There were two points in the question which I put to the Minister for Education to-day arising out of Question 15 on the Order Paper. The first point was dealing with the request to the Minister to continue the grant for these continuation classes until the end of next June. The second point dealt with the absorption of the teachers now engaged in these schools in the new scheme. I notice in the reply given by the Minister to a question of mine put some weeks ago that the annual grant for the last three years for continuation schools averaged £8,200. I think I would be fairly accurate in computing that on that basis that the continuance of these schools until the 30th June next would cost about £2,500. The payments are made for these schools under subhead C (7) of the Vote for Education. The Minister claims that there is a saving of £10,000 per annum by discontinuing these classes. I ask that these classes might be continued in the interests of the pupils. There are 34 such centres, mostly in Dublin, because the rural classes in general were done away with some years ago. Their work was efficient, as was borne testimony to by the Minister himself in a speech which he made in Tralee. In fact some of the schools have been marked "highly efficient."
Adjournment Debate. - Continuation Schools.
Would the Deputy tell me when I made that speech?
I have been informed by teachers concerned that some of the schools were marked "highly efficient" by the inspectors. I have not got that information by me.
In what speech of mine did I state that?
I forget the date of it.
So do I. I never heard of it.
He forgets his speeches.
At any rate these schools are run under managers of repute. In fact, they are generally clergymen, and the teaching must be efficient. The teachers must have proper qualifications before they are recognised by the Department. They are subject to inspection and examination. The answer the Minister gave to Deputy Good on the 27th February was that much of the time in these classes was devoted to specialised instruction, and that alternative educational facilities of a similar character were provided elsewhere. He mentioned in that connection the technical schools, Civil Service colleges and the like. I think that most of these schools or classes would be satisfied if, for instance, shorthand and typewriting were removed from the list of subjects for which the grant would be given up to the 30th June.
With regard to the list of subjects taught by these classes, I think they can be genuinely described as a continuation of the programme of the primary schools—the bulk of them can. I do not think that the classes in the technical schools are a good substitute for them. In the first place, such work is not the business of technical schools, and even if it were you do not get anything in the way of the same individual attention there, or preparation for examination that you get at the continuation schools. As regards the proprietary Civil Service colleges, the fees are too high for the type of pupil who attends these continuation classes. In most cases no fees are charged in these continuation classes. The highest fee that I heard charged was 30/- per annum, and that was only in the case of a few pupils. I know one of these schools which, in the last three years, placed 200 of these pupils in the lower ranks of the Civil Service, the banks and in commercial offices in the city. The pupils attending these continuation classes are between the ages of 14 and 17, and their attendance at them ought to be encouraged. The discipline there was good, and the moral and educational training was good. They should have been encouraged.
The Minister said that a Bill will be introduced in the summer or autumn to provide alternative continuation education. That is all to the good. But what about the pupils who have started courses in these continuation classes in preparation for an examination or to qualify themselves for employment in a commercial office, and who started before notice was given of the termination of the grants? Their future will be jeopardised. I maintain they did not get fair warning. Some consideration should be given to them. I believe there were some 10,000 children attending these schools. As the Minister himself said, it is very hard to calculate the number during the course of the session, because the sessions were short and there was coming and going of the pupils. Even if there were only 2,000 children affected by it I think that the grant should be continued at least to the end of June, when the summer holidays begin, and it would give at least three months' notice to those children who are attending the classes.
The teachers should be considered also. The Minister might maintain that he is under no obligation and has incurred no liability in their regard. Well, they presumed, and rightly, when this year started that the grants would continue to be given to the end of the year. They have entered into commitments, rented or bought premises, have equipped these premises and they are teachers who are qualified. Many of them have Pitman's diploma, some of them have the higher diploma in education and some of them are qualified national teachers. Others of them have Arts Certificates and so on. In fact if they had not these certificates they would not be recognised by the Department. These teachers were counting on the fees from these classes up to the end of June. If the grants are discontinued at the end of March, how does the Minister imagine that these teachers are to carry on until they get employment, possibly next October, when the schools re-open elsewhere? It would be only fair to these teachers to continue the grants up to the end of June, particularly when the amount involved is so small. Of the 95 teachers engaged only 16 were national teachers, that is, teachers who had other employment, as far as the Minister knows. There are only 70 left who are solely dependent on these classes, all of whom have been qualified and who have spent some years working in these schools. I believe the scheme has been now ten years in operation. I submit that the Minister should take that point into consideration. We have no guarantee that alternative continuation education will be available next Autumn. The Minister's statement was "the system of continuation education for which I hope to provide in a Bill to be introduced, if possible in the Summer, will be on a different basis from the evening schools now discontinued."
