Deputy Cosgrave asked whether I was satisfied that we were receiving the necessary co-operation from the vocational education committees throughout the country in operating the schemes. I am glad to say that the vocational education committees, in general, are co-operating very heartily, and I thank them for their co-operation. As the Deputy pointed out, in referring to the financial clauses of this measure, we may with safety leave it to the committees to decide whether or not, in fact, they will get value for the expenditure proposed. There are two sections in the Bill dealing with the rating powers. Section 4 deals with the ordinary schemes, and it is proposed to permit the committees to increase the maximum rate for the ordinary working of the schemes by 1d. both in town and country. Section 5 deals with the implementation of Part V of the Principal Act. Part V of the Principal Act refers to compulsory continuation courses of 180 hours a week for young people from 14 to 16 years of age—such courses as we have at the present time in the boroughs of Cork and Limerick. Having ordered that provision to be given effect to, the Minister may, if he is satisfied that the committees are not in a position to finance its operation from their funds, demand from the rating authority that a rate be struck to meet the cost of the obligatory clauses. He may serve notice on the rating authority for the vocational education area, requiring that authority to pay, in addition to the local contribution for the next year, a specified sum which shall not be more than 2d. in the £ in the rateable valuation in the four county boroughs and the Borough of Dun Laoghaire, and not more than 1d. in the £ elsewhere.
I explained in my opening statement the reasons why committees were finding it difficult to carry on. I explained that 15 committees had reached their maximum income although their expenditure was still increasing. That was because certain additional costs had been thrown upon them owing to the emergency—the additional cost of materials, of the upkeep of schools and bonus for teachers and employees. In all the circumstances, the additional permissive rate of 1d. in the £ sought for the working of the schemes must, I think, be considered fair by any person who has a reasonable view about vocational education.
I think I used to hear Deputy Cogan speak in this House of the necessity for scientific training for agriculture. I do not quite understand from his remarks whether it is just that he has a prejudice against schools, part of the upkeep of which must be paid for by the ratepayers, or whether his antipathy is to efforts to extend education generally in rural areas. According to the Deputy, the schools in the rural areas are not a success, they are failures; they are giving a type of education that is not suitable; and the Deputy proceeds to lecture the House on aspects of the matter which I think we may safely leave in the hands of the competent authorities concerned. As the Ceann Comhairle has ruled the matter out of order, I do not wish to proceed into a general survey of vocational education, but I really think that a Deputy who has the responsibility which Deputy Cogan claims in this House should, at least, give some reasons or some evidence to substantiate his charges that the system has failed in the rural areas.
If the Deputy visited the school at Hacketstown in his own constituency— he may have heard of it—and as a reasonable person, considered the work that has been done there since the inception of the school, I feel he would come to the conclusion that, if it does not attain to the high standard the Deputy would like—a standard which he has failed to explain to us in the House—at any rate, the type of education that is given there is, as is the opinion of competent observers, very suitable to rural areas and to those who are preparing for life on the land. If there has been any failure or any lack of attendance it is, in the first place, due to the fact that, failing compulsory powers, it is impossible very often to make people in rural areas realise the value of the courses for their children, as they are made to realise in the case of primary education, because the law compels them. There is that difficulty, and there is also the fact that children in rural areas find it difficult to travel to the schools during the present emergency. I am glad to say that in the vast majority of the schools—I think I might say all the schools outside the larger urban areas —the bulk of the pupils come from rural districts. They and their parents must not have quite the same opinion of the value of the instruction given as that which Deputy Cogan holds but, perhaps, they have not the same knowledge or lack of knowledge as the Deputy.
I have visited some of these schools and have seen children cycling long distances to attend courses. Those children at the present time are very often kept at home because they are needed in connection with the spring work, the work on the bog and the harvest work, and that has affected the attendance. Again, it is almost impossible for them to get tyres for their bicycles, which also has affected the attendance. Quite recently, I visited an important vocational school and found there were large numbers of children cycling long distances and making every effort to come. Yet the Deputy says that the type of education given is not suitable.
