The second point he made that I feel was not justifiable was when talking about this Report which we are asked merely to "note", but which I should like to note with approval, he said that there were "no international comparisons whatsoever within its 410 pages". This is too strong. It is true that they explained that standards are not similar and comparisons are not easy, but there is constant reference to the practice in France, the United Kingdom, Norway, Scotland and United States, et cetera. Consulting the index would reveal that.
The final point is that Senator Quinlan talked about parent-teacher groups with approval, and I could not help casting my mind back, as did Senator E. Ryan, to the debate in July, 1961, on my very mild motion asking the Minister to take fostering action to encourage the setting up of parent-teacher groups in national schools, when Senator Quinlan was one of the most vocal against the whole idea and took up the phrase of Senator Ó Maoláin—whom we all miss here and would like to see back here amongst us—that if you had parent-teacher groups you would have nothing better than "Soviet style committees in every parish". This phrase appealed to Senator Quinlan, and he took it up and said that our own present system was the best; and consequently Senator Quinlan was one of those who voted against the motion. I salute his change of attitude, and I am very glad that he now supports parent-teacher groups, but I cannot help recollecting the previous occasion. He did mention also in his speech that he was a D2 child, and this perhaps explains the lateness in his arrival at the truth by a year or two, and, therefore, we can forgive him for that.
I am sorry that Senator Yeats is not here, though he was here all the afternoon. He made the point that what was asked for by the Fine Gael resolution was the active co-operation of teachers, headmasters, headmistresses and so on in the planning of education. Senator Yeats was opposed to that because he said that people actively engaged in a profession are not the best people to make decisions about reforming the structure of that system —I hope I am not misinterpreting him, but I am wondering whether he would be in favour, therefore, of the collaboration of practising barristers in the framing of legislation in this House. Does he mean that practising barristers would have to be excluded, on the ground that because they are active in the profession of the law they should not also be framing the law? I do not think you can have it both ways, and exclude teachers from the capacity to make decisions in changing the structure of the system of education while admitting practising barristers to active decision-taking in relation to the framing of legislation.
I was disappointed similarly that Senator Yeats, while he said he was in agreement with much of the Fine Gael motion on education, was actually moving the deletion of every word of it. I find this hard to understand. How can you be in agreement with much of what you are solemnly moving to have deleted?
Senator E. Ryan mentioned the parent-teacher group motion which I proposed in July, 1961, and it is quite true that he both spoke very cogently in favour of it at the time, and voted for it himself, though in the event the motion was defeated by 26 votes to 11. Senator E. Ryan was one of the two Fianna Fáil Senators who voted for it. If I remember correctly, there were also three Fine Gael Senators who voted for it. The big phalanx of both big Parties went against him, but nevertheless we got 11 votes for it. I do not think Senator Ryan's support was enough for Fianna Fáil to prove they were in favour of it, since the majority of them voted against it, and since Dr. Hillery, who was then the Minister, while saying he was in favour of the idea, made it very clear he thought it was not his function to do anything, to take even some fostering action, saying merely that he would salute parent-teacher groups which would result from spontaneous generation apparently, but he felt it was not the function of the Minister to do anything about it. His successor, Deputy Colley, when asked about the same thing by myself in this House and outside it, said he would not like to take any action, even sending out an encouraging circular to managers, because it might have the flavour of giving an order to a school manager. This seemed to him a thing that no Minister for Education could do. Therefore, I am not satisfied that any Minister, as yet, has done anything positive in public to support the view, which I know to be the view of Senator E. Ryan, that there would be great value for all schools in the organisation of parent-teacher groups in connection with them.