When asked if he would undertake to re-absorb these teachers in the new scheme, the Minister said he could not do so or give any guarantee. He adumbrated the managerial system which will obtain in the new scheme, but I think the Minister could make some arrangement that preference be given to those teachers who are qualified. I would not urge on him for a moment to take on any teacher who was not qualified. I do not think the Ministry would have given a grant to schools engaging any teachers who were not qualified. These schools have done good work. The teachers have done good work. As a matter of fact, if the system of inspection had been better and more satisfactory I think better work would have been done.
There was one evening school, school No. 2370, and I do not think they were fairly treated by the Department of Education. To mention just one little matter, a letter written in that school by the manager to the Department on the 26/10/'28 had received no reply on the 23rd February. Here is another little item in connection with it. There was an examination held in 1928, and half fees, for one particular subject, bookkeeping, were paid. There was an objection, but in August, after two-and-a-half months idleness on the part of the pupils, many of whom had gone to some employment or other, they were reassembled, reexamined, and the re-examiner granted the full fees. I do not think that was fair treatment for the school. Any teacher knows what two and a half months' idleness would mean to the pupils. Still they got full fees for that period.
I submit the Minister might consider those points and give the grants up to the end of June, as there is such a small sum involved, and as it would be such a hardship to the pupils and teachers not to so continue when due notice was not given. Also, he should seriously consider what steps should be taken to absorb the qualified teachers long engaged in those schools.
I regret I was not here this afternoon when the Deputy raised the question but I have given, in a rather lengthy reply to Deputy Good, the gist of the reason for my actions in this matter. In the present situation I think it is our duty to examine thoroughly, not as to whether some return was not given for money spent, but as to whether an adequate or a fairly adequate return was being given for the money spent. This Vote may seem a comparatively small vote of £10,000 and even one quarter of the sum to which the Deputy has referred may seem comparatively small, but if we were to take it on that particular line simply because only £10,500 were involved I am afraid my Estimates and those of every other Minister would swell beyond all proportions.
There is an idea prevalent that those schools fulfil the function of taking on those who have been neglected during their period of primary school education or up to the age of 14, people who for one reason or another do not attend school, that that was one of the main functions fulfilled by those schools. Now it is quite clear from the answers I have already given on this subject and from the speech of the Deputy that that apparently was not the function being fulfilled by those particular schools. I want to make that clear. As regards the preparation he refers to for the Civil Service examinations that is certainly not the function these evening classes, subsidised by the State, were expected to fulfil. The Civil Service Commission in fixing the educational qualifications that were expected from the candidates for the various grades of the Civil Service based, and I think rightly based, their demands on school work. They looked upon the different classes of schools we have in the country not with respect to a mere programme people might pass, but for the normal people they might expect to get for the different grades. They would be people coming out from the schools. Therefore for some of the examinations the people they expected to get into the Civil Service would be, for one grade, from those in the higher standard in the national schools, similarly for the next grade from the secondary schools and for the higher grades from the Universities. They looked to the teaching establishments in that way in fixing their programme. I could, from the point of view the Deputy stressed here in his speech and also which he stressed to-day in a supplementary question or statement—the question of the Civil Service—easily imagine my being criticised because we had taken up a certain number of these schools, even some of them charging fees, and subsidised them for which proprietary establishments engaged in the same work were getting no subsidy. In that respect if we took up a certain number of secondary schools, subsidised them and refused to subsidise some of the others the argument could easily be made against us that we should have taken this step earlier. In fact it was realised some years ago that in the case of the rural districts an adequate return was not being given and although I am not at all running down now these schools—I cannot recall the statement I made at Tralee. I cannot remember it. I would be very much surprised if I ever made it.
Look it up.
The mere fact that it is in the newspapers, to me, does not prove that I made it. I cannot remember an occasion in which I discussed at any public meeting whatever the subject of——
Mr. O'Connell
Education.