Deputy Martin O'Sullivan, the Lord Mayor of Dublin, whom I am glad to hear on this matter and whose enthusiastic co-operation and support of vocational education made it a matter of pride to me that he should be selected as the chief citizen of Dublin, has referred to the fact that a certain proportion—a minority—of the students in the vocational schools here in Dublin are doing commercial courses. I do not know what figures the Deputy had, but according to some figures that I have it does not appear, even in the City of Dublin, if we take the subjects of shorthand and typewriting, that the number of such pupils is substantial. The total enrolment at day and evening classes in Dublin was 54,905, while the numbers taking shorthand and typewriting were, in the day classes, 1,433 and in the evening classes, 1,929. As far as these two subjects are concerned, at any rate, that would mean that the percentage of the total enrolments in day and evening classes who are taking these subjects was only 6.1. In other areas, the figures are similar, sometimes running up to 10 or 11 per cent. In the rural areas, there is a large number of schools where no instruction in shorthand or typewriting is given.
As regards vocational schools in rural areas generally, where the instruction in those subjects is being given, it is very carefully co-related to the instruction in the practical subjects which bear particularly on the life of the neighbourhood—rural science and manual or metal work in the case of boys, and domestic economy subjects in the case of the girls. If Deputies would visit some of those rural schools and employ their time in getting some accurate and practical information as to the type of instruction which is being given, they would not come into the Dáil to make the absurd statements they did make, that the type of educa tion that is being given is not suitable.
A visitor to one of our vocational schools, broadcasting from Radio Eireann early in November, on her visit to a school, made the following remarks, which will give Deputies an idea of the kind of work that goes on in a rural vocational school:—
"Already one lot of boys and girls have finished a two-year course in rural science there and at night time over 100 men and women travel from as much as six to seven miles away to attend classes—and, of course, the social activities arranged there.
In the hall, under an unobtrusive crucifix, hangs a large scale map of the district and a typed time-table on which you read of woodwork (which includes carpentry and construction in different materials), and cookery, Irish classes, and various subjects coming under the rural science course... When I got there, they had been studying the structure and characteristics of certain kinds of bulbs. There was a diagram or two on the board and I was relieved to see that it wasn't also covered with all the long-winded names we had to cram into our heads at school, without really knowing the simple outline of the thing first.
The boys and girls there were just clearing off the desks the shallot samples they'd been using and going out into the garden to plant some. They gave the impression of being responsible human beings doing something because they liked it. There was none of that ‘caged in' feeling, that the children are dying to get away and carry on their own lives. The boys made for the shed where rakes and spades are kept and were soon digging and preparing the ground while others planted. The girls, on the other hand, got busy taking hedge cuttings and planting out. But before I tell you about the garden itself, first let us be clear what this rural science course consists of."
Further down the statement goes on:—
"The girls, of course, do cooking and needlework as well, the boys woodwork, which covers various other subjects, too. During the first year they all get a general introduction to the life of plants and flowers and insects, backed up by the use of the microscope and observation. When the weather keeps them indoors more, they cover the geology of the neighbourhood, learn to keep a rain gauge, record weather changes and so on, which leads to a certain amount of physics and chemistry in relation to temperature, water, atmosphere, and later go on to studying the question of combustion, different forms of heat, etc.
When March comes and they have learnt something about cells and sap and food generally, they do more practical work out of doors, and notice, not only soil conditions and what is happening in the plant world, but bring in news of how things are doing at home, for conditions vary very much in such a neighbourhood. There are all sorts of problems for the teacher to solve; he's often asked about pests or plant diseases, and the seed testing which they do in the school is also a link with the work going on. Another interesting side is learning how to make surveys of fields round about, and these maps, when drawn out with the greatest care, as I saw myself, are often pinned up with great pride in the pupils' houses.