I should like to say at the outset that it is extremely pleasant to see Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael vying with one another—at long last—in propounding progressive programmes for education. This has never happened before in the history of the country. The Labour Party long since have put forward progressive programmes, and the programmes supported by Tom Johnson in 1925 went even further than much that is now propounded—on the necessity for nursery schools for instance. But Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael seem to have vied in the other direction up to now. However, now they are vying with each other on implementing proposals of this Investment in Education Report. This is spendid. I have read the Minister's Dáil statement and the Fine Gael policy. In my opinion both are good and carefully thought out, and if I may adopt the wording of the Fianna Fáil amendment, they are both proposing further "progressive steps forward." I am not quite sure what is the purpose of the phrase "progressive steps forward." It is probably to distinguish it from "retrospective steps forward" and "progressive steps backwards". I cannot help remembering that the Minister comes from Limerick, for which I have great admiration, as the birthplace of my mother's family, and which gives a name at least to an Irish dance—The Walls of Limerick—and the dance routine therein. If I recall it correctly, this dance drill presents the pattern of many previous Irish Governments in regard to educational policy; that is to say, you first mark time for three steps with your left foot forward, then you mark time for three steps with your right foot forward, then you take seven steps sideways and you start again. I hope that this folklore pattern will not be repeated here, and I trust that when Fianna Fáil now speak of "progressive steps forward," they mean steps of genuine progress.
I am very pleased, of course, that the big parties are now in favour of parent-teacher groups; Fine Gael are actually talking of parents helping to run the schools. This used to be the hit-back at people like myself who proposed such groups for deliberative purposes. We were told we were trying to set up local Soviets, trying to get the parents to run the schools and so on. Now Fine Gael have come forward and said, courageously I think, that parents should even have a say in the running of the schools.
My mind goes back to a debate—I was not in the Seanad at the time—in which the late Senator T.J. O'Connell, in December 1942, proposed that the heating, lighting and cleaning of the schools should be a matter for public health authorities and not for the managers. This gave rise to quite an interesting debate. He felt at that time, so did the INTO—I hope it still does —that local people should have some say at least in the running and the maintaining, at any rate, of the schools. I am pleased to note that in the Report on Investment in Education, page 63 of the Appendix volume, they say, in paragraph 26:
This programme will need to be systematically directed at discovering the current attitudes and awareness of pupils, parents, teachers, school administrators, both local and central, employers and trade unions and of society in general in its evaluation of the value of the education provided for various purposes.
What pleases me there is the mention of parents, which is a sufficiently new thing, I think, to warrant comment and congratulation. As between Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael, when they are progressing thus in rivalry, I do not care much who gets the credit for it, provided that the system moves forward. I would say: more power to both of you, and if you can each egg the other on, so much the better.
I put the question, which perhaps should be expressed in private rather than in public—I wonder why there is this sudden concern about education? Why this change of heart, as it were? Is it economic? Is it the EEC? Will there be a shortage of skilled or semiskilled manpower and is it required by the economic pressures in Ireland that we remedy soon many of our educational defects? Is it due to the fact that, as they mention on page 316 of the Report—they anticipate a grave shortage of manpower, a shortfall as they call it, of manpower unless serious measures are taken immediately in relation to education? I do not really mind what is the motivation. If it is economic, this does not matter to me, provided that the progress is made. Therefore, I salute the radical change, as I see it, in the policy of Fine Gael and when I find them saying, at the end of page 2 of their policy document, and I quote:
... the total absence of planning in education hitherto. In calling for a shift in emphasis from "ordinary administration" to "active development", the team was clearly influenced by the lack of thought given to educational development in the Department and by its pre-occupation with routine administrative matters.
This seems to me to be in very marked contrast to the sort of attitude which was prevalent in that same Party, I am afraid, not so very long ago. I turn back to a challenge put in the Dáil to Deputy General Mulcahy when he was Minister for Education. On the 19th July, 1956, Deputy Moylan, who afterwards became Minister for Education, asked him to say what was his philosophy of education. The reply was— and I take it that at this time he was speaking for his Party—General Mulcahy said, and I quote from volume 159 of the Dáil Debates at column 1494:
Deputy Moylan has asked me to philosophise, to give my views on educational technique or educational practice. I do not regard that as my function in the Department of Education in the circumstances of the educational set-up in this country. You have your teachers, your managers and your Churches and I regard the position as Minister in the Department of Education as that of a kind of dungaree man, the plumber who will make the satisfactory communications and streamline the forces and potentialities of the educational workers and educational management in this country. He will take the knock out of the pipes and will link up everything. I would be blind to my responsibility if I insisted on pontificating or lapsed into an easy acceptance of an imagined duty to philosophise here on educational matters.
