I welcome this Bill as showing that the Government are conscious of the problem involved in making educational facilities available to all our people, although, indeed, I can only regard this as being a first step on the road to tackling a very difficult problem. We are lagging considerably behind other countries in our appreciation of education. We are not lagging behind other countries in the amount of lip service we give to education but when it comes to providing funds for education, it is another matter.
We live in a jet age when we come to discuss transport and such problems, but when it comes to education, we are living in the horse and buggy stage. This Bill is to be welcomed as the first step on the road. The Bill as it is will result, after four years, in making £550,000 available for scholarships both for post-primary and university education. The university share has been set at one-third, or £180,000, that is, £180,000 between some eight full time students which amounts to not more than £22 per head. If we add to this the very small outside funds that will be available for scholarships from the universities, through their own resources or through endowments, it brings the figure to not more than £27 per head. That is our target after four years.
When we look across the Border, we become envious of their position because we find that in Queen's University, Belfast, 64 per cent. of the students have scholarships, of one sort or another, which range up to a maximum of £350. In Great Britain, we find that the situation is even more discouraging because almost 90 per cent. of the students in English universities are grant-aided and while to a certain extent the grants depend on means, for those who have no other means, there is full university support with grants ranging up to £350 per annum. We may take from that the average per student in English universities is not less than £250 per student, which means that our target is to provide only ten per cent. of that and it shows how far behind we are in this respect. Other countries who prize the scientific development of their people have long since taken forward steps in education and we compare most unfavourably with those countries.
However, we must be thankful that a beginning has been made and if we recognise it as only a beginning, we may perhaps see much greater developments in the coming few years. I am not to be taken as advocating that because in this Bill we have got only ten per cent. of the support which is provided in England that the solution should be to increase our scholarships up to ten times the amount contemplated in this Bill. That would involve £3,000,000 which perhaps would be unreasonable. Seeing that University education—and I am dealing with that aspect specifically—is something which is to be prized, the students themselves should in many cases continue to make a heavy contribution to the cost of their education.
The Minister, in seeking to extend this scheme and to bridge the gap between what we provide and what is available elsewhere, might consider meeting the problem to some extent by making interest-free loans available to students in the next grade below the scholarship grade. The scholarship grade, as I read it at the moment, will probably cater for the top 20 per cent. of our students when it is fully implemented but we have the students below that who are very valuable citizens and who, when they have completed their education, may be more valuable than the top 20 per cent. For the next 40 per cent. at least, some system of interest-free loans might be made available by the Government. That would at least establish the position that no student of more than average ability would be without a university education due to lack of means, even if he had to pay some of the money afterwards.
Such a scheme is operated quite effectively in Sweden and also operates widely in the United States of America through various private agencies from which students borrow the necessary amount to go through the university, realising that by increasing their earning potential, they will be able to pay back the money over the first eight or ten years of their professional life. That might be a method of doing something for those good students who will be untouched by this scheme.
The Minister mentioned the choice he had available. I would prefer to regard the present scheme as just supplementing what is available rather than solving the problem as a whole. As a supplement to the existing scheme by which the county councils and corporations provide money it is a reasonable supplement.
I think the county unit is somewhat small. Our experience in the university has been that there is a considerable variability between scholarship candidates from different counties. It means it is far easier, scholastically speaking, to get a scholarship in some counties rather than in others.
The scheme will treble the amount of money made available for scholarships to the university but the present value of these is much too low. They should range from £100 up to £200— probably at a mean of about £150. It is acknowledged to-day that the minimum cost of university education is £300 per annum. Fees and books alone will take £100. Then there is the cost of studying in a university city. Certainly, one will not get any accommodation under £3 3s. a week plus clothing plus other expenses. It will be seen, therefore, that an estimate of £300 is a very modest one and so you cannot regard the present average level of scholarships at £150 to those who have no other means—whose parents are earning perhaps £600 or £700 a year and many even less—as putting university education within their reach. There is still a gap of £150.