For the second winter of the course, more detailed classification and comparison can be done. For instance, grasses are studied, this of course covers the main crops, wheat, oats, etc. Talks on pests of various kinds and plant diseases introduce the study of bacteria and the subject of milk is gone into carefully. Wherever possible, near at hand, practical illustrations are given for any particular lesson. For instance, the heating system of the school, ice on the roads or a rapid thaw, a bad season for apples, will all serve to bind together theory and reality. There you'll see, on a window ledge of a lecture room, a special breeding cage where moths and caterpillars pass through the various stages of their growth, and I believe there is quite a bit of rivalry as to who shall look after them. There are the tin plates where seeds are germinating in a warm place near the stove, and cases where all sorts of insects from the cabbage moth—is it an insect by this time? I never know—to the turnip fly, can be seen pinned out with an obituary notice describing their life and habits. Another interesting collection is made up of examples of the work of plant diseases, all safely bottled, which also come in useful for the talks on the general principles underlying farming which are given in the evenings for grown-ups.
In the garden, as a result of the keenness of teacher and pupils, you'll see samples of all the different kinds of grasses growing in those parts, and others, too. These are of interest to the parents and other farmers who visit the school. Some of them have been using various seed mixtures for years and may not know what the actual grasses look like.
I also saw some trees grown from seed, which later some of the children will take away to plant out at home; they might also be taking hedge clippings, flowers and so on but, of course, the garden is really to provide specimens and to enable practical work to be done. There are also trees, vegetables and various kinds of herbs there.
Well, there was still another section to be seen indoors. We found ourselves in the room where boys were copying a diagram on the board which showed the construction of a silo, a simple one on a hill site that any of them might use at home. As the instructor told me, ‘There's nothing like being able to read a map or a drawing, it's a kind of international language, you know.' Here we start the boys off by learning all about the planning and construction of a house, the general points, roofs and gutters, and drainage and so on. This takes us on to thinking about farms and how they can best be laid out, what improvements can be made to outhouses and that kind of thing. Often the boys take the ideas home and discuss them with their parents when they're thinking of making alterations. All sorts of questions are put forward.
We study water supply, sewage, ventilation, electricity supply, the use of concrete. For instance, not long ago one lad asked me what they could do about getting rid of rats, and we went into the question of making ‘baffles', as they are called, pillars to prevent them climbing up into the hay or corn stacks. Of course, they do a good deal of practical carpentry besides this theory."
I do not think I need go any further. That is from a talk by an independent observer on what was being done in a rural school in one of the best agricultural areas in this State. In collaboration with the Department of Agriculture, we intend to emphasise still more strongly the value and importance of the type of instruction, particularly in rural science, that is being given in the vocational schools, and their importance to the farming community. I have not the slightest doubt that, in spite of the difficulties, the children from farmers' houses will respond and, as in the past, will make up the bulk of the attendance.
I have stated in my opening remarks that the provisions in this measure are regards the officers are precisely the same, almost word for word, as in the Local Government Act, 1941. Before the 1930 Act became law, the position was that officers of vocational, or, as they were then called, technical education committees, had really no status or rights independently. Whatever rights they had were as officers of local authorities. I cannot see the force, therefore, of the criticism that the contract of service is being altered. If we have regard to the history of these committees, we must know that the officers concerned were all officers of local authorities and that the law generally, as regards the conditions of service, applicable to officers of local authorities, applied to them.
The position under Section 44 (1) of the 1925 Act was that an officer, in order to secure superannuation, had to have 25 years' service and to have reached the age of at least 65 years. The position now under the Bill is that at the age of retiral, whatever that may be, an officer will not necessarily have to have 25 years' service; he may have 15 years' service and he will still be entitled to a pension. The superannuation scheme for officers of local authorities applies to officers of vocational education committees. I think the superannuation scales are very reasonable. As has been said, they are on the basis of the payment of a pension at the rate of one-sixtieth per year of service. In the Civil Service, payment is at the rate of one-eightieth per year of service, a civil servant being entitled to a maximum pension of half his remuneration. He is also entitled to a lump sum when he retires from the service, which is not the case with an officer of a vocational education committee.