There is a sharp contrast between regarding it as an absolute duty not to think at all about the kind of matter going along the pipes of education—without any reference to the parents at all—and the present Fine Gael policy which is well thought out, and very much concerned with what is passing along the pipes of the educational system. General Mulcahy has qualities of character which I respect, but his ideas—and I think he spoke for the Party at that time—on education were not progressive. Yet even he, as I propose to recall, was better than some of his successors, on the question, for instance, of looking into the data of overcrowding in schools, which I propose to mention a little later on.
Today, of course, I must concentrate upon primary, secondary and vocational education, though I have here the Report on Higher Education in Ireland. My thumb is covering the word "Northern", and the lion and the unicorn appear on the top. My point is that I note that we are awaiting, before we can talk about the universities, for a report from a Commission which ceased to take evidence, if I am correctly informed, in 1961. Those who reported on higher education in Northern Ireland were appointed in November, 1963, and the report was printed in January, 1965, and presented to the Parliament in Stormont in February, 1965. It took only one year and two months to prepare and publish. I take it that something is eventually going to happen in relation to our own equivalent report. I may be wrong, but I noticed several members of Fianna Fáil, including Senator Yeats, saying disparaging things about the report and this delay. I have a feeling that somehow the report will not prove to the taste of Fianna Fáil. My guess is that the Government will not accept it in its entirety. However, I really am not in order discussing it here at this moment.
I turn now to Investment in Education. This is an excellent report which we have, and to me, as to other Senators who have spoken, it seems a quite remarkable document—one might say a unique document—and one which provides a basis for our thinking about education, and the basis for the Minister's policy proposals. I think he has taken it very closely into account. It is also the basis for the Fine Gael policy put forward in their document. As I read it, it is a well co-ordinated and coherent presentation of well-documented facts about Irish education, many of which have never been put together so clearly, or even collected. It also gives the implications of these facts, and a wide variety of alternative methods, or "strategies," for eradicating demonstrable defects.
At page 387 they mention what they set out to do. I do not propose to quote that, but it is very clearly and comprehensively put, and it commands our attention. The aim is to discover in what way we can make more effective use of our resources to reach our goal—the goal of giving equal educational opportunity to all our children to develop to the fullest their innate abilities, which we all agree is at least what we should be aiming at. I am pleased also that Senators who have spoken are in favour of the measure of planning which is proposed by the Minister and by Fine Gael. Planning was previously regarded by some as an unclean word, but I note that at page 380, paragraph 15.32 the report says:
A free market system is unlikely, therefore, to yield an educational pattern which would be satisfactory from a community viewpoint.
This I feel is a very valuable statement. At page 386, paragraph 15.48 the same point is made where they say in the summary:
Difficulties arise in using a free market price system as a method for allocating resources to various uses, which render the results of that system unacceptable from a community viewpoint.
In other words, free enterprise is not the best method, at any rate in relation to education.
If we are aiming at giving every child an equal chance, what are the facts? At page 18, tables 1.3 and 1.4 the chances which an ordinary child gets in Ireland today are indicated by percentages. At table 1.4 on page 18 they give the percentage of population in each age group attending aided and non-aided educational establishments in 1964. At age 13, they represented 94.1 per cent of the population, plus a few in non-aided schools; at age 14, 66.1 per cent; 15 years, 51.1 per cent; 16 years, 36 per cent; 17 years, 23.6 per cent; 18 years, 12.8 per cent; and 19 years, 7.7 per cent. This is an indication that the average youth has a limited chance, unless he can afford to pay for privileged educational opportunities, of reaching the higher strata of education.
In relation to the teacher supply question there is, I suggest, a probability that the minimal targets will not be reached. This is clearly set forth in paragraph 4.7, page 54, and paragraph 4.8, page 55. The question of teacher supply is absolutely crucial to the improvement of the position. On page 54 of the Report it is stated:
It would appear from the Second Programme for Economic Expansion that while the attainment of this aim may be a matter of long-term policy, specific measures designed to achieve it by a target date are unlikely to be embarked upon within the period covered by this report and almost certainly not within the currency of the Second Programme.
