May I be reminded as to the time available?
Adjournment Matter. - Cancellation of Teachers' Course.
Acting Chairman
The Senator has 20 minutes.
Ní bheidh an méid sin ag teastáil, tá súil agam
The matter here concerns the cancellation by the Department of a special course which had been going on since 1976 and was being carried on in various centres. My concern is particularly with Mary Immaculate College of Education in Limerick. The course was being offered to university graduates who wished to qualify as primary teachers. Now the whole idea of offering this extra topping up, so to speak, to the graduates of universities was so that they could qualify as primary teachers.
There were two motives which obtained in 1976 when the scheme was introduced. One was to move in some direction towards improving the pupil-teacher ratio and the other was to offer an additional employment opportunity, albeit marginal, to university graduates. There was a third element involved. It was not necessarily present in the minds of those who implemented the scheme. But it was certainly a very desirable side effect of the scheme. By putting university graduates into a training college one did something towards bridging the gap which has always obtained between the primary and secondary levels.
In the last few years there have been, from the point of view of those who are concerned about this, sinister signs that this scheme was being curtailed. In the year 1980-81 25 students had taken the course in Our Lady of Mercy College, Blackrock and that was discontinued altogether in 1981-82, and in the same academic year the number of places offered dropped from 120 to 50 in St. Patrick's College, Drumcondra and from 23 to 10 in Mary Immaculate College, Limerick. That was the position up to the spring of this year, leaving Mary Immaculate as the only training centre outside Dublin which continued to offer this facility. On 27 March 1982 the matter came up for discussion at an Irish Federation of University Teachers conference in Galway where it was raised from the floor, where the Minister was present and concern was expressed at the drift which was by then evident. My information is that the Minister responded sympathetically, but not being very long in the hot seat at that stage he was obviously guarded in his response. But it was suggested that perhaps written submissions could be made to him. Then suddenly the axe fell on Mary Immaculate College. With no warning and so soon after the Minister indicated he was prepared to discuss the matter it was conveyed to the president of the college that the course would be discontinued forthwith. That happened on April 2, only a few days after the discussion in Galway. It was only within days also of a submission by the people concerned. On 31 March they wrote to the Minister and made their case. Then suddenly on 2 April the president of the Mary Immaculate College in Limerick was informed that the course would be discontinued. This has given rise to widespread dissatisfaction among the staff in the Mary Immaculate College and among the Association of Professional Staffs in the Colleges of Education.
The manner of the conveying of the decision is as much a matter of concern as the decision arrived at, because it is felt that the whole thing illustrates very clearly the lack of consultation there is between the Department of Education and the staffs at the training colleges, not simply on this matter, but on the levels of intake of their ordinary student teachers. So, I bring up this motion in order to highlight on their behalf the sense of unease felt and to hope that the decision may be reversed. They feel that the Minister was himself presented with a fait accompli in this matter and that the decision to discontinue the course had already been made while he in Galway was promising to look into the matter, that in fact it was probably a decision which had carried over from the previous administration. Senators may have seen a letter to the newspapers on this topic, and in that it was stated that the matter of great importance, namely the cancellation of the course, was communicated to the president of Mary Immaculate by a relatively junior official. I do not think we should make too much of this because I am sure that really represents a cordial and continuing communication by a principal officer with the heads of the colleges concerned. But what we should note is that it was made without warning, without consultation and at a time of year when the planning of courses for the coming academic year is already at an advanced stage. So, on the face of it it would seem to be a particularly notable piece of bumbledom.
It raises wider issues, of course. It now means that St. Patrick's is the only place where this facility is being offered, and this means that the principle of regionalism, of decentralisation, which in the whole thrust of administration is supposed to be so important to Government policy, is ignored. I am not just talking of the present administration; in recent years the whole thrust of administration is the decentralisation of various services, and this decision seems to run absolutely contrary to that. By the way, the Minister's letter in response to the protest which arose was, I might say, laconic in the extreme. It simply said that curtailment of recruitment to graduate courses was necessary to secure a reasonable balance between the output of qualified national teachers in the colleges of education and the availability of employment in national schools; in other words, there was a crude criterion of supply and demand. If the letter was brief to the point of being laconic it was also, I may suggest, disingenuous in its concluding sentence when it said "Consultation on questions of recruitment and related matters is undertaken on an ongoing basis with the presidents of the Colleges." That may be strictly true at the level of a principal officer communicating with the president. It is not true in any real bilateral consultation about policy. The Minister's reply by no means allayed the sense of grievance which the whole thing gave rise to.