We cannot have one code of conditions of service, or of superannuation, for officers of vocational education committees, and another for officers of local authorities generally. Is it the contention of those who say that the contract of service has been altered to the disadvantage of officers of vocational education committees that, if such officers had remained under the Minister for Local Government, their position would have been better than it now is? If the 1941 Act, as was the original intention, had applied both to the officers of vocational education committees and to the officers of agricultural committees, this discussion would not have arisen at all, I presume, because what Deputies are objecting to is the law already in regard to the officers of local authorities throughout the country. Some portions of the Bill, such as this matter of the conditions of service of officers, might appropriately have been brought into the 1941 Act. Other parts of it, unfortunately, did not fit in. Therefore, it was necessary for the Minister for Agriculture and myself to introduce separate Bills dealing with the conditions of service of officers under our respective jurisdictions. In my case, at any rate, I have followed the 1941 Act. As I have said, the position actually is that there is an improvement in the pension conditions in that respect: that whereas formerly officers had to have at least 25 years' service that is not now necessary. It is suggested that we are in some way departing from some legal contract embodied in the Vocational Education Act of 1930. Section 99 of that Act, sub-section (3) says:—
"Every officer transferred by this section shall not, in the service of the vocational education committee to which he is so transferred, receive less remuneration or, subject to the provisions of this section, be subject to less beneficial conditions of service than the remuneration to which he was entitled and the conditions of service to which he was subject in the service from which he is so transferred."
My reading of that sub-section is that the most vocational education officers can claim is that the conditions of service they enjoy now should at least be as good as were those in the service from which they were transferred. I have explained to the House that the provisions regarding the conditions of service in this measure are exactly the same as those in the Local Government Act of 1941, which apply to local authorities' officers generally. Therefore, I fail to see how it can be suggested that the conditions of service have been worsened. The conditions of service are to be the same as those for officers of local authorities generally, and the sub-section which I have read makes it perfectly clear, I think, that no more than the conditions of service and rates of remuneration which applied in the service in which they formerly served can be claimed by existing officers of local authorities. Section 9 of the Bill, which makes the measure applicable to existing officers, is precisely the same as Section 16 in the 1941 Act.
I think that the argument against fixing a compulsory age for retiral has been rather abandoned when we have the admission that there is no objection in principle to the fixing of such an age. I need hardly say that, in fixing an age for retiral, the Minister will take into consideration all relevant circumstances, and will, I think, behave in a reasonable manner. One would imagine from some of the speeches made that the Minister was in a position, even if he wished to do so, to act in an entirely arbitrary fashion in this matter. We know that the Minister has to be guided by precedents and by circumstances, and that he has to answer for his actions to this House. We know also that, if he is a reasonable being, he will have regard to the operation of the vocational education schemes generally throughout the country, and will not try to enforce conditions that would militate against the success of those schemes, or that would be to the disadvantage of officers. Certainly, he will not arbitrarily make regulations that would offend the officers, that would make them feel they were being penalised in some way, and were being treated differently from others.
In the case of teachers generally, I think it is well recognised that when the age of 65 is reached one may not expect the same efficiency—I think that goes without saying—as in the case of younger teachers in the prime of life, full of enthusiasm, vigour and earnestness. The only question that remains to be decided and one to which, of course, I shall give close consideration, is what the age of retiral should be. Generally speaking, it has been the age of 65 in the case of other classes of teachers. Large numbers of highly qualified young men now coming out of the universities are seeking entrance into this service—and the fact that promotion is now possible in the local services generally and in the vocational education service, ought to lead Deputies to take more interest in the younger men who are striving for advancement and who have, I think I may say, higher qualifications than those who originally entered the service, rather than in the cases of isolated officers. If it is suggested that it is a hardship upon officers, under the conditions of superannuation that obtain at present, to go out on pension at the rate of one-sixtieth of salary per year of service after 37 or 38 years' service, I do not think that is unreasonable or that it imposes any serious disability on an officer.
