Dáil Éireann díospóireacht -
Wednesday, 19 Feb 1930

Vol. 33 No. 4

In Committee on Finance. - Vote 48—Technical Instruction.

Professor O'Sullivan

I move:

Go ndeontar suim bhreise na raghaidh thar £6,925 chun íoctha an Mhuirir a thiocfidh chun bheith iníoctha i rith na bliana dar críoch an 31adh lá de Mhárta, 1930, chun na gCostaisí a bhaineann le Ceárd-Oideachas.

That a supplementary sum not exceeding £6,925 be granted to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1930, for the Expenses connected with the Technical Instruction.

This is a Supplementary Estimate in connection with sub-head (E) of the Technical Instruction Board— Attendance Grants. It is impossible to estimate quite accurately the amount that has to be paid in attendance grants during the year, because it depends on the number of people who avail of these technical instruction schemes. As to the type of classes that they attend, in some classes the attendance grant is higher than in other classes; it also depends on the regularity of the attendance. For a number of years, the Department rather overestimated the amount of money that would be spent on technical instruction. They expected more to be spent than actually was spent. In the year 1926-7, the actual amount of the Estimate was £65,875 for attendance grants, and of that sum £4,169 remained unexpended. In 1927-8, out of a sum of £71,585 voted, there remained unexpended a sum of £5,536. With the admonition from the Public Accounts Committee and also with these figures in mind, we thought last year that it would be quite sufficient to estimate the expenses to be met this year at £70,000. But the recent returns have shown that our expectations were not fulfilled. In some respects they were more than fulfilled—that is, from the purely educational point of view. In that connection, therefore, there is a necessary increase asked for. So that if you compare the amount of money spent on attendance grants this year as compared with last year, there is an increase of over £10,000 due to the causes that I have indicated. If you take 15 of the larger urban areas for technical instruction in the country, the increase in numbers from 1927-28 to the following year 1928-29 is from 15,484 to 18,375. The total class entries increased from 39,917 to 50,474. The aggregate attendance hours rose from 1,610,000 to 1,914,000. The increase of £10,000 is mainly made up from the very causes that I have just indicated.

Mr. Fahy

It is pleasant to learn that this additional Estimate is required to meet the increased attendance at the classes in technical schools. As the Minister said, higher grants are given for certain more advanced subjects in these schools, and perhaps it would not be fair on a Supplementary Vote like this to ask the Minister to state if it was for attendance at advanced classes that the increase grant is required. I ask that because at the technical schools throughout the country and in Dublin a large percentage of the classes is of a primary nature—primary instruction, which is really impeding technical instruction in this country. I have seen it myself on visiting the schools. I have heard similar reports from many teachers in those schools who are doing the advanced work. They urge that there should be some test applied before boys and girls are admitted to technical schools. The word "technical" is in fact a misnomer when applied to several of these classes in the schools. It is very doubtful, if we calculated the Government grants and the amount spent by the different councils and boroughs from the rates for technical education, if we would find that we are getting anything like full value for our money. Perhaps the Minister can tell us when we are going to have this new scheme which he outlined rather fully some months ago in Limerick and whether the Bill will be introduced this session or not.

Professor O'Sullivan

Yes.

Mr. Good

I would like to ask the Minister whether his attention has been directed—when he speaks of the improved attendance at technical schools about which we are very pleased to hear—to the clause in the report of the Technical Instruction Commission which dealt with the small number of attendances at technological and trade classes. The figure was 23 per cent., and the percentage of attendances at commercial classes in these schools was 77 per cent. Those commercial classes try very largely to improve the standard of education of those attending our technical schools.

I agree with Deputy Fahy when he says that a great portion of the work that is being done in our technical schools is not technical education at all. Owing to the defective primary education of many of the pupils entering our schools, it is absolutely necessary to supplement that education, and that is charged against technical instruction. That is not technical instruction at all. Many will agree that the primary function of our technical schools is really to develop technological and trade classes. I am sure the Minister for Education was surprised to learn from the report of the Commission on Technical Education that the attendance in those classes was as low as 23 per cent. I am sure that must have surprised the Minister just as it surprised many others. The effect of that is obvious to those engaged in commerce. If we advertise to-day in any of our newspapers for an assistant on the commercial side of commerce, we will get more replies than many of us could carry away, even if the salary offered is an exceedingly low one, whereas if we advertise for a tradesman, or a man with technical knowledge, we will be lucky if we get two or three replies. That makes clear to those who are engaged in educational work and in commercial work that too much importance is being attached to the commercial side and too little to the industrial side. That is one of the matters that the Commission drew attention to in its report. I would be glad to know from the Minister how far that particular factor has been affected by the improved attendance. Like Deputy Fahy, I am anxious to know from the Minister when we are going to get some of the recommendations made by the Commission put into force. The Commission reported in October, 1927. Yet, as far as I am aware, we have not had any act from the Minister putting any of the recommendations of that Commission into force.

It is a deplorable thing for one going around our cities and towns at the present moment to see the large number of young people of both sexes between the ages of fourteen and eighteen unemployed. As the Commission recommended, something should be done for these people in order to make them more adaptable. In other words, more employable than they are at the moment. Unfortunately, a great number of them, by reason of their low standard of education, are largely unemployable. The Commission recommended that steps to improve the education of these young people should be one of the first things taken in hand by the Minister. To my mind it is one of the most important matters requiring attention at the moment. It is very distressing to see so many of these young people going about idle, while nothing is being done to make them more employable. I urge on the Minister that something should be done in that direction without delay. Month by month the number of these young people is being added to by the boys and girls leaving our schools. I hope the Minister will be able to give us some information on this very important matter.