There may be a case in pure terms of retrenchment, pure terms of economy, for the step taken. But it does not seem to make any sense to continue it in St. Patrick's in the centralised metropolitan area and discontinue it in Limerick. In other words the continuation of the course in Limerick would have made as much economic sense as the present situation and would have made a much greater deal of sound regional sense, because it means that graduates of UCC and UCG who supply the overwhelming preponderance of those taking advantage of the course are now being grievously disadvantaged. Since many of these people would be married persons hoping to change or improve their lot perhaps they have even less chance of coming to Dublin to avail of the remaining facilities. The people in Limerick complain, with some justification, that the educational service at Mary Immaculate is diminished by this step in that the graduate body of students, small in number perhaps — they began with 40 in 1976 and set against the total student body in Mary Immaculate they might be no more than perhaps 8 or 9 per cent — represented an important leaven in that little academic community; it was a mixing of different experiences. These graduates comprise not only BAs. I am saying that in case one thinks it was the same kind of academic background. These graduates came from different academic disciplines and they would have represented, no matter how small, a benefit to the economy as well as to the educational experience of Mary Immaculate College.
Tá rud amháin eile chomh maith. Tá fhios ag éinne go bhfuil baint aige leis na coláisití traenála go gcuirtear béim faoi leith sa Choláiste i Luimneach ar an dteanga agus ar an chultúr Gaeilge. Ní hé rud é seo go bhfuil aon chur i gcéill ag baint leis. Éinne go bhfuil taithí aige ar an gcoláiste agus a théann ann go rialta agus go bhfuil deileáil aige leis an bhfoireann tuigfidh sé go bhfuil an díograis sin ann i leith na Gaeilge. Bhí bhaint nár bheag ag an dream seo céimithe a bhí ag freastal ar an chúrsa. Thugadar san ana-chabhair agus an-chuidiú don ethos Gaeilge atá chomh láidir san sa Choláiste.
So on all kinds of grounds I suggest that this a retrogressive decision, and I must say that it is disappointing that the Minister does not seem to have responded to the protests which were made or to have addressed himself to the important educational and professional issues which have been raised by the whole decision. It has been bad for morale in Mary Immaculate and in the other training colleges by extension, and it does not mean that existing resources are going to be utilised more rationally. Let me here take the opportunity of paying tribute to the training colleges and to the one I know extremely well, Mary Immaculate, because University College Cork has a very close association with Mary Immaculate Training College. They are committed quite altruistically to educational reform. Next Monday morning, for example, I am going to be opening a course for about 500 primary teachers who are doing an in-service refresher course. Mary Immaculate's commitment to all these things is affected, no matter how marginally, by what is widely regarded as a regressive decision. So, I would ask the Minister to consider reversing the decision and, at the very least, on this occasion to elaborate on the rather curt explanation which was given in his letter of 31 March.
I take the point that Senator Murphy is raising in saying that it probably is very difficult for those involved in a particular institution to understand or accept when changes are thrust upon them in a rather cursory or peremptory way. He did make the point that this arose comparatively soon after the change of Government. Perhaps I could clear that aspect of it. Naturally I could not be familar with all the issues, all the aspects that were likely to arise for decision within a matter of a couple of weeks after assuming office. There were some other matters that were taking up quite a lot of time in the educational area at that time. I did assume when the matter was raised verbally in Galway at the end of March that there would be time to look at these things in some more leisurely way, to have adequate consultations and discussions. But on referring back I discovered that it was the sort of area where if one was to take any action for the academic year 1982-83 it was in the interests of the colleges concerned that they should know as quickly as possible what that decision was.
It became apparent that there should be some cutback in the numbers going on for teacher training, and specifically that raised the question of whether one should make the cutback on the ordinary three-year course for students going through the College of Education for the B.Ed. degree or whether there should be a reduction in the numbers admitted to this one-year post graduate course. I will discuss the pros and cons of that later. I felt it was right to agree to a further reduction in the graduate intake. There had been reduction in the previous year, which incidentally had resulted in a third college being asked to withdraw from this type of graduate course.
As to the rather curt or peremptory nature of the communication, I would like to have had more time. I should point out that this transpired during Holy Week and there was no possibility of arranging any sort of more normal meeting and consultation for a matter of at least two weeks, because Easter week was taken up with holidays, teacher conferences and so forth. Rightly or wrongly I felt it was better to communicate a decision quickly to give the maximum time to the college. As to the reasons for it, we have been hearing a great deal from many people about the need to economise on Government spending, to learn to live within our means, to try to make the best use of limited resources and so forth, and this has to apply to education as much as to any other area.
Looking then at the relative pressures that are coming on education, it is fair to say that there has been a slowing down in the growth of pupil numbers. While there is some further modest expansion in pupil numbers it is a quite small one. Larger pressures in terms of numbers are still occurring at the post primary and third level. In the primary area I emphasise that a very substantial improvement in the teaching strength, and therefore some significant improvements in the pupil-teacher ratio at that level, had taken place over the previous four years since 1977. We must slow down that improvement because there is not the financial scope to afford that type of continued progress for the years immediately ahead.