On the opposite page it states similarly:
It is indeed unlikely that teacher availability at any time during the seventies will enable this target to be attained without recourse to measures to increase the inflow of teachers...
In other words, we are going to be short of teachers, and Senator Dooge was perfectly right to direct the attention of the Minister to that fact. It is clearly stated there in the report.
This leads us to the whole question of teacher training. I do not want to stress further what has been said, but I strongly believe that at least some contact with the university should be granted to every teacher in training. This will require more money, and the net will have to be cast wider for the recruitment in particular of primary school teachers. One notices from the facts given on page 262 that the number of teachers recruited from Dublin in a given group is curiously small.
On page 262 it is mentioned that:
More than half of the 400 lay entrants to teacher training in 1963 came from five counties on the Western coast (Galway, Mayo, Kerry, Donegal, Clare, in that order) and a further 46 were from Cork. On the other hand less than one-fifth of the entrants came from Leinster—8 from Dublin.
I suggest there is the necessity for spending more money and for making the profession more attractive, financially. On the same page you have a curious fact mentioned, emerging from teacher training in 1963. I quote from this page:
No girls took mathematics in the final examination in 1963 and only 14 boys did so, out of a total of 91 boys and 353 girls although about a quarter of their time as teachers will be devoted to mathematics—in most cases, this is confined to arithmetic.
Again, the indication is that the methods and results of training are not altogether satisfactory. With regard to the question of teacher recruitment the point made by Senator Jessop is very important, that is that we should attract back to this country teachers who have gone abroad for one reason or another and who have acquired valuable experience there, It is quite absurd to say that we are short of teachers, and yet that many Irish teachers who want to come back after five, ten or fifteen years teaching experience of a most valuable kind abroad are treated by us as if they were starting off on their careers. It is quite obvious if you are not prepared to treat service abroad as if it had been service at home you will not attract back teachers with valuable experience to secondary and also to primary schools.
Senator Murphy, in my opinion, is quite right to suggest that the problems of primary education are even more acute than the problems of secondary education because there are in our primary schools five times as many children as there are in our secondary schools. About one-third of this total get no further education. Of those, who get no post-primary education at all, only 28 per cent emerge from the primary school with a primary certificate. That is demonstrated in Table 6.20 on page 140. The fact is that the minimum that we regard as being what is to be expected in any case, is stated by the Report on page 140 to be very often not attained. They say:
The above result suggests that these pupils left school without having reached or without having completed sixth standard.
In the paragraph below they say:
Although this figure is undoubtedly exaggerated, the annual emergence of such a large number of young people who apparently have not reached what is commonly considered a minimum level of education, can hardly be viewed with equanimity.
Therefore, I suggest that post-primary education requires even more emphasis, as Senator Murphy suggests, than secondary education. We recognise that secondary education, to all intents and purposes, is in private hands, despite the fact, as is shown in Table 5.4 on page 85, that 71 per cent of their income is supplied by the State. Yet they are not State schools. In a pretty full sense they are in private hands. Furthermore, there is a grave disparity, what is called on page 150 of the Report a "marked contrast", in the participation in post-primary education, as between children of well-to-do families and children of working class families.
This contrast becomes more marked in the higher age group. Chart 6.7 on page 172 brings out very clearly the class barriers which operate within our educational system, and about whose existence I think there can be no argument. There has been discussion as to whether there should be State comprehensive schools, State secondary schools, and how best to ensure free access to secondary education. The French system, which is certainly not without defect, and suffers from gross overcrowding at the moment, is basically a very good one. The State lycées provide free education, provided that the child is of sufficient ability to pass from class to class, either by examination, if its school report is not sufficiently good, or, if it is good, on the recommendation of the teacher. If the child does not pass from class to class it may repeat one year, but not two and it is then put out of the school. It has no option but to do without further education or to go to one of the private, fee-paying schools. In other words, free education is given to those children who are able and willing to work and benefit therefrom.
