Adjournment Debate. - Secondary School Staffs. – Seanad Éireann (12th Seanad) – Tuesday, 10 Aug 1971

Adjournment Debate. - Secondary School Staffs.

An Cathaoirleach

I have received notice from Senator Quinlan that on the motion for the Adjournment tonight he proposes to raise the following matter:

The inadequacy of the notice given by the Minister for Education to secondary school authorities of his refusal to sanction staff increases for which graduates had already been engaged provisionally.

I have already announced that I have accepted that notice and the matter will be taken from now until 10 p.m. On the motion for the adjournment at this time the matter generally is confined to the Senator who raises it and the Minister must be allowed sufficient opportunity to reply. The usual practice is that ten minutes or more, if possible, is given to him. I should like to give one further warning that this motion is severely limited in its wording and the Chair will have to insist that speakers on this motion remain within the narrow limits in which it is worded. Senators should not widen it.

Professor Quinlan

With your permission, a Chathaoirleach, would it be possible to allocate five minutes of my time to Senator West?

An Cathaoirleach

That is entirely a matter for the Senator. The Minister should be allowed ten minutes to reply.

Professor Quinlan

The motion is:

The inadequacy of the notice given by the Minister for Education to secondary school authorities of his refusal to sanction staff increases for which graduates had already been engaged provisionally.

The facts on this are that I have checked on a number of secondary schools and find that the application made to the Department in early May was not answered until 20th July. I propose to prove that this notice was totally inadequate and very unjustifiable because the normal school practice has always been to engage teachers for the following year on 1st May, allowing three months before the teachers take up duty on 1st August. This fact has been known to the Department of Education and the Minister all down the years and is just ordinary courtesy between school authorities because many of those engaged would be moving on from other schools and would have to give the usual three months' notice of their intention to leave these positions.

The 1st May came this year and the school authorities had got no intimation whatsoever from the Minister that there was to be any change in the situation this year with regard to recognition of additional or replacement teachers. This notice did not come until 12th May—12 days after schools would have been expected to have engaged their teachers. On 12th May a circular came that said that in future, beginning this year, all replacement teachers and all additional teachers would have to be individually sanctioned by the Minister and would have to have a case made for each. This was a very big change from what held up to that time. Up to that time there was no question of individual sanction. A new teacher was acceptable for registration as a secondary teacher if he had the credentials necessary. Otherwise the school had merely to show that they had a ratio basis of 1 to 50 so that if they had 65 pupils and four teachers and then in the following year if there was an increase of ten pupils, bringing the total to 75, that meant the school was entitled to five teachers and could get sanction for the fifth merely by applying.

The drastic change in the situation was not notified until after the normal date for employing teachers, and the decision was not reached and communicated to the school authorities until late July. I hold that this is a very grave discourtesy to the school authorities concerned. Unfortunately, it is the type of discourtesy that all of us, whether we are teachers, school authorities or university people, have come to experience from the Department of Education. That is something which has to be put right. There was no intimation given to the school authorities prior to 12th May that there was to be this change. In fact, there was no consultation with them on what was a major change and a major breach in our educational commitment and understanding.

We accepted the situation that was offered by the package deal put forward by the Government three years ago on the understanding that a certain level of education and of equipment and provision for all teachers would be maintained. Now this is being changed unilaterally by the Minister without warning. That is totally wrong. This inadequacy of notice is most unfair to the young teachers involved. Some of those were already in positions and wanted to better themselves, perhaps, by teaching a subject in which they had better qualifications. They gave notice to the schools in which they had been last year and accepted that credentials, as in previous years, were in order. The schools authorities said that their numbers were correct, and therefore, they made arrangements to go to other schools for the coming year. Now they are left high and dry, which is a callous way of treating our most valuable citizens, our teachers, on whom the whole future of our children depends.

This comes at a time when there is increased competition and rising standards everywhere. It is obviously the children who are to suffer by this latest penny-pinching effort——

An Cathaoirleach

The Senator is starting to talk about the merits of the decision.

Professor Quinlan

I am not talking about finance. I am merely talking about the inadequacy of the notice involved. In May, assuming that the conditions were the same as in previous years, many of the schools, in order to carry out the Minister's exhortations to cater for the increased numbers in their neighbourhood, actually made provision for additional classes. I know of schools where these additional classes are there but there are no additional teachers to handle them.