——continuation schools. I often discussed at various public meetings, as the Deputy knows, the question of education. The Deputy refers to the qualifications required. In connection with these evening schools we had to depend altogether on inspection. There was not any demand like there is in the case of national schools, like there is now in the case of secondary schools, for certain definite qualifications people had to fulfil to become teachers in evening schools. It is quite true that some teachers had qualifications, some were trained national teachers, but there was no definite qualification. We had to depend for the work done in these schools altogether on the incidental visits which, of course, could only be incidental, unless we greatly increased our inspection staff. That, as the Deputy can see, could not be a satisfactory state of affairs. So far as I am on the qualifications of the teachers concerned, no matter what controlling authority there may be in the technical or continuation system of education that will be set up when the new Bill can be introduced, it is quite obvious, I think, that the Minister or the Department will not have the appointment but what is also, I think, obvious enough to people who take an interest in education is, if there are qualified teachers, really good teachers, they will not find it difficult to get employment in that particular line. There is no superfluity of good, qualified men with the special certificates and qualification of good qualified teachers.
The Deputy suggested that he could not tell how many teachers were dependent upon this for their livelihood. I must say such is our slight control, so to speak, over these schools that the information we possess is not sufficient for me to state that, but I think a simple sum in arithmetic will explain it. If the Deputy takes the number of teachers and allows a sum for equipment, buildings and so on he will find that there cannot be very many teachers solely dependent on this for their means of livelihood. There cannot be anything like seventy. The Deputy's speech to-day goes on the assumption that these schools have an annual course. So far as we are concerned, in the case of the bulk of them, that is not so. There are a few, undoubtedly, that have an annual course but they are comparatively few in number and so far as expenses are concerned not important. The great bulk of this Vote goes to schools whose session is a forty hours' session. It may be that in certain cases there are people who have an eighty hour session. In that way when the forty hour session is complete is it suggested that these schools are on the same footing all the year round as the other schools? That is not the case. This money varies in the different years and, though there may be a certain amount of regret on my part as regards some of the schools, I have to deal with the position as a whole and to treat it as a whole. I felt that any other policy would be unsound and difficult to carry through if not impossible. It could not become effective. I am not by any means decrying the work done. If we take the way in which these schools were run, and had to be run in the circumstances, they neither fulfilled the function, so to speak, of taking on the educationally neglected child on the one hand nor, as is suggested here, the function of genuine continuation classes on the other hand. They do neither one thing nor the other. Though at other times, if we had money to give away, we might consider continuing matters of this kind, in the present circumstances I did not feel we were justified, in fairness to the taxpayers of the State, in continuing these schools beyond the end of the financial year. Whatever may have been the idea with which some of these schools started they certainly have long ago ceased to be schools for taking up the very lame dog. That is clear, even from the speech of the Deputy himself.
I have to deal with the difficulty of the second portion of the question, namely, that there is no system of education which I can contemplate introducing into this country that would give me the appointment of teachers, but as I say, such is the scarcity in some respects of teachers at the present time, that if there are capable teachers in this particular line who are now temporarily out of work they ought to be able, I think, to find employment in suitable places in the future. Of course it would cut at the ground of our whole educational system if I, as Minister for Education, would undertake anything like providing for people of that kind. As I say, a teacher must have qualifications. Some of them had qualifications, but others had no recognised qualifications, so to speak. So far as the Department was concerned we had to depend altogether on the report of the inspectors. We have not, by any means, the same control over these schools as we have over others. If you consider the actual payment you will find that it was remarkably high in some respects for these schools. I think a national school year would be, roughly, 900 hours.
Mr. O'Connell
One thousand.
That makes the argument stronger. In the case of some of these schools the payment was something like 5/- an hour. If you worked that out on the hour value you will see that these schools were undoubtedly paid very highly in comparison with what we pay for much more definitely controlled education in the case of the national schools. I understand fees were charged in some of these schools, and actually I understand some of these schools from which we have withdrawn the grant have continued as proprietary institutions. That, to a certain extent, bears out what I have been contending and the unfairness, so far as some of them are concerned, of subsidising even some of the biggest of them, while refusing subsidies for colleges that were doing the same work. I am sorry I cannot accede to the request of the Deputy.
The Dáil adjourned at 11 p.m. until 3 o'clock on Thursday.