Tá an Chathaoir ag moladh go nglacfar uimhir a 4 agus uimhir a 8 le chéile.
Local Authorities (Higher Education Grants) Bill, 1968: Second Stage.
Question proposed: "That the Bill be now read a Second Time".
This Bill is the culmination of a great deal of effort in the educational field in recent years. The fact that free post-primary education is now generally available, and the need for post-primary scholarships consequently ended, has enabled the Government to turn its attention to the financing of higher education and to the provision of as much money as our resources will allow to enable students, who otherwise could not afford it, to proceed to courses of higher education.
The first thing to be said about the scheme envisaged in this Bill is that it will provide equal opportunities for all who come within its scope. In the former scholarship schemes, if a candidate came from a poor county with few scholarships he could be unlucky, while a candidate with lower marks from a more affluent county could be awarded a scholarship. The scheme now proposed is on a national basis and all candidates, no matter where they come from, will get their appropriate grant provided they satisfy the academic and means requirements laid down. Thus, the door of opportunity will be opened to many from a segment of our population who hitherto were unable to go as far as their abilities could carry them. Furthermore, students will be allowed to hold their grants not only in universities but also in other approved institutions of higher education which offer courses leading to a full professional qualification of university degree level.
Some criticism has been voiced at the idea of associating a means test with these grants. The main purpose of the means test is to enable me to be reasonably generous in the case of those who require it most. Of course, we have the proposition of free higher education for all being made by some people who apparently have not stopped to consider the social and other implications of what they are proposing. Apart from this the practicalities of the situation are that no scheme such as the present one can be considered in isolation. It must be seen in the context of the overall economic requirements of the country and, more particularly, in the context of the general education provision. In the last few years this has doubled to a figure of £54 million. I make no apology, therefore, in insisting that the money available be spent on those who will benefit most from it. This necessitates a means test. Senators will see that the means conditions are fully set out in the explanatory memorandum. From a basic figure of £1,200 they proceed to £2,600 depending on the number of children in the family. The full rates of grant, £175 per annum to students living in or near a centre of higher education and £300 per annum otherwise, correspond to the highest rates of university scholarship offered in recent times. Reduced rates are payable by reference to family income and the number of dependent children.
The new scheme will, of course, do away with the non-means test scholarships which were a feature of former schemes. It would not be practicable to introduce non-means test arrangements into the proposed legislation, as all element of competition as between candidate and candidate has been done away with. However, I have had discussions with the university authorities with a view to increasing substantially the number of their entrance scholarships on a non-means test basis.
The standard of attainment for grant purposes in the new scheme has been set at four honours in matriculation subjects at the leaving certificate examination. While some may hold that this standard is too high, I might remind Senators that it was reached by over 1,900 candidates at last year's leaving certificate examination. There is no reason that I can see why we should not put a premium on attainment, particularly where entrance to higher education is involved. We must remember, too, that this is an investment by the community in the youth of the country. Only a certain amount of money can be invested at any given time, so that we must try to ensure the best return possible for the investment made.
The practical application of these proposals will be that this year, we estimate, over 900 students will be helped along the road to higher studies. When we relate this to the former position, where about 275 university scholarships were awarded annually, it is immediately evident that the scheme represents a very substantial advance and is a further earnest of the Government's commitment to education.
As to the financing of the scheme generally, we propose to fix the local authority commitment at the amount raised by the County and Borough Councils under the 1944 and 1961 scholarship Acts, in the year 1967-68, a sum of about £280,000. Whatever additional money is needed will be provided from State funds. It is estimated that in three to four years the annual cost will be running at £750,000 of which the State will be contributing £470,000. I should, perhaps, emphasise that the cost to the local authorities will be the net cost of scholarships and continuing scholarships in 1967-68, that is to say, the total moneys spent by them in respect of that year less the amount of the State recoupment.
In the drafting of this Bill we have kept before our minds the need to fashion a flexible piece of legislation which can be adapted to suit future requirements. This I think we have succeeded in doing. The means conditions and the attainment standards may be altered by me from time to time, with the consent of the Minister for Finance, in accordance with the dictates of experience and changing circumstances. It is intended to repeal existing enactment so that the new legislation will be the foundation for all future aid to students in higher education, the basic instrument for social and educational advancement. I do not claim that it will take all the thorns out of the educational bed of roses but it will certainly spread the roses more equitably and remove many thorns from where they hurt most—in the lower income ranges. I, therefore, confidently recommend this piece of legislation to the Seanad.
There is no question but that the House will welcome a Bill such as this which gives a substantial increase in the amount of money which is available to help the qualified, the talented but needy student to avail of higher educational facilities. But when the Minister goes on to speak, as he does in his address, of this being "the foundation for all future aid"— I quote him—"to students in higher education, the basic instrument for social and educational advancement," I think the House must take a hard look at the Minister's proposals. If those proposals had been brought to us as the best thing to be done in the coming year and the year after, we might well be content to say: "Yes, this seems a good stopgap measure. What you propose seems to be the best way of doing something quickly." Proposed to us as it is as being the basis of all future aid, as being an integral part of the planning for Irish education, we must, I think, go beyond mere gratification that more money is to be available in the coming year and the year after, to look at the Minister's proposals, look at the nature of those proposals in the context of long-term educational planning.
We must, if we are to do this, look carefully at our present position. We must also I think examine the proposals that have been put forward in various directions in order to improve our present position and solve the problems which we have. The Minister has in his approach to this problem, as reflected in the speech he has just made recommending the Bill to the Seanad, shown a failure to grapple with the long-term considerations, a failure to integrate those proposals into a long-term educational plan. The Minister has, for example, spoken in his introductory speech of the fact that, and I quote from his speech, "When we relate this to the former position, where about 275 university scholarships were awarded annually", it is immediately evident that the scheme represents a very substantial advance", we must draw the conclusion here that the Minister is talking about scholarship grants by local authorities.
