In spite of the fact that it is now said that this is the place to discuss educational matters, my complaint when I was moving, for the sixth time in seven years, that the Estimate be referred back, was that it was a very tiresome thing year after year to have to stand up after the Minister for Education had spoken and move that his Estimate be referred back for reconsideration, and to be putting to him the general thirst in the country for some confidence in the Department of Education, on the one hand, and the general thirst for some knowledge as to the broad lines of the Department's approach to an educational syllabus or programme in the country and to be meeting just the same dumb kind of reluctance to discuss the educational problems in the country to-day. I mention that as showing that I feel and know that there is more than matters of pay concerning the teachers in their present attitude and that it was not a mere matter of pay that brought a body such as the national school teachers into a position of being on strike in the way in which they are to-day.
The child is affected in this matter. You have in the various numbers of categories of pay and of rating the position that nobody with any quality as a teacher can be expected to stay in either a slum area or a rural area. The system of pay, when you take the rating system that is involved in it and the category system that is involved in it for principals, has the effect of leaving us in a situation in which the slum child is denied the teacher of quality and the people in our glens and hills and remote districts are denied the teacher of quality also. What is the position under the rates that have been recently published? An unmarried man in a slum area after 18 years can hope to rise to a salary of £380 which, at the 1938 figure, was valued £223. The teacher in a slum is teaching a large class, teaching in circumstances in which he cannot hope to make a decent show when the inspector comes on the occasional visit to decide whether he is a person to be marked highly efficient or not. The teacher cannot attain the rating of highly efficient until he gets a certain mark by an inspector. What is the test that the inspector applies? It is the kind of answer he gets to a particular question or questions put on a particular section of a particular subject on a particular day. Is the teacher there simply to impart information to the child or is he there to develop the character, the imagination, the personality of the child?
I ask the Minister for Education to look back over his description of what was expected of the teacher, when he spoke at the I.N.T.O. Congress in 1943. It has been recorded already, in column 2647 of the Official Debates for the 27th April, 1945. He said:—
"When the war was over, however it ended, nothing could be as it was before. There would be an era of new creation, new planning, new building. In this great scheme teachers everywhere must take an essential part. Small nations will have their own special problems, too, and not the least of ours will be the preservation of our language and our individuality as a nation. We must equip ourselves to meet postwar trade competition and, at the same time, not only maintain our present standards but raise them progressively in every sphere of national life: education, social service, agriculture, industry and commerce. To accomplish this, we must plan carefully and methodically and, in particular, must train the youth to take their place in the nation's advance. Education and training of over 70 per cent. — the Taoiseach would say 90 per cent. — of those whose work would be carried out on the farms, factories, shops and offices would, in the future, be either mainly or entirely in the teachers' hands — that is, in the primary teachers' hands — and the work of all other schools would depend on them, since their task was the basic one, the laying of a solid foundation, without which no specialist superstructure could be built or maintained. It is not too much to say, therefore, that the future development of our country will depend on your leadership more than on that of any other body. What was the essential task of such leadership? The giving to the coming generation of a keen sense of social service, such a feeling for the community, such knowledge of it, such grasp of its continuity, its profound values, its inherited obligations as would enable that generation which now look to the teachers for inspiration to face the tremendous task of shaping the new Ireland. No greater duty has been laid on any body of men and women than the one laid on you — a heavier task than is laid on the shoulders of any other teachers in the world in that, in addition to the great task of education you have been asked to perform, another equally heavy task has been given to you such as no other body of primary teachers has been asked to carry, the rescue of the greatest heritage of our race, our native language. It is a terrific task, a task one might say for supermen, that we have undertaken. Many have not grasped its magnitude clearly and some few showed signs of discouragement, because they expected results too easily. Those who have borne the brunt and burden of the work are not discouraged, because they knew the task was a hard one, which had to be faced with determination and not with any idea that difficulties could be solved otherwise than by application and hard work."
That is the work and that is the type of person which the Minister appreciates the national teacher should be, the type of person he thinks he can be made to be and the type of work that he, above all teachers in the world and above all classes in this country, has to take on himself.