An Cathaoirleach

The Senator is again going into the merits of the decision. The only matter that may be discussed is the notice given. The merits do not arise under this motion.

Professor Quinlan

I do not think it is necessary to discuss the merits of something that is without merit. As an educationist, one would be concerned with——

An Cathaoirleach

The Senator is persisting in discussing it.

Professor Quinlan

I am appalled at the inadequacy of the notice given. It allowed no provision for the school to plan for the coming year. It forced them into taking classes which they would not have taken had they been given adequate notice. Some schools, following out the Minister's grandiose exhortations about providing extra subjects, providing more comprehensive curricula, when not given adequate notice went ahead and committed themselves to employing teachers for those subjects for the coming year. Now with the inadequacy of the notice involved, what will happen? Are all those teachers who have been employed to teach physical education, music and all the other highly desirable subjects to be told: "Sorry, you had better take the mail boat to England"?

An Cathaoirleach

This is again the question of the merits of the decision. I must ask the Senator to restrict his remarks entirely to the extent of the notice.

Professor Quinlan

I cannot understand why applications received in early May should take two months to process, why it should take two months to decide whether these should be allowed or not under whatever criteria the Minister has established. That is grossly unfair. Any businessman worth his salt would have reached decisions on such vital matters within a week. I cannot understand the procrastination. It is due to the inadequacy of the notice that our children are suffering. They are now seeing the ballyhoo of the grandiose plans that have been launched which are not now to be funded. Most of the school authorities are not given any encouragement or, indeed, allowed to plan for the future. It is a sad situation; it is one I deplore and at this late date I would appeal to the Minister to see that he rids himself of the advisers who have landed us in this mess.

Dr. West

I second this motion because I have come across so many examples of secondary schools which have been caught on the hop and the graduate teachers just finishing their diplomas who also have been caught on the hop because of the fact that notice was not given to the schools by the Department of Education until 20th July concerning the employment of additional teachers to deal with extra numbers of registered pupils, when it is customary to have the matter agreed early in May. It has been a matter of form up to this that schools are allotted teachers and paid for them in relation to the number of recognised pupils.

Senator Quinlan has outlined the problems facing the schools and the teachers in this regard. I would also appeal to the Minister because it has caused grave effects and it is another example of the problem in his Department in the matter of public relations. Senator Quinlan has described this late notice as a discourtesy to the schools and the teachers involved. I I am sure the Minister in his reply will give a reason for the lateness of the notice. Perhaps, it is financial. The point is that it does nothing to enhance something about which I have very strong feelings and that is the need to improve the public relations of the Department of Education. Telling schools that they are unable to hire teachers, which is the situation, as late as 20th July when they have already made arrangements to hire these teachers early in May or, at the very latest, the beginning of June, will cause more friction and there will be less co-operation and worsening relations between headmasters, managers of secondary schools and the Department of Education.

I would also add my voice to Senator Quinlan's appeal to the Minister at this late stage to do something for the schools and for the teachers who are still hamstrung by the lateness of the notice and the lateness of the decision of the Department of Education. I am sure there are reasons for this decision. It was clearly not an easy decision to make but the very fact that it should come at such a date has seriously inconvenienced secondary education. I would appeal to the Minister to do something to rectify the situation so far as the schools are concerned, in the shortage of teachers in relation to the number of recognised pupils, and so far as those teachers who have been provisionally hired by the schools and now find themselves jobless are concerned. They are being forced to leave the country or take up some other occupation having spent four years training for teaching.

Minister for Education (Mr. Faulkner)

First of all, I should like to mention a matter which was raised by Senator Quinlan. He stated that teachers who are on the incremental salary and who transfer from one school to another were now being left high and dry. This is not the case. No teacher who had an incremental post last year will be unemployed as a result of the restriction on recruitment. I want to make that fact very clear. I have already had discussions with the ASTI and that was one of the matters which I mentioned to them.

My Department's circular of 12th May, 1971, was addressed to the authorities of all post-primary schools. What was sought, as is clear from the document itself, was a close examination of the use of existing resources in teaching personnel and the keeping of additional commitments to a minimum in the particularly difficult circumstances of 1971-72.