The report also mentions, in relation to day continuation schools and vocational schools, that in Dublin in particular "there appears to be an unsatisfied demand and a shortage of capacity". The post-primary participation is shown, geographically as it were, on page 56, and a rather startling view it is. We find that the city of Dublin does not come very high. The best county in the whole Republic for post-primary participation in education is Sligo, followed fairly closely by Cork and Tipperary. That is shown in Chart 6.4 on page 164. Dublin lags far behind.
This makes for uneasiness and makes us wonder whether we are doing enough in relation to vocation or day continuation schools, as well as secondary schools because, of course, the two will be parallel and perhaps even fused in the years to come. There is a very important point made, which is recognised by the Minister, and was recognised by his predecessor in office, Deputy Colley, and that is in order to aim at the best utilisation of teaching in schools it is stated on page 264:
Above all because of the uneven distribution of that scarce and costly resource, teachers, we raise the query whether the present distribution of schools is the most suitable, satisfactory or economical method of providing primary education.
On page 262 it says:
Seventy-six per cent of national schools have average enrolments of less than 100 pupils. They contain only 38 per cent of all pupils but 50 per cent of all teachers.
This is an important basic figure. It means that we are not using our teachers and schools to the best advantage. On page 316 the report says:
The existing organisation of national schools results in an allocation of teachers that at the one extreme may give a teacher for 8 pupils and at the other, one teacher per 45 pupils or more.
Consequently, I feel the Minister and the Government are right—Fine Gael agree with them about this. The word "tactful" is the only word applied in criticism of the Government in the Fine Gael policy in this regard. The Government are right in feeling that small schools must be allowed to wither away in order to allow better deployment of teaching skill, a better range of subjects, a better range of equipment, and also, a point in which I see value, a better degree of independence on the part of the teachers. I would contend that the teacher in a six- to seven-teacher school is likely to be more independent minded, less subject to pressure from above, than the solitary teacher in a one-teacher school or a couple of teachers in a two-teacher school.
I mention en passant without wanting to stress it, although I do not want to omit mention of it, what seems to me an important chapter. That is chapter 14, on the help we can give to the educational system in emergent nations. I would make the point that this help would be reciprocal, because we can learn a lot from these emergent nations, and from their ways of tackling their own problems, as well as helping them along. We can learn by exchange of methods, exchange of teachers and exchange of students. In paragraph 14.25 the report urges the creation in Ireland of a School of African Studies. I would terminate my reference to that by saying that this shows an insight to the future, because there is no question but that Africa will in future years loom large and will greatly contribute to the education of the world. Consequently, our learning about it, and having relationship with the African emergent nations, is of prime importance.
The Minister's basic aim, which I paraphrase, is that no child shall be deprived of post-primary education on financial grounds. It is clear, I think, that we are all agreed on that. I am strongly on the side of those in Fine Gael who demand maintenance grants as well as free tuition, and I make it quite specific, as did Senator Murphy who first raised it. I think Senator E. Ryan recognised it too, that you must do more than merely grant free tuition. You must provide maintenance for the 16-year-old who normally might be expected by a poor family to be bringing in £2 to £3 a week or more. The Fine Gael policy is prepared to give up to £100 a year for a child.
Unless you are prepared to do that you will deprive of the benefit you are offering, a whole lot of children. In other words, this maintenance grant— and I am quite certain the Minister is aware of it as we all are because it is part and parcel of everyday life in this country—should be available to a family with a large number of children where the eldest has a practical obligation to bring money in at the earliest possible moment. Unless you are prepared to give them some money to bring home, they will not be able to avail themselves of free places in the schools as planned for by the Minister. That is a great pity. It is the one major mistake in Ministerial policy, that the Minister has not allowed for maintenance grants, with a means test, for those children who might legitimately be expected to be bringing in money, and who could not otherwise take up free places. The Minister must face this. The Fine Gael policy faces it quite specifically. The Seanad ought not to be content with the Fianna Fáil amendment. I do not think that the mere saying that everything is all right, and that we are all quite satisfied, is enough.
I should now like to make a point, though I do not want to pause too long on it, in relation to industrial schools. They have not been mentioned yet. We all know, though we sometimes forget, that a large number of children in industrial schools are there for the "crime" of poverty on the part of their parents. In view of that fact, in the appendix to this report, page 31, we have a paragraph on which I think we ought to pause. It says:
The majority of the boys in industrial schools cannot hope to obtain an apprenticeship since they are not being provided with opportunities for the requisite post-primary education.