This is not the whole picture. We have got to look at the whole picture. We have got to look at our overall position before we can produce an integrated policy for the financing of higher education. We have, of course, very valuable information on our present position in the second part of the Report of the Commission on Higher Education. According to this report there were in 1964-65, the year to which the report statistics refer, just under 1,500 Irish students receiving support from Irish sources, just under 16 per cent. Of those 714 were receiving support from local authorities, at an average rate of £180 a year, 544 were receiving support of one type or another from the various university institutions at an average award of about £100. There were in the Minister's own Department 103 further scholarships at an average award of £230. There were further scholarships from the Department of Agriculture and from some other Irish sources.
However, while we must relate what we are going to discuss to this general picture the Minister has concentrated on the scholarships which were previously administered, and to a great extent, paid for by the local authorities and which he proposes should continue to be administered by the local authorities and paid for in part by them. Those local authority scholarships, such as they exist at the moment, are certainly more uniform than they were in years past but they are still uneven in number of scholarships, in standards, in value of scholarships, in conditions for renewal and many other aspects. It is, indeed, an improvement that the Minister should in the present Bill do something to redress this situation.
Our position, as revealed by the Report of the Commission on Higher Education, and before that by the Report on Investment in Education was that approximately 16 per cent of our university students were receiving scholarships. When we set out to review this position and see what can be done about it it is natural that we should compare this with the situation in other countries. When we do, we find an immediate and stark contrast if we compare the situation here with the situation in the United Kingdom and, indeed, the situation in Northern Ireland. In England and Wales 98 per cent of their undergraduate students hold awards. In Scotland it is 90 per cent and in Northern Ireland 82 per cent.
On the continent of Europe conditions vary very greatly. Though most continental universities are somewhat like the State Universities in America the fees are non-existent or nominal, so that the effect, even where there are no direct schemes for support of students, is that they are, in fact, receiving virtually full remission of fees. If we look at those countries, the Commission on Higher Education tells us that in 1961 Belgium supported 35 per cent of its university students and in that year 42 per cent of new entrants. This is a figure perhaps, rather higher than the average. In the Netherlands it was 30 per cent and in Federal Germany 35 per cent. So, we find in this we have in the past been behind and so we face a very real problem.
We have to see whether we in the future can really solve our problem of getting the right people into the universities on the basis of a scheme such as we have had. If we look at the comparative figures we find, in fact, if we compare the number of students in Irish university institutions relative to the population with similar figures for other countries, that this country is not very much out of line. On the other hand, if we examine the position in regard to the extent to which different social groups are represented in our student population we find the tendency for manual workers to be under-represented in the universities, which is universal, is even more accentuated in this country than elsewhere. So we find the situation is that, whereas our population of university students is not greatly out of line with that of the rest of Europe, in fact, the way in which this population draws from different sectors in the community is very much out of line.
We all want to remedy this position but there is no easy solution. University education is an expensive commodity. In some areas it is extremely expensive. It just cannot be available at low cost to all who apply. We are faced with the problem of determining a policy in this regard. There has been a tendency in the discussions in this country over recent years to say that what we should set out to do, as soon as we can, as soon as circumstances permit, is to make university education available to all who can benefit. This is a nice, comfortable phrase but I am afraid we will have to be really more precise about it. While there may be a small majority of people reaching academic standard who, in fact, dis-improve in personality and otherwise during their university careers the vast majority of students will obtain some benefit from a period spent at the university. We may well find, if we try to make it available to all who would benefit even to a small degree, that the problem will be one which is just too difficult to solve. We would, in fact, be giving those people a relatively small benefit at a relatively high cost and at a time when in the community there are competing pressures for scarce resources, this might well not be a good investment.
On the other hand, I think we can all agree that, no matter what our criterion is, a university education should be made available—and made available as soon as possible—to all who can benefit substantially from it. Where there is a high degree of benefit, this is justified not only from the point of view of giving the individual the opportunity to realise his own abilities, but also from the point of view of the community as a whole even if interpreted in a narrow economic sense. Those who can benefit substantially from a university education would give in their turn substantial benefit to the community when they returned to it.
I have said before, when discussing education in this House, that the various objectives of education and the various reasons why we spend large sums of money on education are not antagonistic to one another but are complementary and sometimes reinforce one another. Whether we consider education from the point of view of the development of the individual, from the point of view of the transmission of culture, or from the point of view of training skilled manpower, we will—notwithstanding these very distinct objectives—reach a conclusion as to our best strategy which will not differ largely from differing degrees of emphasis on these different points of view.
We have the position now that there are many people who are unable to enter our universities who could substantially benefit. Why is it? What are the reasons which prevent them from doing so? One reason may be that the person does not enter the university because he cannot reach the academic entry standard required. In some cases this is something which cannot be remedied. The person's particular endowments are not of the academic type which would allow him to do so. There are, however, many people who if properly developed would be able to reach that standard but cannot do so because of the deficiencies in our secondary education system. We all hope that in the years to come this will be increasingly remedied.
The second reason why persons are not able to attend a university is the reason with which we are largely concerned in this debate. Their parents may not be financially able to meet the expense of a university education, or the family may be unable to forgo the earnings of the child during the period of university education. This is something which will be remedied in part by the proposal the Minister is now making. It is something which money can solve, but even if we were to solve this problem completely there is still a further bar to entry to the university, and one which we will ignore at our peril. It is that there are certain what might be called social attitudes which result in a lack of participation in university education by certain sectors of the community.