The first essential is that the value of the scholarship should be stepped up considerably. I would suggest that, as the first target, it should be stepped up at least 50 per cent., to bring it up to an average of £225 or even higher. That would still leave a gap that would have to be met otherwise by students. If that is the case, it means that treble the value of the amount of money available would only double the number of scholarships. I think that that would be as much as could be administered effectively on a county basis. Otherwise, the disparities between candidates from different counties would be much too great.
Several Senators have advocated a system of State scholarships. I am not altogether enamoured of that idea. What is it seeking to reach? There would be a great deal of duplication. I think it is fair that scholarships are based on the Leaving Certificate examination, as most county scholarships are at present. On what, then, would a State scholarship be based over and above that? I think it would be far better if the additional money were made available to the university colleges themselves, the university centres, to disburse to deserving students according to their standards.
One of the main difficulties you are up against is that the Leaving Certificate examination is only a very rough means of making the decisions on which students are likely to profit from a university education. We find that the first year at the university is very often a far better criterion. In the first year at the university, you have a uniform standard of teaching for all the students and consequently the students very often change their positions considerably.
The difficulty about basing everything on the Leaving Certificate examination is the difference between small schools and large schools which can specialise in scholarships. When we are looking at the results of our scholarship examinations which we conduct every year in July, we see the marks. The next question we ask ourselves in assessing the candidates afterwards to see how they are likely to develop is: what school are they from? You will find invariably that the specialised teaching in some of our larger city schools, and so on, can add anything up to 20 or 30 per cent. to the marks of a student.
Consider a student who comes from a small school—some secondary top school, perhaps, where the teacher has to cope with perhaps two classes and where certainly nothing of the nature of specialised training is possible. We very often find that these students blossom out at the university. Likewise, students who have been crammed for scholarship examinations very often reach a peak and fall off in their university performance after that.
The plea I am making here then is that what we really need is that greatly increased scholarship funds should be made available to the university for disbursement at the end of the first year examination so that we could see at the end of the first year that any student who had reached a certain standard and, at that stage, had given clear indications of his ability to profit from a university course would get the help necessary to carry him through. At the moment, we do a little of that but our funds are so limited that it is almost negligible. A student coming that way has to reach first class honours before we can give him any support.
I appeal to the Minister to consider that aspect of the case in extending this and to correct any hardships that may be entailed in making these decisions at Leaving Certificate level. Above all, I appeal to him to correct the inequalities as between the highly specialised large school and the small school in the small town that is doing such a wonderful job for us at present but against such odds.
I take it that this scholarship scheme is not meant to solve the problem of post-graduate scholarships. I know that some counties out of their generosity have continued scholarships for an additional year to enable students to do some post-graduate work. I take it the present funds should be devoted to the undergraduate grade. The Minister should make adequate funds available to the universities to enable proper post-graduate scholarships to be awarded. At present, in University College, Cork, we have less than 11 per cent. of our students getting any form of support. In fact, only 19 are getting post-graduate support. To that, we might add probably an equal number who are employed in some minor capacity in the university and consequently are getting some support in that way. But, all in all, it amounts to the fact that we have barely got the equivalent of £5,000 or £6,000 available for post-graduate scholarships in the university. The other colleges, and Trinity College, are in no better position. I appeal to the Minister to look into that aspect of the problem.
To highlight the insignificance of the £5,000 or £6,000 which we have at the moment, I should say that six post-graduate scholarships valued at £1,000 each were awarded by the California Institute of Technology to electrical engineering and applied mathematics graduates of our university. That is the number one institute of science and technology in the United States. That gives the Minister and the House some idea of the quality of the students in our universities. The House can feel quite confident that our students can hold their own with students turned out from any university in the world. Despite the fact that the number of staff members and the money available for laboratories and so on is inadequate, our end product is a credit to our universities.