Far from a refusal to sanction staff increases, to which the Senator's motion refers, approval has already been given to the appointment of over 500 additional teachers in secondary schools and cases of difficulty, submitted by the authorities of those schools, continue to be examined in accordance with the Department's circular. In addition to the 500 extra teachers I have mentioned, many additional teachers have been sanctioned in the vocational sector which has not been mentioned in the Senator's motion. There have been misunderstandings—I will not use a stronger word than that—in relation to the position generally. I noticed, when Senator Quinlan was speaking on the Higher Education Authority Bill on 30th June, that he stated that there were 200,000 post-primary pupils and 10,000 teachers. At that time I had intended replying to his remarks but, unfortunately, as a considerable amount of matters were raised I overlooked it.

Quoting figures to the nearest 10,000 may be a satisfactory way of dealing with a matter like this when you wish to make a particular case. I, of necessity, have to be much more precise and more accurate in my figures. The fact is that there were 204,000 post-primary pupils with 11,650 teachers which, of course, is 1,650 more teachers than Senator Quinlan mentioned. This alters very much the picture that he painted.

Professor Quinlan

On a point of information, the figure was given to me by the secretary of the Department of Education.

Mr. Faulkner

The Senator appears to have rounded off the figure. The pupil/teacher ratio was, in fact, 17.5 pupils to one teacher and not 20 pupils to one teacher, as was indicated by the Senator. Here I want to make it clear that I am referring to the whole post-primary system and not simply to the secondary school system.

I am, of course, very well aware of the limitations to be observed in referring to averages. I wish to illustrate this by indicating that, whilst the overall pupil/ teacher ratio in secondary schools was 20 pupils to one teacher, some of the schools have been managing with a high ratio while other schools are so staffed as to have a ratio which is better than 15 pupils to one teacher. One of the merits of the exercise in which we are now engaged is that, with the general aim of providing an adequate allocation of teachers for all schools, particular attention can be paid to the schools which up to now have been relatively understaffed.

I should also like to refer to the occasion on which the Senator was reported—I think it was the 22nd June, shortly after the previous debate—in which he said that the present 20 to one ratio would now be increased. This is a point which I want to deal with very precisely because it is of the utmost importance in relation to policy on the development of education in post-primary schools. The real fact is that the pupil/teacher ratio will be improved next September. This is policy and it is as I would like it to be. Next September we will have about 214,000 pupils in post-primary schools and they will be served by 12,450 recognised teachers. The pupil/teacher ratio will be 17.2 pupils to one teacher as against 17.5 pupils to one teacher in the year which has just finished. Next September an additional 800 teachers will be provided for approximately 10,000 extra pupils in post-primary schools or better than one teacher for 13 pupils. From the figures available to me this will be about one teacher for every 12 pupils in secondary schools. We are catering not only for an increased enrolment in secondary schools but also, to some extent, for a very necessary widening of the curriculum in these schools.

I do not want to be misunderstood or misinterpreted in relation to this. I am not saying that the ratio in our schools at the moment is one to 12 or one to 13. What I am saying is that in relation to the additional number of teachers being employed and the additional number of pupils this is the ratio. In secondary schools alone—and I think this is something worth remembering too—the number of recognised teachers will have risen from 4,900 in 1965-66 to 8,000 next September. This is an increase of 63 per cent as against an increase of 58 per cent in the number of pupils. The arrangements for the coming school year were made in the light of current financial resources. Even in the light of the difficulties, it is clear from what I have said that we have done very well in the circumstances. I have arranged, as I have already mentioned in the Dáil, for representatives of the secondary school authorities and representatives of the teachers to have meetings with representatives of my Department in the autumn for the purpose of making suitable staff arrangements for all secondary schools from 1972 onwards.

Finally, I should like to refer to a question that has been raised here in relation to the adequacy of the notice to secondary schools. Everyone was well aware long before May of this year that the resources available in 1971-72 were going to be very tight in relation to demand for expenditure. In case this could be misinterpreted it is well to remember that in 1956-57 the total expenditure on education was approximately £15 million while this year the total expenditure will be between £80 million and £90 million. This is no small sum of money in any man's language.

I do not think I have anything further to add. I have clearly shown that there will be an improvement this year despite the fact that we have very considerable difficulties, as was pointed out in the notice which was sent round to the schools. I should like to stress that in every instance where an appeal was made to my Department in relation to the staffing and recruitment of teachers the merits of the case were fully considered.

Seanad Éireann debate - Tuesday, 10 Aug 1971

Adjournment Debate. - Secondary School Staffs.

Seanad Éireann debate -
Tuesday, 10 Aug 1971