Studies which have been made about choice of career by students reveal that by, far the most compelling factor in the choice of career is the attitude of the family towards the various careers, and the views which parents and other members of the families and other relatives have about appropriate careers. That is by far the largest single factor in the determination of choice of career. That is the reason why even if we were to solve the financial problems completely we would still find that a certain section of the community would not participate in university education to the extent which we would expect from their relative numbers among the community.
I have talked of the position in the United Kingdom where 98 per cent of all undergraduate students are supported at the university by their local authorities. The position is that at the present time what we might term broadly the working-classes are not by any means represented at the universities in proportion to their numbers. More than 20 years after the Butler Education Act which brought free secondary education, Britain has still not got a balanced participation by all her social groups in her universities. We must remember that this problem is one which must also be solved. I mentioned that what is being done and what will be done in regard to secondary education will remove one of the road blocks in the way of producing in this country an ideal university population, and in getting as close as we can to the ideal where our university population would consist of those for whom it is most appropriate they should be there.
Of course, the solution of many problems in regard to secondary education as well as in regard to maintenance grants for those now unable to attend will aggravate some of our other problems. The provision of extra money for grants will increase the pressure on university accommodation. This is a very real problem but it is a problem we must face. Everyone concerned, the Government, the legislature and the university authorities sooner or later must face this question of how this increased entry is to be handled. We hope we can remove the faults in the present system but we may in doing so find that we are creating new problems for ourselves. Certainly that is no reason why we should not go ahead. It is a reason why we should be very careful of the manner in which we go ahead— the fact is that there will be problems; our very success in certain areas will produce problems in others.
In regard to our position at the moment, we may divide our pupils into different types. Of those leaving secondary school under our existing system, brilliant students get to the university; they get there under the existing scholarship system. The student who qualifies according to the present entry standards, which I for one believe are too low, gets there in one of two cases: firstly, if his parents can afford to send him there or, secondly if his parents think so highly of the value of university education that they consider almost any sacrifice worth while in order to make this available for their family.
We also have in our universities at the moment some students who are only barely qualified to benefit substantially from university education and I think we have some who, perhaps, would be regarded as not qualified to benefit substantially from university education. In a complete university, it may be necessary to have a leavening of some of the latter in order to have a full university community. Our problem is to use our various resources—physical, academic and financial—to see that all those who are really qualified to benefit substantially from university education will be enabled to receive it irrespective of their financial and social background. We are all agreed on this objective. There will be no quarrel in this debate as to whether this should or should not be done. The differences of opinion that will arise will be about the best way in which this can be done. In this, I for one will differ with some of the proposals the Minister put before us. During the past few years, we have had various suggestions and various proposed solutions in this regard.
For many years, we had the operation of the local authority scholarship scheme under the 1908 Universities Act. This was supplemented by the 1944 and 1961 Acts but these were largely an extension of existing provisions. The various steps taken at those times were taken largely from the point of view that it would appear that, if we made increased provision, things would be better. At those times, we had no facts, statistics or real information on which we could plan ahead. However, in more recent years we have been luckier: we have had a number of studies, a number of publications, which help the Minister, the Government and the Oireachtas to evaluate. far more effectively than was possible before, the merits of different proposals. The first of these was the report on Investment in Education. This report was concerned largely with primary and post-primary education. Nevertheless, it did refer to university education and to the problems of the financing of university education. In particular, it pointed out the effect of the present system of block grants to university institutions on the availability of university education.
In the report on Investment in Education which was published in December, 1965, we can read on page 311, paragraph 11.28, the verdict of the survey team on the existing methods of financing the universities. It is necessary for me to quote only a single sentence:
It seems reasonable to conclude that the present system achieves neither economic nor social objectives.
This, then, is the result of the examination by the expert survey team that the system by which we were financing our higher education achieved neither economic nor social objectives. However, as I said, this team were not concerned with the problems of higher education: these were then a matter of gestation by the Commission on Higher Education.
Even before the Commission on Higher Education reported in its detailed and valuable report, the Fine Gael Party set up a special committee to develop an educational policy and this policy was published in November, 1966, being the second part of the developed policy for A Just Society published by the Fine Gael Party and, in this——
It appeared in the first volume.
I thought the Minister was interested in our having a constructive debate which would help him to solve the problems to be faced.
Quotations from outmoded periodicals do not stimulate a constructive debate.
In this document there are quite detailed proposals in regard to the financing of university education—proposals which are at variance with proposals produced by the Minister some 18 months later— which, in my opinion, still show a more appropriate direction on planning for education than those contained in the Minister's proposals enshrined in the present Bill. It is not my fault, nor is it the fault of the Fine Gael Party, that there has not been an opportunity before this to discuss these proposals for the financing of university education in this House. These proposals were set out in detail in Paragraphs 146 to 158 of that particular policy document and were part of a motion which was set down in this House for discussion at the end of 1966. This motion which was set down on behalf of the Fine Gael Party instanced nine points on which there appeared to be differences of policy, differences of approach, in regard to education between our Party and the Government, as evidenced by a comparison of our policy statement with that made about the same time by the Minister for Education in introducing his Estimate in the Dáil. Six of these nine points dealt with primary and post-primary education and were discussed in this House in February, 1967. A further point was discussed in January of this year in a debate in the House.
We find ourselves now, in conjunction with this debate, discussing the remaining two points of this nine-point motion set down in December, 1966. We find ourselves in the position that only now have we the opportunity to put forward to the Minister for his consideration our point of view in regard to this matter—at a time when the Minister and the Government have made up their minds about what they intend to do and have enshrined it in the present legislation.
