Schools Inspections

Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 3 March 2015

Tuesday, 3 March 2015

Questions (118)

Patrick O'Donovan

Question:

118. Deputy Patrick O'Donovan asked the Minister for Education and Skills in view of her reply on the carrying out of whole-school evaluations, WSE, and specifically on the physical infrastructure and conditions within schools, if she is satisfied the WSE format adequately reflects the ability of teachers to properly deliver the curriculum at primary and secondary level in view of the physical condition of the school or classroom; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [8739/15]

Oral answers (6 contributions)

Deputy Patrick O'Donovan

This question relates to the carrying out of whole-school evaluations and the inspection of school buildings as part of the evaluation. The inspection is supposed to examine the teaching and learning experience. In many cases the physical conditions of many of our classrooms is a deterrent to teaching and learning.

Deputy Jan O'Sullivan

I am conscious that the physical environments of the classroom and the school play an important role in ensuring good quality teaching and learning can take place in schools. That is why my Department is investing in building new schools and improving existing buildings.

Almost €2 billion in funding is being invested under our five-year capital plan. Almost 320 major school and over 830 small school projects have been approved to replace inadequate infrastructure and provide much needed additional capacity. Since 2012, new classroom accommodation has been delivered for more than 75,000 pupils across the country. Under the minor works grant scheme, over €28 million was approved in December to enable primary schools to undertake repair and improvement works. In addition, over 770 schools have benefited from the funding of over €70 million invested in the 2014 summer works scheme.

WSE is a robust and fair model of inspection. I am satisfied it accurately reflects the work done in schools to deliver the curriculum at primary and secondary levels. When inspectors identify serious shortcomings in school facilities, these matters are raised directly with the school authorities and brought to the attention of the Department's planning and building unit.

Deputy Patrick O'Donovan

I know from a previous parliamentary question on this matter that three issues were raised with the Department’s building unit in respect of WSE visits which I find remarkable. While the schools building work the Department is doing is welcome, there are cases in some classrooms where five children have to move to allow one to go to the toilet. The delivery of the curriculum has to be paramount but the physical infrastructure of a school is important to do so. Many schools built multi-purpose halls several years ago. However, as their enrolment numbers have increased, they have been told by the Department to convert these rooms into classrooms by partitioning them. This impacts on the delivery of the curriculum.

The one arm of the WSE does not know what the arm of curriculum development is doing. In the course of the past 18 months, three serious issues were detected in this regard. While I accept funding is a problem, in my part of County Limerick, which the Minister knows, I can identify three issues in my parish which need to be addressed.

Deputy Jan O'Sullivan

The main issue the Deputy has raised is the physical structure of the school buildings. A new five-year capital programme will be announced in the middle of this year. In advance of that, I will be considering the condition of school buildings around the country. I want to secure the most funding I can for this capital programme. Despite the economic difficulties, the Deputy will acknowledge that over the past five years much progress has been made with school buildings such as the replacement of prefabs, etc. This was largely under my predecessor’s watch, and I have continued.

Inspectors have, albeit only in a small number of cases, referred issues specifically to the building unit in the Department. The inspectorate’s primary purpose is around the education, learning and teaching in schools, however. That has to be its primary focus.

Deputy Patrick O'Donovan

I agree with the Minister that the inspectorate’s main role is to evaluate teaching and learning. It still beggars belief, however, that the Department’s inspectors can close their eyes to the physical environment where children are literally wedged into classrooms. If a fire officer went into some of these classrooms in question, he or she would condemn them. In any other aspect of the public sector, I do not believe the unions would have their members working in some of these environments. While I acknowledge the work done by the Department in this regard, some school buildings are still absolutely appalling.

It behoves us as Members of the Dáil to ensure that the Minister gets the maximum amount of capital money to ensure there is a capital programme in place.

There is no point in us developing a curriculum through the National Council for Curriculum and Assessment if it is only a box-ticking, window-dressing exercise which cannot be delivered. There are schools all over the country that do not and will not have multi-purpose halls, and children are expected to do physical education, social, personal and health education, SPHE, music, drama - you name it. It is not physically possible to deliver this, yet WSEs are being carried out all over the country and for some reason the inspectors seem to think there is no problem. I agree that the teaching and learning aspect is where they are coming from but how could schools be passing WSEs all over the country when the physical infrastructure is wholly inadequate? That is where this is falling down, and if the inspectorate were empowered to do more and had a freer hand it would strengthen the Minister's hand with the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform.

Deputy Jan O'Sullivan

They are not stopped from suggesting there might be physical infrastructure problems but it is not a core part of their function to examine the physical infrastructure. A lot of the money that was in the last five-year plan was allocated to address demographic factors and therefore to schools for children in areas of growing population. I understand we will have more funding in the next plan for existing schools where there is overcrowding, etc. I visit schools all time and regularly go into classrooms where I am told and can see that there is not enough space for the children. We want to focus on those areas in our next building programme.