years of investigation and examination of evidence. The executive sent a considered memorandum on the subject to the Minister in September, 1938, and I venture to quote one or two extracts from it which summed up the views of the teachers on the position. They wrote:
"All the evidence produced in the course of these investigations tended to show that a formal external examination was especially harmful in the case of young children of elementary school age, that despite any safeguards which could be devised it gave rise to, and encouraged, the evil practice of cramming; that it fostered in the minds of the children a false idea of the aim and purpose of education, leading them to believe that the be-all and end-all of their school life was the acquisition of sufficient knowledge to enable them to pass the examination; that it is not always the most capable pupil who will come out best at such an examination; and that failure on the part of a pupil begets a feeling of inferiority and a loss of confidence in himself which may have very deleterious results on his future career.
"In the opinion of the executive, the examination confers no advantages commensurate with the expense involved in its administration or the trouble and inconvenience it causes to teachers and managers and the disorganisation of school work, not to mention the psychological effects on the minds of the children as found in the course of the expert investigations already referred to. Even if the examination were not a bad thing in itself the Department must by this time have realised the great practical difficulty of devising a scheme which could be regarded as suitable for operation on a national basis. The conditions here are definitely unfavourable to such a scheme. The disparity which exists between the circumstances of individual schools is greater here than in most countries, and the attempt to set up a common standard is not only impossible but highly inadvisable."
I should say that one of the advantages which this examination is supposed to have is that it will indicate to the teachers and the schools a standard for which they are expected to strive. In other words, it would put all the schools in the country on the same level. The well-equipped and highly-staffed school in Whitehall, or the Central Model School in the city, is to get exactly the same examination papers as the little one-teacher school on the mountain side in Kerry, Donegal or Connemara, in which one teacher tries to teach every pupil from the infant class to the sixth standard. There is to be the same standard and the same examination paper for all. It the standard set out in the paper is fixed to suit the average small school— the one-teacher or two-teacher school— surely it will depress the standard now being reached in the better equipped schools, and if the standard is fixed to suit the better equipped schools, it will discourage the smaller schools which can never hope to reach that standard. I think it entirely wrong to attempt to create something in the way of a national standard for which the pupils in all national schools, irrespective of their circumstances, are expected to strive.
Then, again, the examination is to be a written examination in only three subjects—Irish, English and arithmetic. Forty per cent. will secure a pass for the primary certificate and 30 per cent. in English will be sufficient in the Irish-speaking districts. We are repeatedly told that the most important subject in the national school curriculum at present is oral Irish and the most important object to be achieved at the end of the child's school life is that he or she should be able to speak Irish fairly fluently. There is no examination in oral Irish, the most important subject in the school programme and there is no examination in oral English which is supposed to be the second most important subject in the school programme. A pupil with an attendance of 50 per cent. may sit for the examination and may be awarded the certificate. There is an encouragement to the bad attender at school.
We have no arrangement in this country, as they have in most modern countries, for the segregation of the sub-normal child, or even the weak-minded child. They are all bunched together in the same classrooms and it is the policy—and I do not disagree with it—to promote these children from class to class with their age groups, even though very often they have not been able to make the same progress in educational matters as the others. It is, however, considered better from the psychological point of view—and I thoroughly agree—that the lad or girl who is not able to pass along year by year from the purely educational point of view ought not to be left as a big boy or girl in the infant or first classes, but ought to be moved on to his age group. In most schools there will be two, three or four of these lads who, of course, are supposed to be presented for the examination also.
It is further suggested that parents are anxious for this examination. I do not know on what evidence that suggestion is founded. I have not seen any evidence of that anxiety and I do not know what steps the Minister has taken to consult parents or the representatives of parents. It is said that the results of the examination will let parents know what is being done in the schools. In other words, the success of our educational effort in the national schools is to be measured by the number of children who will get 40 per cent. in a written examination in three school subjects, two of which were regarded hitherto as minor subjects.
It has been hinted, though not formally suggested, that the examination will keep the teachers up to the mark and be a check on their work. There is no body of public servants, no body of teachers, inside or outside this country, whose work is more rigidly and carefully inspected than is the work of the national teachers. There is a very efficient inspection system and the reports of the inspectors show that less than 4 per cent. of the teachers fail at any one time to reach the comparatively high standard set down for them by the Department of Education. About 96 per cent. of the teachers are rated by the Department as efficient or highly efficient, and surely that is a more suitable test of the work done in the national schools than can be furnished by this kind of haphazard written examination in three subjects at the end of the child's school term? Let it not be thought for a moment that examinations have disappeared from the schools. As a matter of fact, the teachers are continually examining and testing their children. That is part of the ordinary machinery of teaching. The children are tested and examined by the inspectors and the rating of the teacher, his position generally, are determined largely by the answering of the pupils when they are under examination.
I could go along for quite a time recounting objections to this attempt to set up a common standard, but I think I have said enough to convince most reasonable people that this proposed examination is going to have unfortunate results if it is persisted in, in the way the Minister has indicated. The teachers as a body have refused to have anything to do with it. They refuse to make themselves responsible for something which, after long consideration, they are convinced is not in the interests of the children committed to their care. They have no other motive in adopting their present attitude—I should like to make that quite clear.
It is argued that a boy or girl leaving the national school at 14 years ought to have some certificate to show that he or she has successfully completed the primary school course. I agree with that argument, but I suggest that that can be done quite simply, and much more effectively, in another way, in a way that will avoid all the objections which I have mentioned as applying to this attempt to create a national standard. The persons best suited to testify to the ability and acquirements and character of a child are his teacher and the manager of the school. These are the people who can best testify to what the child is capable of, to his ability and his acquirements. It is quite easy to supply each school with printed certificates and, when a boy or girl reaches the school-leaving age, and prepares to leave school, that boy or girl can be tested by the teacher in all the subjects, not in two or three minor subjects, of the curriculum. The teacher can testify, not only to the standard of acquirement in these subjects, but to something which no examination will discover, and that is the character of the child, his application to work, and any particular bias he may have for this or that subject, for this or that line. This is most important in the case of a child moving to a vocational or a secondary school, because it will be a guide to the new teacher.
The inspector visits a school two or three times every year, and what objection can there be to asking that inspector to check up on the estimate the teacher has formed of the child's ability? If the inspector and the teacher agree that the child has reached a certain standard, the certificate can be signed by the teacher, the inspector and the manager, and that certificate will have considerable value. The certificate that would be issued under this so-called compulsory system would, in my opinion, not be worth the paper it is written on.
The point may be made that the inspector has not time to do this. I do not agree. The inspector visits the school two or three times in the year, and sometimes oftener, and I do not see why he could not, on these occasions, check up on the teacher, who has an estimate made of the child's abilities. No teacher will give a certificate unless it is deserved; he is not going to put into any certificate something that the child does not possess or does not deserve.
There is a sum of £4,500 to be expended under this scheme for compulsory certificate examinations—for presenting children with a certificate which, in my opinion, is worthless. I think the money could be spent more usefully. I do not know whether it is worth while appealing to the Minister, in view of previous experiences here and elsewhere, to alter his view with regard to this particular proposal. I hope that the Seanad will express disapproval of the scheme in view of the objections which I have outlined.