We had the position that, in January, 1968, when the report of the Commission on Higher Education was being discussed, the late Minister for Education refused to discuss the other two parts of this motion on the grounds that this matter was then before the Government for decision. I should like to put it to the Minister that it would be more profitable, I think, for all concerned if, in cases like this—the discussion of questions on which we are all agreed as to the objective to be achieved but differ as to the best means of achieving it— debates were held in this House in the atmosphere in which this House has shown itself capable of discussing such matters, before the Government have made up their minds in regard to details of legislation.
Nevertheless, we have for the past 18 months been willing and anxious to discuss these particular proposals and glancing at the Bill and listening to what the Minister has had to say, I feel, indeed, that something has been lost by the fact that it is only now that we, in conjunction with this debate, put forward for the consideration of the Seanad and for the consideration of the Minister these particular proposals. I should like to remind the Minister of them. He made a reference to out-of-date periodicals and I take it he has not recently read the document concerned. Therefore, I would remind him and the House of what is contained in it. In this document, which devoted a whole section to the financing of university education, was set out the clear objectives which are shared by us all. That is, that any proposals for university finance would be designed to ensure that Government aid for university education would be directed to those people most able to benefit from university education so that all those young people irrespective of their family commitments will have the opportunity of securing a standard of education appropriate to their abilities.
This report went on to discuss the situation which had been revealed by the report on Investment in Education. In its next paragraph it rejected the idea of financing education by a loan system as a general procedure. It then went on to tackle the key problem which was revealed by the report on Investment in Education, the effect of block grants for university financing. It suggested here—and this is something to which the Minister should give serious consideration—that an attempt should be made to get away from the present block grant system which, though good presumably from some points of view, in fact, obscures the real costs of university education.
Nobody knows the real costs of different parts of university education and this is a serious handicap from the points of view of any planning in this sphere. Having reviewed this matter the document then went on to make specific proposals. It proposed in paragraph 150 of this report and I quote:
Fine Gael, therefore, proposes to introduce a scheme of fee and maintenance grants for university students. We intend that these fee and maintenance grants should be available to all who require them and who qualify to enter a university in accordance with entrance standards laid down by the university authorities and acceptable to the Government.
While we made it quite clear that it would only be possible to work out with the aid of the Civil Service the details of such a plan, nevertheless we gave certain indications of what our thinking was in this regard. We emphasised in paragraph 152 that there was a great deal to be said for replacing our present unreal scale of university fees by economic fees, by attempting to establish what were the economic fees in regard to various undergraduate courses and making these the fees.
It is undoubtedly a difficult matter, in the complex economies of the present time which abound throughout the world, to determine real costs—even more difficult to determine real benefits—of any economic activity. Nevertheless, I sometimes think that we in Ireland have got a greater skill than any other country in confusing what are the real costs in a given situation. We have the position at the moment that the fees which are charged in the universities are something of the order of one-third of the real cost. There are two directions in which you can move if you want to do something in regard to making sure that these are not a barrier to people entering the university. You could increase your block grants and abolish fees altogether, as is done in some continental countries, or you could reduce your block grants and bring your fees to something more closely approximating economic fees and then introduce a scheme of aiding the students.
We feel it would be very much better if the real costs of undergraduate education were known to the Government, known to the universities, known to the parents and known to the students. We warned people at this particular time, the time when the summary Report of the Commission on Higher Education was not available, of the need to face this problem. We also proposed that maintenance grants should be instituted, recognising that even if fees were to be paid for by the State, if free grants were made available to the students, nevertheless, there still remains the real problem of maintenance grants. We distinguish, as all the later reports were to distinguish, between maintenance grants for those living close to university centres and those who would have to live in digs while attending the university. Our proposals, indeed, were that the grants or local maintenance grants, should probably be of the order of £150 and that these should be made available to all families eligible for social insurance and that this should be organised by a joint Civil Service/University Committee in each case. This proposal of ours, made in November, 1966, is similar to the proposal for local grants which the Minister now proposes. Indeed, his figure of £175 in this case is similar, though slightly above, the Fine Gael figure. I do not know whether this is based on the change in the cost of living or whether the proposal is meant to outbid the Fine Gael proposal.
I never read the document.
Perhaps if the Minister read the document he might not have forgotten about the fees. He also proposed in regard to those who need board maintenance, that these should have maintenance grants and that they should be of the order of £350. We recognise that institution of this, or any scheme, calls into question the whole present scheme of local authority scholarships and raises the question as to what function local authority scholarships should play in a student support programme of the future. Our conclusion was that there would have to be a very serious modification of the local authority scheme, that some scholarships should be maintained as an incentive for brilliant scholars but that largely the scholarship scheme for the ordinary case should no longer be left to the local authority.
I do not know whether the Minister considers the Report of the Commission on Higher Education as being an out-of-date document but I should like to refer to what the Commission have to say on the problem of which is the best method of financing scholarships in the university. The summary of their report was issued in March, 1967, and in it there are indications of the Commission's proposals, which amounts to a general scheme consisting of scholarships, loans and grants. Even in the summary it was made specifically clear that the scheme proposed by them for scholarship purposes was intended to supersede the local authority scheme. Their proposal was that there should be variable amounts of scholarships, varying from the payment of fees only to fees plus an allowance of £250, the total to be borne by the State.
It was a year later, in March, 1968, before we got the full version of the proposals by the Commission on Higher Education. This was contained in volume 2 of the full Report of the Commission. In chapter 29 there is a very complete review of the situation in the past and of the Commission's proposals for the future in this respect. There, again, we find no difference in principle. Indeed, I wish to emphasise that the differences which exist between the Commission's proposals, those of the Minister and the proposals of Fine Gael do not imply differences in regard to principle. In chapter 29 the Commission affirms as a principle that no qualified student should be denied the opportunity of higher education because of lack of means.