Yet the organisation of the pay is so arranged that good teachers are denied to the slums and to the poorer districts, because the rating and the grading is so arranged that a man who gets himself into a slum area wants to get out of it at the earliest possible moment, so that he will not be prejudiced in the matter of being marked "highly efficient". The man working on an Irish mountain or in an Irish glen wants to get out of it to an Irish town or to Dublin or to the suburbs here, because he cannot maintain himself where he is. He cannot do the work that is required and bring himself and his children up to the standard required by the Minister for this great work of building up Ireland. At any rate, he is offered more in the towns and in the city. He is in a worse position, in that he knows he will bear the brand of not being "highly efficient" as long as he stays in the slum or in the glen, since the manipulation, in the interests of economy, is such that only one-third of the whole of his class — and not even one-third of the whole of the class — can be marked out before the pupils, before the country and before his own colleagues as "highly efficient".
Therefore, in the interests of the children, that type of grading cannot stand. The child in the slum has his place in the Ireland of the future and is entitled to equally generous treatment and equal opportunity with anybody else in the land. The child in a backward rural district, in the glens or on the hillside, is entitled to the same equality of opportunity as any other child. The country hill or glen can produce a Davitt or a Collins, just as the more crowded area in the City of Dublin can produce a Griffith or a Pearse. If we are to leave the Irish glenside or the crowded areas in the cities without our best teachers, then we are undermining the opportunities and the prospects of our country and we are dealing unfairly with certain sections of our people.
When this question of rating and of categories arose, it was not a case of a group of people seeking merely after benefit for themselves, but of a group of people standing up for the profession in which they are and standing up for the people they are expected to defend.
The question of women teachers and their pay will naturally arise. Owing to the unsatisfactory conditions of service, men are moving out of the teaching profession and women are becoming more and more the teachers of a larger number of children. The woman teacher in the slum area or in the out of the way rural district has the same qualifications, the same capacity, the same work with her children as elsewhere. Very often, it is greater, because in her one working day she is handling four or five different classes of children in different grades and they call on her activities and her energy, so as to make the mental strain much greater than if she were dealing with just one particular class of child. When the women seek for equality with men there is something to be said on their side, something to be, at any rate, more thoroughly argued out in consultation between the teachers and the managers, the Department and people like the school attendance committee, who know something of the objectives and results of education, before we are asked finally to argue it out here, or to argue it in circumstances in which we are arguing at the same time the conditions of a strike.
There are many things in the circumstances the teachers have had to put up with in the past when they might almost have despaired of their being able to carry out the work imposed on them. In any representations which have been made in this matter, the Department have been either utterly heedless or utterly incapable of doing anything for one reason or another to help. One of the questions which would arise for discussion in such a conference as we speak about is the question of the size of the classes. It is a matter that I have dealt with year after year for a number of years. I have appealed to the Department that we ought to realise that in our schools, where we have a second language to deal with, we ought at least make every attempt to see that children get as fair a chance of being instructed as the children in Great Britain get where they have only one language to deal with. I have pointed out that it was accepted in Great Britain in 1929 that a cardinal point in national education policy was that large classes should be eliminated, and that all classes should be brought down lower than 50 children on the roll. Such a determined effort was made in Great Britain between 1929 and 1938 that in their boroughs and urban districts, where there were 22,000 classes, with over 50 on the roll, in 7.9 of their classes that figure was reduced to 1.9. In the county boroughs where there were more than 46,000 classes with 10.9 of these classes having more than 50 children on the roll, the percentage by 1938 was reduced to 2.4. In the City of London, where there were 15,000 classes, 10.6 per cent. of them had over 60 children on the roll and that was reduced to 4.4 in a period of ten years. Of the total of all these publicly administered classes in which in 1929 7.2 had more than 50 pupils on the roll the figure was reduced to 1.4.