One item which disturbs me is the ratio between post-primary and university scholarships. As set out in Section 4, the ratio is one to two. Of course it is a question only of dividing the cherry, but considerably more latitude should have been allowed to the local authorities who, after all, are providing 50 per cent. of the money. The section states that there shall not be devoted to university scholarships more than one-third of the total. I take it that they could devote considerably less than one-third and still comply with the Bill.
There may be regions where, with a rate of a few pence in the £, the authority concerned would be justified in giving more than two-thirds to post-primary education. There are also regions where the opposite holds. When they come to decide between the two, the obvious question is whether or not the university education or the post-primary education entails living away from home. We can take it that in most counties the vast majority of post-primary students will be able to attend at day secondary schools. Consequently, they will be living at home. All down the years, it has been recognised that they required less support than those who had to go away to secondary schools.
Conditions are relatively equal in university cities like Dublin, Cork and Galway. In Dublin, the students can live at home and go to the secondary school or the university. Therefore, the Minister's reason that the cost might be in the ratio of one to two seems to be quite reasonable. Then, we must consider the other cities. In Limerick, for example, the post-primary students could live at home and go to day secondary schools, but the university students would have to go away from that city. Therefore, a rate that is fair for Dublin city or Cork city is manifestly not fair for Limerick city. I take it that Limerick Corporation is a highly responsible body which weighs very carefully the amount of money it has and how it should be subdivided.
There are other counties in which the students can live at home and go to a day secondary school, but must go away to get university education. Consequently, the Minister should have allowed more latitude to the local authorities. I think the section should read that they shall not grant more than half of the total to university scholarships and preferably one-third. He could have indicated his intention, but latitude should have been allowed. I hope on Committee Stage the Minister will see his way to liberalising the scheme to that extent.
After all, there has been a continuing conflict between the central authority and the local authority. The history of the past 30 years has been one of suppression of the local authorities and development and expansion of the central authority. We can see at the moment that the authority of the county councils and the corporations is only a trifling fraction of what it was 20 years ago. They are continually being told what they must do and, in fact, 75 per cent. of the rate is mandatory. This is a matter which could be entrusted to the good sense of the local body.
I am not for one moment pressing the claims of university students as against post-primary students, because they are all from the same class. They are all from the class which needs State assistance to climb the educational ladder. It would be a pity if a student had climbed the ladder so far as Leaving Certificate and it was then made much more difficult for him to climb the ladder from there on. The question of the means test and the necessity for support is far more marked when the student passes the age of 17 or 18 years than it is in the 14 to 18 year old age group.
Very few students have failed to get post-primary education due to family circumstances. That applies, certainly, to families in the range of £400 to £800, who have all the time been making sacrifices to send their children to secondary schools. The cost involved is about £120 per annum, including school fees, food, clothes, and so on. The corresponding cost to a university student is about £300. Therefore, while a family might be able to make the sacrifice for children in the 14 to 18 year old group, that family could not afford the sacrifice involved in the case of the university student. I would appeal to the Minister to give a little more discretion to the local authorities in this matter.
I am happy to see that the Minister said yesterday that the number of children is taken into account in assessing the level of means for scholarships. I welcome that announcement. I did not know that provision was there. I hope it is general in its application.
I also welcome the extension of the 25 per cent. that is to be available without means test. That is only right and fair having regard to the fact that 50 or 60 per cent. of those who are paying the money in rates and so on would come into that bracket. It is only reasonable that they should be putting up some funds for competition, as it were, between themselves. That is to be very much welcomed as a step in the right direction.
The situation may arise, Great Britain being so keen on developing her scientific talent, and so on, that very many of our young boys may go to England and succeed in getting scholarships to British universities. I do not think that would be an altogether desirable development if we have facilities to train these students here.
On the question of technical school versus the university, there is the difficulty of a line of demarcation between the two. There is always the urge on the technical school to reach out and provide, as many are providing here now, courses to enable students to take extern degrees from London University.