This is the principle on which we are all agreed, but the proposal the Commission put forward has certain features in which it differs considerably from the proposals now put forward by the Minister. Therefore, it would be useful to us if the Minister were to indicate why he has not seen fit to accept the point of view of the Commission in these respects. The Commission, in the case of scholarships, for example, indicated that they proposed something in the order of 2,000 scholarships of the ordinary type, subject to a means test and 500 scholarships free of means tests, all being part of the one scheme. That means that the scholarship scheme proposed by the Commission indicates something like 20 per cent of the scholarships being maintained free of a means test. This, indeed, is continuing the practice under the present system.
In chapter 29, which should be read by anyone interested in the Minister's proposals, there are proposals for differing grades—talented students, qualified students and needy students. The Commission also referred to the use of loans. The Commission admit that a comprehensive grant scheme is the ideal but they express the feeling that loans have to be introduced, largely as a temporary measure. They also make the interesting suggestion that if a loan is granted and the student shows promise, the loan could be converted to a grant. They also propose grants which would reduce the cost, the expenses and maintenance, to the student who was qualified but not talented enough to win a scholarship in open competition. They suggest that these scholarships, which would be of the order of £250 plus fees—something like £350—would be made available year by year to an increasing number of entrants.
However, the Commission bring out another principle which I think is an important one on which the Minister has turned his back in the proposals in the Bill. It is the recommendation of the Commission that anybody who reaches scholarship standards should at least get a free place, a remission of fees. This is something to which the Minister should give very careful consideration. It is the position in Britain. The reason 98 per cent of all students in British universities receive support is that, irrespective of means, any student who qualifies in the stringent conditions of entry to universities there receives £50. This principle appears to have worked there and the Commission on Higher Education here come up with the same idea.
If the Minister appears unwilling to do this he should give us the reasons why he feels this is something he cannot do. If it is something he thinks he can do in the future, let him say so now. If he has brought forward this Bill as an interim plan to last during the next two years it looks very different from that in the sense in which he brought it forward as being the basis for all future support.
Finally, having looked at what has been stated in Investment in Education, the Fine Gael policy document, and in the Report of the Commission on Higher Education, we had in May, 1968, the proposals of the Minister. Perhaps we can summarise the Minister's proposals as contained in this Bill. There are certain principles on which the Bill is founded. They are the principles which we should examine against the background of the views that are available in order to enable us to ask ourselves whether he has come up with the right solutions.
The first principle is that the scholarship scheme or the grants scheme as the Minister prefers to call it—though anything that depends on four honours in the leaving certificate is still a scholarship in my vocabulary——
Hear, hear.
One of the principles is that the Minister is to determine the complete details of the scheme. It will be for the Minister to determine the academic standards, the means test, the institutions at which the scholarships will be held, the age limits of the applicants and such other requirements as he may think fit. The first principle is the laying out of the scheme. It is a Department scheme. I have no objection to this but I suggest the Minister should have pursued this logically if he had wished to go along this path: he should have made the whole scheme a State scheme whereas the second point of the principle in this Bill is that the Minister still retains the local authorities within the scheme. The second principle of the Bill is that the local authorities are to spend the same amounts as before in respect to this scheme, and the State is to provide the extra money that will be required.
The third principle of the scheme is that it is virtually enabling legislation and the Minister has been good enough to outline, in the explanatory memorandum which accompanied the Bill, what is in his mind at the moment. However, the third principle is that here we have enabling legislation. I do not think this is an unfair summary of the principles of the Bill as it stands.
The Minister has indicated what is in his mind—£175 for the local grant and £300 otherwise for income adjustment and children's allowances. The first difficulty that arises here is that if we look at the various other proposals that have been made there has been a distinction in these various proposals between a fee grant—or a remission of fee or something of this type—and a maintenance grant. It is rather hard to classify the Minister's particular proposal. When you look at it from one point of view it looks like a maintenance grant and when you look at it from another point of view it looks like a fee grant. It seems to me to have tried to do two jobs at once. I wonder if the Minister could indicate which he had in mind. We are, of course, quite aware of the difficulty that this is a start, that there is not an unlimited amount of money available and that it is necessary, faced with several desirable things that might be done, to choose among them. Again, I must emphasise that if we consider this as the basis of long-term planning, then it would be extremely helpful for us to know from the Minister whether he looks on the purpose of these particular grants as being primarily in order to meet fees or whether he is considering these as maintenance grants to help the needy, leaving the question of fees for another day, bearing in mind the fact that the fees are already subsidised to the extent of possibly two-thirds by the system of block grants. If this Bill is to be the basis of long-term planning then I think we must be clear on these particular points. In the things which we say during this debate I think the Minister will find the House only too anxious to help him in regard to the way in which we can solve this particular problem. What we say may well help the Minister even if only in some small respect in regard to the next step in this.
My reaction to the Bill is that it appears to me pragmatic, it appears to me ad hoc, it does not appear to reflect, and in this I may do it an injustice, the long-term planning which is necessary. To be more specific about my reactions to the principles of the Bill and to some of the details of the Minister's proposal, the first point I should like to take up in this regard is the position of the local authorities. The local authorities were central to the old system of university scholarships. Indeed, when I passed through the university I passed through as a county council scholar and later as a county councillor I was a member of the scholarship committee, so I have seen this system in operation from two sides. I think before we change this system we should just pause to remember the great contribution to the development of our community that was made by these schemes dating back to 1908. Indeed, our community is in many respects a far better community because of those members of the community who have received training they might not otherwise have received, as a result of the subventions of these local authorities.