Then it becomes appropriate to look at the numbers who are entering training. Surely it would be wrong to allow numbers of young people to go into training courses in the expectation that there would be teaching posts available for them at the completion of their training if in fact that will not be the case. The numbers available show that for the first time, over the past year or so, a surplus of primary teachers has emerged. Several hundred of last year's graduates from the colleges were not able to find teaching posts. That situation was likely to become much worse over the next two to three years if nothing were done to curb or slow down the intake to the colleges. That is the background against which the decision was taken.
Senator Murphy pointed out that the numbers entering this post primary course had been reduced over the previous year as well. The decision to make a further reduction then raised the question of whether one should concentrate the remaining intake, the proposed 30 places for 1982/83, in Dublin or in Limerick. Senator Murphy has made the argument about the decentralisation, and it is very much a matter of Government policy to encourage and support decentralisation where possible. I do not think that can be the only criterion, and, in fairness to St. Patrick's College, it has been operating on a much larger scale for many years past both in the three-year B. Ed. course and also in provision of these one-year courses. In effect, the reduction for St. Patrick's is relatively speaking as severe, indeed more severe, than the reduction now being asked of Mary Immaculate College in Limerick. Both colleges are being asked to make a cut-back and I do not think the cutback in the case of Mary Immaculate is any more severe in its overall impact on the college than the one in St Patrick's, Drumcondra.
The argument has been put forward that in some sense the presence of a group of graduate students has a beneficial impact on the general life and activity of the college, but while that may be so I doubt if one would argue that that would be significant looking at a group as small as ten. Perhaps it is so, but it would be a difficult point to establish. While if all other things were equal it is the sort of factor that one might allow to tilt the scales, I do not think that in the context of the overall decision that of itself would be sufficient to decide the matter.
I would suggest that while it is always unpleasant to have to contemplate curbs, cutbacks, restrictions and so forth, nonetheless when they become necessary they should be faced and undertaken as fairly as possible. I believe that we have acted fairly and reasonably in deciding on the proposed activities for the various training colleges. I would wish that it was not so and that we were in a happier overall situation when we could afford not only to continue but preferably to expand the sorts of training courses, but that is not the practical situation which we face nor is it likely to be the case for several years to come. It is better to face up to that situation and to ask the colleges to adapt their level of activity to the more restricted climate which is likely to prevail for the years ahead. The fact that the course is only being offered in Dublin does not mean that students from various parts of the country cannot avail of it. There will be maintenance grants available, including a boarding grant element, to meet the costs of the students who are not living in the Dublin area.
That is hardly effecting economies.
No, but in the context of overall provision it is right to move towards a scaling down. There is no point in seeking to sustain a programme of courses if you do not have the student intake to justify them. We would find that over a period of time it is financially more attractive. I would also argue that it is educationally more appropriate to think in terms of offering courses where there is a reasonable student body to avail of them. It is not in anyone's interest to maintain courses with artificially small numbers. I do not think that is good for morale.
The facilities and the staffing would be there in any case.
The facilities and staffing would be there for the other students of the college. If that helps the college not only to sustain but perhaps to strengthen the nature of the provision which it can make for those, so much the better.
The overall point must be that there will be a smaller intake of teachers into the primary system for a number of years ahead. The rate of growth will not be as rapid as it has been in recent years. Therefore there must be a corresponding slowing down in the numbers entering the training colleges. The reduction of ten students which we are talking about here is quite a small fraction of the overall reduction which is taking place in absolute numbers. The cut-back means in terms of St. Patrick's College that they have come down from something like 110 two years ago to 50 and now to 30. At the basic three-year course level there will be a slowing down of the order of several hundreds over a two to three-year period. While I recognise the reasons which give rise to this motion, I would find it difficult to do anything to alter the decision. I would not see scope for any growth in the intake of students to training courses for at least several years.
I might be permitted a brief comment.
Acting Chairman
A brief question.
I want to say that the staff concerned are extremely worried. They think there has not been sufficient consultation. The Minister in as many words admitted that. I thank him for his courteous if unconvincing reply.
Ba mhaith liom leithscéal a ghabháil leis an Teach. Cuireadh ceist orm agus dubhairt mé go mbeadh an Teach in a suí an Chéadaoin seo chugainn. I am happy to inform the House that the House will sit tomorrow at 10.30 a.m. I am sorry for unintentionally misinforming the House.
The Seanad adjourned at 7.40 p.m. until 10.30 a.m. on Thursday, 1 July 1982.