Those who remember the early days of technical education will know that, in the beginning, there were really no rates and no scales of pay. Scales of pay have now been fixed, and executive officers and teachers are receiving reasonable remuneration. In fact, I believe that the pension which an officer, such as I have referred to, will get will compare very favourably with the salary that he was drawing in the early days. If the argument is going to be that he was drawing a salary not as good even as his pension is now, we cannot have it both ways, I am afraid. If we have improved his conditions and introduced new scales of salary, I do not think that we can step up superannuation which, I would like to say again, is favourable. I do not think that we are entitled to do the second thing—step up the superannuation and amend the code specially in order to deal with these isolated cases. In any case, we cannot amend the superannuation code under this measure. We can only amend that code, so far as years of service are concerned, by amending the main superannuation Acts.
I think it is in the interest of the service and of education that an age for retiral should be fixed, and that committees should not be left in the present position, in which men who have advanced well beyond the age of 65 have the heavy responsibility placed upon their shoulders of undertaking the direction, control and urging forward of vocational education schemes in their areas. In my opinion, these schemes require the assistance of men at a more active period of their lives, men who would be able to give the fullest possible energy to the work, and I think the success or failure of vocational education will, in the long run, depend to a great extent on the type of personnel operating it. Teachers have difficult and arduous work, and I do not think any reasonable person who is acquainted with their work will agree that it should be necessary for them to continue to work after the age of 65. If the age of 65 is fixed—I do not suggest that it will be fixed for all classes of teachers; there may be some types of teacher in respect of whom it will be necessary to fix perhaps a lower age—all the circumstances will have to be taken into consideration, but nobody, on examining the question carefully, will believe that the age should be higher than 65.
Deputy Cosgrave asked me whether it would not be possible to arrange, if a line had to be drawn, that the end of a session should be taken as the delimiting point. I quite agree that it may be to the advantage of the service that teachers should not retire in the middle of a school term or school session, and perhaps it may be possible to arrange that retiral will take place not later than, say, 31st July, or whatever the date of the end of the school session may be. I do not think it is true that leave of absence is not allowed for. In the case of teachers who take up educational courses to improve their qualifications, I think it is allowed for, but if Deputy Cosgrave, Deputy Anthony or any other Deputy has a particular case in mind, I should be glad if the particulars were communicated to me. I think it possible that, in respect of these cases, at any rate, the Deputy has been misinformed, and that the position in fact is not that the teacher absented himself for the purpose of acquiring a higher qualification, that is to say, got leave of absence. If a teacher leaves his employment, resigns his post and takes up a post somewhere else for a period in order to improve his qualifications, that is quite a different matter, but if he gets leave of absence from his committee, it certainly can be dealt with.
As regards the question of added years, I have pointed to the fact that the superannuation and present scales of pay seem to be reasonable. The Minister for Local Government, whom I follow in regard to these matters generally, has, as was pointed out during the debate, issued a circular in which he states:—
"For positions requiring highly technical qualifications, it is realised that it may not be possible to secure the services of suitably experienced officers at ages sufficiently youthful to enable them to qualify eventually for the full two-thirds superannuation. In such cases, where the services have been satisfactorily carried out, reasonable additional years might be added to the actual number served for the purpose of calculating pensions."
I think that what the Minister for Local Government had in mind was the type of case in which an officer entered the service at a mature age and had higher technical qualifications than those laid down in the conditions of appointment. If an officer leaves an important engineering post outside and enters the service of a local authority or vocational education committee, it being clear that he had a much higher qualification than would have been necessary to satisfy the Minister for Local Government or me, and if his period of service was much shorter as a result, the Minister for Local Government has power to consider adding certain years to his service, but, as regards teachers in general, it cannot be claimed that that is the case.