These children are being victimised, and very often merely because of the poverty of their parents. This is a matter to which we in the Seanad should direct the Minister's attention.
I should like to say something about the curriculum. It has been mentioned already. It must be modified and widened, made more flexible and made broader. I think the Minister has this in mind too. Large schools will effectively widen the subject available for the children.
I made this point before, and I do not want to labour it now: it should be recognised that all teaching is conditioned by the State examination approach. The State examination approach in my opinion has improved. Senator Jessop made this point first: the approach is still one which places far too much emphasis upon what is called the factual, rather the philosophical. The attitude is—take it down, learn it off, and serve it up again. There is no need to think.
As Senator Jessop said, it is vital that if the child is really educated he should be able to think for himself. I believe the Cartesian method of "methodical doubt" is far better, the method of encouraging people to think for themselves and encouraging children to regard their minds as living, active things, capable of growth and use. The emphasis in our schools should not be too strong on submission and obedience. I would rather see it placed on question, and inquiry, and minor research. I should be inclined to use a slogan which seems to have gone out of fashion, and say to our children: "Up the rebels", and do not be too concerned with submission, obedience, and so on. I feel that the spirit of the Fianna Fáil amendment is the spirit of obedience and submission. The Minister knows best; his policy is best. "The Minister's in Marlborough Street, all's right with the world". This attitude is not to the credit of the amendment proposers. Senators should be prepared to question and challenge their Minister and not say: "We know the Minister's policy is right in every detail; therefore, let us wipe out anything that criticises it."
There is another way in which the State examination approach conditions teaching, and that is in relation to the teaching of languages. In the intermediate, primary, group and leaving certificates there is no oral examination for modern languages, the single exception being Irish in the leaving certificate, but even there the emphasis is put in the wrong place. The idea should be to have orals in all examinations, and it is even more important in the first than in the last one. Children are more receptive in their earlier days. To have no oral examination in French, Spanish, German and in Irish in the intermediate certificate is an active disincentive to language teachers who want to teach living languages.
Deputy Moylan in the debate on the 18th July, 1956, in the Dáil in volume 159, column 1215 of the Dáil reports in talking about Irish said:
I am an Irish language enthusiast but I believe that the Irish language, and this applies to every language other than vernacular English, is being taught wrongly in our system of education. No matter what enthusiastic Gaelic leaders may say, we are not making real progress in regard to Irish and we never will under the present system. In the teaching of foreign languages we are as bad, if not worse.
That is 11 years ago spoken by the late Deputy Moylan, and I feel those words have the ring of truth. He made the point that learning by ear and by speaking was of the greatest value in relation to all the living languages and could be disregarded only at the peril of those who disregard it. In 1965 Deputy Colley when he was Minister for Education made the promise that soon there was going to be oral examinations in the other living languages. That is a year and a half ago now. It may be about to come into being but, so far, it has not in fact been brought about.
I would point out that if you take Irish in the GCE in Britain or in Northern Ireland you have an oral examination, but here it is not in the intermediate nor in the primary certificate. I have no illusions about the magic teaching of the language through language laboratories. We have a language laboratory, I am glad to say, in Trinity College. I have been involved in using this for the teaching of French in the last two years. We also teach Irish, Russian, German, Italian and Spanish. It is an effective method, but it is not magic. You do not pour people in at one side and find that they come out the other side speaking the language. A hard working student who will slog away for a considerable number of hours will get results, but let nobody think it is a miraculous way.
Buntús Gaeilge I have here also. I notice they make what seems to me to be an odd mistake but a mistake which I am afraid is not unusual. The whole document is in Irish. This is meant to be for the easy absorption of Irish by absolute beginners. If you are an absolute beginner starting off with no knowledge of the language you will not understand anything in the book. I imagine the Minister will be able to tell us that this matter is in hand, and that this version is merely a basic document upon which more will be built, but I am afraid that so far it cannot have much impact upon those who do not yet know Irish.