Having said that an enormous contribution was made by this particular scheme down through the years, I think we must realise that it has been out-paced by developments. We have had the situation in the past few years that some of our local authorities have been very interested in these schemes, others have been indifferent. I feel we must really pause here and not just accept the fact that local authorities have been part of the scheme and should remain part of the scheme in the future. Perhaps, we should ask ourselves why the local authorities came into the scheme in the first place. Why was this a matter for local authorities rather than a matter for central government? Of course, these scholarships started in 1908 and at this time there was no central government in this country. At that time we had our county councils. They had been some ten years in existence and they had proved themselves a remarkably vital element in the community. They had shown themselves in many ways as reflecting the opinions of people throughout Ireland to an extent that the Parliamentary Member at Westminster was not able to do. The great success of the Irish county councils following their formation in 1898 and the great extent to which they reflected their own communities and the variations between regions in the country made them a most suitable medium for this legislation in 1908 but that does not necessarily make them a suitable medium for the administration today. Even if we say that, perhaps, now this representative function which in 1908 was exercised by the county councils and is today exercised by this Oireachtas would make us tend to look at this question anew, we might ask: "But what about England?" The position is that in England the local authorities are still the donors of the grants for university support but here we have a different reason. In England down through the years, education has been a local authority function, all forms of education and not merely vocational education as it has been with us. So, in fact, in England they have their own particular historical origin.
I think at this stage that we have to make up our minds as to whether it is appropriate that the local authorities should still exercise a function in this regard. I feel that the Minister's proposal here is not one that is in the interests of the local authorities themselves. The Minister has adopted the formula in this particular Bill that the local authorities should be asked to administer the scheme which will be laid down by the Minister, have been asked to contribute what they have contributed during the financial year which has just ended and that they should then carry out this scheme largely as agents for the Minister and the Department of Education. I do not think it is good for the local authorities of this country to be asked to act as mere agents for the central government. This is a position we have been running ourselves into in regard to health services, in regard to main road services, and I think this is one that really does no real service to the health and the vigour and the stability of local government in the country. We hope this scheme will grow and grow and very soon the contribution of the local authorities will be a small thing compared to the contribution by the Minister and I feel there is a great deal to be said for making a clean cut now. The local authorities will in future just act as local agencies for the Minister and I think it might be as well if the Minister would seriously consider at this stage whether it would not be more appropriate that this scheme should be a national scheme from the beginning. We have certain difficulties —no doubt, the Minister has heard representations that what he proposes will penalise those local authorities who have been progressive and have been interested in the past. This is a point, but this is not the main burden of my concern. My concern is that this local government system we have that is so overloaded nowadays has tended to become not a system of local self government at all but an agency of decentralised central government, and this is something about which I am very fearful. As one who served his political apprenticeship in local authority, I fear for the future of local government in this country if this particular trend is to continue.
I think we should do other things. The Minister might be reluctant as it were to let the local authorities get away with their fourpence or sixpence or ninepence or whatever they have been raising from the rates in this regard. Perhaps we might do something here which would not only make the scheme the Minister proposes a neater scheme, because I do not believe in arguing merely in favour of a neater scheme, but, at the same time, we could do something for our local authorities. I just throw out this suggestion to the Minister. If he were in this legislation, or the next legislation he brings in in this regard, to say that the local authorities will no longer have to contribute provided that in the future they contribute the poundage which they had been contributing—fourpence or sixpence or ninepence, I do not know if any have gone beyond ninepence and I think that this is the range which they are contributing at the moment—if the local authorities were relieved provided that they spent the money on some educational or cultural purposes.
Here we would find that the progressive local authorities, those who have carried this scheme from 1908 onwards and got real value for it for the people of Ireland, would find special schemes, maybe in conjunction with the universities or special cultural schemes. We would be encouraging local authorities to spend the money for educational purposes in diverse ways, encouraging diversity of action, local initiative and imagination among our local authorities instead of making their expenditure on education be merely the administration of a scheme laid down in all detail by a central Department. I would urge the Minister to consider whether, in fact, we would not be better off moving in this direction in regard to this matter. With regard to expenditure of this type on education and on all types of cultural matters this is an area in which diversity is definitely desirable.
We have, of course, unfortunately, had diversity in regard to scholarship schemes in the past, diversity in regard to the question of whether a person gets to a university or not. This is diversity which is not desirable and is intolerable in the present age. We who work in the universities know the tremendous differences in standards between scholarships from different counties. We could arrange the counties in order due to different standards and the different numbers of scholarships. There is at present a tremendous disparity easily recognisable between county scholars coming from the different counties. The Minister proposes to end such diversity. We would appeal to him to alter the system under which money spent produces an undesirable diversity, and to produce a healthy diversity in future. So I would put forward here my first great reservation in regard to this particular Bill, and that is the continuance of the local authorities as a central part of it.
This appears in the very Title. The Minister has brought forward a Bill not for higher education grants but for Local Authorities (Higher Education Grants), and if it is successful and if it really goes from strength to strength the local authorities, which is the main part of the title, will become less and less important in the real sense and, indeed, in practice will become lost altogether while the higher education grant which now appears in brackets will become all important.
My second point of reservation is the question of the academic standard on which the Bill is based. The Minister is quite clear and positive in saying that these are grants. If these are maintenance grants then I think that any academic standard of four honours simpliciter is one open to severe criticism. We have here a real danger that we may get back to a system of cramming for scholarships which was beginning to disappear from our secondary system. This particular system may lead to that again. We are going to have real problems in regard to this. This is a simple way of solving a problem, but if this approach of purely academic standards is to be followed instead of maintenance grants in future it is not what is required.