Mr. Derrig

I would like to know from the Minister if he has any statement to make with regard to the proposed continuation schools, whether these are to be established in the near future, and whether any arrangements have been made with regard to the present part-time Irish teachers throughout the country. At the present time these teachers are in a very unsatisfactory position. In the first place, they are part-time, and in the second place, the system of education which they are endeavouring to carry out is very unorganised. The continuation school system, which the Gaelic League, I think I may say, is anxious to foster and anxious to have in our midst, would be one something like the Danish system, under which a good cultural foundation in the Irish language and literature would be laid. I ask the Minister to pay special attention to the claims of these Irish teachers. I think if the Minister is really in earnest about this matter, that he should at least take steps to see that the system is put into operation, and that competent teachers who will be able to speak Irish and able to do a certain amount of work through Irish will be made available.

With regard to Deputy Good's point, personally I think that we cannot have proper technical education in this country until we have industries. Until we have a number of industries like Fords in Cork to which our technical instructors could go and see the processes carried out, in which the education of the student or apprentice could proceed side by side with actual working experience, where the boys would be employed during the day and at night time could take advantage of the technical education that would be afforded them, I do not think, no matter how good the Minister's scheme is, that it is going to bring about the change Deputy Good desires. At the present time, if we had boys trained up as boot or woollen operatives, or, operatives in any other industry, they fly out of the country at the first opportunity. They get higher wages abroad. Whatever chance they have abroad with some knowledge of a skilled trade, they have no chance whatever if they simply go as mere labourers. There is an immense difference in the future before them if they go abroad as skilled artisans rather than as mere labourers. I think that if Deputy Good is anxious to have real technical education and to see that all our young people are employed after they leave the primary or secondary schools, he will have to take up a more advanced attitude than he has given himself credit for up to the present.

Mr. Good

I am afraid the Deputy's attitude is not a very advanced one.

An Ceann Comhairle

It is a little advanced from the Estimate.

Mr. Derrig

I know that Deputy Good is really interested in this question of technical education. Will the Deputy go so far as to agree that technical education is useless if we have no industries?

Mr. Good

It is the basis of industry.

Mr. Derrig

If we have not industries our technical education is going to be a purely academic stunt —such as we had under the old Department, without blaming that Department—under which we will have men teaching who will not be directly connected with business. If you want to get real technical education you must get your teachers out of industries. They must come out of industries so that they can acquaint the students with day to day advances.

Professor O'Sullivan

Deputy Fahy and Deputy Good put forward some views with which I am in full sympathy. I agree with them that a great deal of the work which has been done in the technical schools, especially on what I may call the commercial side, is not, strictly speaking, technical education in the sense that we would like to see it. I have urged that again and again. During the past year or two since the appearance of the report of the Commission, one of the things that we have been trying to do ahead of legislation is, so far as possible, to discourage that particular type of school. I ask Deputies to remember that to discourage is one thing, but the drive for it is very strong. It is a matter that I myself on several occasions have called the attention of the Department to. It is one of a number of important points in the report that did not require legislation that we have actually got after. Deputies, however, will understand that the drive is undoubtedly in that direction. It is quite possible that our efforts have been to keep it still. I recognise that there is a great deal of waste in that direction, especially in the country districts and in the smaller towns. With the exception, perhaps, of Irish classes conducted under technical education schemes I think that in practically every other subject taught in the technical schools there has been an increased attendance. For instance, a couple of years ago we trained a number of motor car engineering lecturers. Practically all these have now been absorbed in that particular trade. I have been asked about the Vocational Instruction Bill. Personally I had hoped to be able to introduce that Bill on the first day of the session. The draftsman has been busy with the Bill during the last couple of months. Other Bills, of course, have also come into his office, but this Bill has had priority for some considerable time.

I hope in a fortnight, or at most three weeks, I will be able to introduce the Vocational Instruction Bill which will deal not only with technical education—16 to 18—but with the continuation side—14 to 16. There is a certain amount in what Deputy Derrig urged about industry, and also in what Deputy Good said in reply to him. The two should go hand in hand. That is, you will not and cannot have technical education in the full sense unless you have industries. On the other hand, if you take up the line that you are only going to train the number you can immediately find employment for, then you are undoubtedly handicapping any possible advance in industry. I might also point out that you are depriving people of what is a definite type of education. Therefore, I think it would be a great mistake to urge the point too far that you should only train the number of people that existing industry would absorb. The ideal system, of course, would be if we had a number of large industries and the schools could be established in close relation with them, but it is pushing the point too far to suggest that we should do nothing until industrialists have brought that state of affairs about. If the time comes when they think they are capable of doing it we, on our side, should be ready to meet any efforts they make.

Mr. Derrig

The Minister has made no reference to one point I raised. I do not want to press him, for I understand from an answer given by the Minister for Finance earlier that if a Minister does not want to reply he need not do so, but he may have overlooked my question with reference to Irish teachers.

Professor O'Sullivan

We will look into the question. One of the most unsatisfactory things about the scheme is with regard to Irish classes throughout the country. I spoke of not getting good value in the commercial classes for the money spent, and I would say that still more applies to some of the Irish classes, especially in the country districts. An effort must be made to provide proper teachers for classes under the new technical schemes, and to see that full value is got from them.

Mr. Good

In reply to what Deputy Derrig said, with regard to the training of apprentices I do not know whether he is aware that there is a tendency on the part of apprentices to object to attending evening classes. They want to attend them in the day time. The view of industrialists is that attendance in the daytime is better for apprentices. When an apprentice has done a hard day's work he is in no humour to go out and take advantage of a technical school. I only want to put the Deputy in possession of what seems to be the modern tendency with regard to training.

Vote put and agreed to.