When a committee appoints a manual instructor, for example, he has to be qualified to suit the Department's conditions, and the Department will look for a certain amount of practical experience. The same would be true of teachers of other practical subjects, but that does not mean, with regard to an ordinary tradesman or crafts teacher, that we will give added years because he has the qualification we consider necessary. If he has a very high technical qualification and has spent portion of his life doing a specialised kind of work, altogether beyond what would be required ordinarily to become a teacher, when his superannuation case comes up, it can be examined, but this could not apply to teachers generally.
As regards suspension, the provisions here are similar to those in the 1941 Act and are taken practically entirely from the 1926 Act. In fact, this particular section, Section 7, is practically a re-enactment of Section 11 of the 1926 Act. It is being reenacted here because it is considered by my legal advisers to be a more appropriate place. If an officer is suspended and is restored to duty, I do not think there can be any doubt that he will receive his remuneration, if the circumstances make it clear that the suspension was not warranted, but, of course, as Deputies will realise, the question of whether he will be paid for his period of suspension will depend on circumstances. I do not think it would be possible to fix a time limit, because it may happen that the case of an officer who has been suspended may have to go before the courts. Action by the Department or by a committee will probably not be taken until the court case has been finished, and it would be impossible, I think, to fix some period in the Bill. We could not be certain that the court case, if there were repeated adjournments, would be over well within, say, a few months.
With regard to removal from office, a point made was that a local inquiry should be held. A local inquiry still will be held and I think I can say that that would be the normal procedure where there was any doubt as to the circumstances of the case. If the circumstances justify the holding of an inquiry and, if it is not clear to the Minister that the case is so bad that nothing less than removal from office will meet the situation, then the inquiry will be held. But there may be circumstances where an inquiry is not really necessary. If, as would be the case, we have to set up a public sworn inquiry, as was set out in the original Act, such inquiry might not even be to the advantage of the person involved. Deputy Cosgrave mentioned that it should be held in the case of suspension, but it might not be always to the advantage of the person involved.
I want to say that the vast bulk of the officers employed by vocational education committees are, of course, teachers. There may be, say, 1,000 teachers employed, and it is inevitable that you will have odd cases of teachers who are not efficient. In the case of a teacher who is not considered efficient by the inspector, or to be doing his work satisfactorily, the procedure will be that the inspector will warn him, will probably advise him as to improving his methods and, if he finds that the teacher is still not doing satisfactory work, he may report the teacher to the committee. But the House can take it that there will be no action taken, such as suspension or dismissal of the teacher, merely because an individual inspector reports that he is dissatisfied with his work. In all branches of education a senior inspector is called in and has to report independently on the case. That is what would happen. Suppose the senior inspector is still dissatisfied with the work and feels that the teacher is so bad that he ought not to be retained and the committee fail to remove him, what is to be done then? Is the position that the House will demand that I should set up a sworn inquiry in order to deal with that case?
We have also the case of chief executive officers. There is only a limited number of them. In their case also it might happen that circumstances, such as a report by the audit officer, will make it clear that action will have to be taken either by way of suspension or dismissal. I think the House may take it that in cases of suspension or removal from office, vocational education committees will not be disposed always to take action themselves; they will prefer that the Minister should take it.
As regards the County Roscommon Vocational Education Committee, I have only to say that the scales of salary recommended by my Department are permissive. All the committees in the country have accepted these scales of salary, therefore there was no necessity to impose them on the committees. The emergency bonus to be granted to officers is also permissive and, if the Roscommon committee have taken a different attitude from other committees, I am sure they feel they have a reason for their attitude. In any case, I do not think that I should be asked in connection with this measure to impose something upon the Roscommon committee with regard to the bonus that is not imposed by law on other committees or local authorities. I think that most of the points raised were really Committee points that might be gone into more fully on the next stage. I have tried to cover the main points that were raised.