I know that there are difficulties in regard to this. Our university institutions and colleges, the National University in particular, have taken the point of view down through the years that selection is no part of their function, that selection of persons as qualified persons for entering is no part of their functions, and that university institutions must take the line that anyone who matriculates must be accepted. We will have to work out some policy in this regard. If we look over the water to what is done in Britain we do not find that four honours are required there. The criterion for support of a student in a British university is two "A" levels plus acceptance by a university. It is, indeed, important to note that this may result in excessive specialisation by narrowing the choice to only two subjects to get as high marks as possible. On the other hand, these two "A" levels plus selection by a university institution will not make for cramming for examinations and marks such as the Minister's scheme may. University institutions that adopt a broader view look for something more than mere academic achievement at the end of secondary school, and these particular institutions by means of interview and by means of selection are able to get the type of person that they think is good university material.
From the right school.
Still institutions vary in this. Perhaps the cue which Senator Sheehy Skeffington has dropped about the right school brings me to my next point. We may think that we are levelling all things if we say that we will determine our university scholarships on the basis of four honours. But this is not equality. It is easier for a boy to get four honours in the leaving certificate if he is a student at a large school run, for example, by the Irish Christian Brothers by whom I am proud to have been educated. He has a far better chance to get the Minister's scholarship than a boy from a secondary school in a remote part of the country. They are not competing under equal conditions here. We must tell the Minister this from our experience in universities. I can think of one particular case of a boy who came in from a small country school, not with very high honours in the leaving certificate. He got a pass in his first year examination, he got second honours in his second year examination, first class honours in his third year examination, first class in his fourth year, and first place in Ireland in a scholarship examination. This was not a matter of late development except that it took him time in the university to overcome the disadvantage of the particular secondary school in which he had been educated. We have, too, students taking the opposite track. We have them coming in with four honours in the leaving certificate getting first class honours in the first year, second honours in second year, pass in the third year and a pass in the degree.
Human nature.
Some of it is human nature but more of it is inhuman schoolmastering as well. I only wish to say that it may appear to be a simple solution to say that we need only have a standard of four honours and this will do everything, but it is not going to solve the problem. Sooner or later whether because of the difficulties of choosing in this regard or because of the fact that pressure of numbers will overcome the accommodation we will have to face the question of selection, and it cannot be shirked very much longer. I do not think that the Minister's four honours is going to be a very good solution to the problem.
Here I may say that we would be glad to know from the Minister what exactly he has in mind regarding those four honours. It refers to four honours in university subjects. I take it that this means not four university subjects but four matriculation subjects.
Yes, in effect.
Again we are in difficulty. Does this mean general matriculation or will any account be taken of matriculation for a particular faculty? Is general matriculation——
No, matriculation subjects.
Any of the listed subjects. Well, perhaps, there may be difficulties in regard to this.
We use the word "university" because we hope to see matriculation and leaving certificate merged in some way ultimately. "University subjects" is the more permanent type of term.
There is a confusion here and——
"University subject" is the permanent type of term whereas "matriculation" may be a transient type.
I do not follow the Minister, but, however, we will be able to tease it out on Committee Stage. We will have to be quite clear in regard to matriculation. It is not an easy matter by any means.
Now I come to my next point in regard to my main reaction to this Bill. We talked about the local authorities and academic standards and the next point I want to advert to is the question of the means test. Of course, a means test is inevitable. Of course, any scheme which is produced would certainly at the initial stages have a means test of some type or otherwise it would be unfair. However, I feel that the cut-off in the Minister's scheme is perhaps unduly sharp. If a person earning £2,000 a year has four children, he will receive absolutely no support under the Minister's scheme. While such a person may not be the most deserving case, nevertheless, a person earning £2,000 a year with, perhaps, special expenses which we do not allow for in the scheme, would find it extremely difficult to put four or even two children through the university. There is a good deal to be said for giving something to everybody if at all possible. There is the United Kingdom system of giving £50 to all although the average grant is somewhere between £350 and £400. Nevertheless, in the scheme even though you have the average there is the £50 for everybody. This I think does do something. In the proposal which the Fine Gael Party made we suggested that fees be paid for all students. The fees charged at the moment are, perhaps, coming up close to the £100 but in some cases now these, of course, are not the real fees at all. This, again, is a point, this sharp cut-off.
We must remember the individual whom I mentioned before, the individual who thinks so highly of education that he will make great sacrifices to give higher education to his children if these children are talented, perhaps, not quite talented enough to win a scholarship but, nevertheless, above the minimum for university entrance. He is, indeed, doing something for the community as well as for his own children. He may have been neglected by the Minister with reluctance, being unable to do anything in this case.
Again, a point which I should like to raise here which might be discussed a little on Committee Stage is that the Minister does not mention in his explanatory memorandum the question of renewals of scholarships after the first year. I do not know whether the scholarships will be renewed provided a student passes his examination or whether there is any particular standard. This has given rise to a number of difficulties in the past. The general practice at the moment is that students are supposed either to get honours or to be recommended as having performed meritoriously by the university authorities. In certain schemes, for example, if a student gets honours he receives the full scholarship for the following year; if he passes he gets a reduced scholarship for the following year and in many cases if he fails he gets no scholarship for the following year unless some special provision is made. The position, indeed, is a reflection of what I said earlier about the scholarship entrance standard not necessarily being kept up in universities, that many cases arise whereby special recommendations have to be made because those who come in emblazoned with leaving certificate honours fail university examinations for one reason or another.
There was one case in regard to a certain county council where the college concerned reported on the students, reported on those who had got honours and, therefore, should get their full amount, also reported on those who passed and should get reduced amounts, and also on those who failed and should get nothing. However, apparently the parent of one of those who failed carried more weight with the county council than did the recommendations of the university; as a result the county council scholarship committee decided that they would restore the scholarship to those who had failed and we had the interesting situation in the following year that those who had failed were getting full scholarships while those who had passed were getting reduced scholarships. I hope the Minister's scheme will not operate that way.
As long as they get a straight pass.
In a summary of what I have been saying about the Bill, it cannot be emphasised too often that there is substantial agreement on objectives. This runs through all the documents which have dealt with this particular problem. I feel, as I have indicated, that the Minister's present proposal appears to be too much of a patchwork for my fancy, that it shows too little signs of planning and of an awareness of the long-term needs, that it is acceptable as a stop-gap, but that the Minister could well, and indeed should, have been able to do better. Perhaps, at this time of the year when those of us in academic life are in an examining mood we could say that in this particular test the Minister passed, that it is doubtful if he has got honours and that he certainly has not got a first. However, if he applies himself more thoroughly to fundamentals next year, perhaps, we could then award him honours.
We can proceed with the examination as conducted by Senator Dooge. In this we are all agreed on fundamentals, that is, that any qualifying student should not be denied higher education through lack of means. However, we have got to examine this very carefully. What is a qualifying student? He is a student who is able to profit by a university education and the only satisfactory way that that can be established is by his performance at the university. It is the only reliable test and his leaving certificate results or his performance in secondary school are just a very rough indication. It is his subsequent performance under more uniform conditions that really tells the tale.
Yet the present scheme is based entirely on the leaving certificate. When it comes then to deciding what is a qualified student and how do we select qualified students, I submit that the people to advise on that are the university people themselves. They have had practical experience down through the years. As Senator Dooge pointed out, they have seen students come in blazing with honours and go out again as damp squibs. They have seen students come in with very little to show on paper, students from small schools where opportunities were few, perhaps, and these have gone from strength to strength as the course progressed.
The first major criticism I make of this scheme is that the people who really know how to select and advise on qualified students were never consulted. It is an atrocious approach to the laying down of fundamentals and a pattern for the future. It is the height of arrogance for a State Department to act as the Department of Education has acted in this scheme. They neither sought nor took advice. It is typical of the disregard shown for the public, a disregard which has resulted in a controversy about educational standards, courses and so on. It is high time we took a look across the Border to see how they carry on their work there. There there is recognition of a certain democratic mode of procedure. There there is recognition of the fact that a democracy functions not by the State arrogating to itself the right to decide everything but by those in authority knowing how to seek advice and, having got it, knowing how to act on it. That has not been done here. I shall return to this point again.
It has become rather fashionable in the present climate of opinion to disregard authority and to pretend that the real authority lies in those who know nothing about it. If we are to accept the press at its face value, students apparently know a great deal more about education than the staff concerned with it. There are ways and means of testing out hypotheses. Every group has a contribution to make. Students have a contribution to make, a valuable and worthwhile contribution. They can make very useful criticisms of courses and any university professor or lecturer will go out of his way to seek these criticisms and he will consider them seriously and, if they merit action, he will act to them. As standards go, considering all the handicaps and disadvantages and the lack of finance with which our universities have had to contend, it is a source of amazement to visitors from outside the country that our universities are able to maintain such good standards. Consequently, I make no apology to anyone when I suggest that the universities through their faculties and academic councils could have drafted a much superior scheme to that which is before us, a scheme designed to foster real scholarship and real endeavour, ensuring at the same time the basic principle that no qualified student would be denied higher education because of lack of means. I think the claims made are rather extravagant—900 students covered by this scheme.
Nearly 1,000.
A thousand. At present 300 scholarships are available and it is my belief that up to this the remaining 700 have been finding their way in through the sacrifices of their parents. I have come across very few cases in which the really good students did not succeed in getting in. That is not saying now that everything is perfect. I agree that there should be this type of blanket provision, but I am not very happy when we come down to introducing a means test. A means test is very invidious, particularly in the sphere of education in which we want to encourage the best. On the other hand, I realise the bill could be a fairly substantial one, though half a million is not very much in the concept of modern budgets. I believe it would be comparatively easy to arrange that the parents of those outside the scope of the present scheme because of the means test could contribute as a class at least as much as would find its way back to their children as scholarships. This could be done quite easily by having an increased income tax contribution at a higher rate. For instance, at the moment we have, say, 7/- up to a certain level. There could be another threepence in the £ added to take effect on incomes above the usual level, £1,200 or £1,500. An equalisation fund would enable us to dispense with the means test and it would also give students the satisfaction of competing one with the other on terms of financial equality, even though the parents above the means test level would be themselves providing the money. That is a simple illustration and what I suggest would actually stimulate scholarship. Again, if a student whose parents are paying income tax qualifies for a grant, then the parents would immediately cease to claim relief of income tax in respect of that student. At the lowest level it would probably be 5/- in the £, which would amount to £75; around the £2,000 level it would be 7/- in the £, which would be £100. In the surtax range it would be £150.
Is the Minister going out of his way when he tries to suggest it would cost a great deal to do away with the means test when in point of fact a good deal of the money will in any case find its way back into the Exchequer? If there is a desire to put on a special increment in the income tax, why not? But let us have free competition, competition which will encourage our students to compete with one another.
I cannot think of a more unequal form of test than that suggested based, as it is, on the leaving certificate because the difference in schools is very great and will continue to be so, because the difference depends on the quality of the teachers. There are a very limited number of first-class mathematics teachers available. These are concentrated in a few big schools. They cannot be available at all the secondary school centres in the country. The same holds in any of the other subjects where there is such paucity of honours graduates available in teaching staffs. Again, big cities will encourage special grinds and cramming for these.
I know it is difficult to find, perhaps, a better way of starting and, perhaps, we will have to accept some measure out of the leaving certificate for initially providing the first year but after the first year the retention of the grant should directly depend on university performance and, likewise, students who come into the university but do not have a grant coming in, if they make grant standard in their second or third year, are entitled in justice to get it.
Debate adjourned.
The Seanad adjourned at 10 p.m. until 3 p.m. on Wednesday, 19th June, 1968.