In 1941 I discussed this matter here. I drew the attention of the House to the conditions existing in 12 schools taken at random in North-East Dublin. In one school there were 13 boys' classes. Three of the classes had over 50 on the roll. In the second school there were nine classes, five of which had more than 50 on the roll. In the third school there were 13 classes, with eight classes having more than 50 on the roll. In the fourth school there were 28 classes, 20 of which had more than 50 on the roll. In the fifth school there were 19 classes, with 12 having more than 50 on the roll. In the sixth school there were 14 classes, ten of which had more than 50 on the roll. In the seventh school there were nine classes, five of which had more than 50 on the roll. In the eighth school there were seven classes, with four having more than 50 on the roll. In the ninth school, there were ten classes, four of which had more than 50 on the roll. In the tenth school there were eight classes, five of which had more than 50 on the roll. In the eleventh school there were 15 classes, four of which had more than 50 on the roll, and in the twelfth there were five classes, two of which had more than 50 on the roll.
What is the position to-day? I asked for certain information, but owing to the strike I only got it for four schools. In the first of these schools, with nine classes, there are six with more than 50 on the roll. If all the children in the school were divided amongst the teachers there would be 51 in each class. In the second school, with 23 classes, 18 of these have more than 50 on the roll. In the third school with 19 classes 12 of them have more than 50 on the roll. In the fourth school with 15 classes there are seven classes with more than 50 on the roll. Over a school period of something like eight years the teachers who are dealing with these children have to educate them, to develop their personality and their characters, to give them an appreciation of citizenship and of what their work in the future will mean to their country. They have to prepare them to face their after-school life. It has to be remembered that they are dealing with the infants and with the first and second classes entirely through Irish, a language which the children do not speak at home. The teachers are doing their work conscientiously in this matter. Since this State was set up at least three generations of school children have passed through the schools. A generation of school children had passed through the schools at the time that we left Office. The children who passed through the schools during those eight years passed through them at a time when something was being done to revive the Irish language. An estimate might have been made at the end of that period as to what the results were. Another eight years had passed by 1939 or 1940, and a third generation of children will soon be coming to the end of their period.
The teachers are looking around to see what the result of all that work has been. Some of them, representing the organisation as a whole, made a report on the general situation with regard to that. The fact is that while inspectors of the Department discussed on behalf of the Minister that report which the teachers had put together the Minister himself refused to do so. The Minister, in his statement on the Department of Education on the 3rd May, 1943, speaking in Irish said:—
"Ní féidir linn an Ghaedhilg do shlánú gan sár-iarracht do dhéanamh i gcoinnibh Béarla agus uaireanta i gcoinnibh an náduir dhaonna féin, i dtreó go mairfeadh an teanga. Ní féidir cogadh mí-chuíbheasach teangan den tsórt san do choimeád ar siúl gan íbirt, agus gan iarrachtaí diana, buan-tseasmhacha — agus níil a mhalairt sin do rogha againn muna mian linn leigint don Ghaedhilg bás d'fháil mar theangain labhartha."
That is to say they are working under the kind of Ministerial direction which is embodied in that statement. The statement translated reads:—
"We cannot save Irish without waging a most intense war against English and against human nature itself for the life of the language. Such desparate linguistic war cannot be carried on without sacrifice and persistent effort and struggle, but we have no choice unless we intend to let Irish die as a living language."
The teachers who are on strike to-day are looking around to see what will be the result of their years of labour. They have been years of great labour. That labour was given willingly by the teachers. It involved much struggle, and much suffering if you like, because what the Minister said is perhaps true, that the work of the teachers in giving instruction through Irish to infants and the first and second classes had to go against human nature. Any teacher with a vision of what his work was intended to do must know and must feel that in that he was working against human nature. But the teachers who have been doing that work as part of the national education policy have been looking for results and have been pained by the little results that there have been. When the teachers put their judgment, arising out of their experiences into a report and did so in considerable detail, the Minister was not prepared to discuss the report with them.
These are some of the things that are behind the general atmosphere of dissatisfaction and of depression that has brought the teachers into the position of being on strike to-day.
I think that in fairness to the people as a whole, the questions which are at issue should now, at the end of a seven months' strike, be submitted to people experienced in the various branches of education in some place where people with responsibilities of various kinds can sit down and calmly discuss what it is that has really brought about the unfortunate situation which we have in the City of Dublin at present. We have before us very difficult times and the various problems which confront us call for a clear examination, not only by everybody in this House, but by everybody in the country. Much has been said during the last seven months which divided the people in one way or another, for or against the teachers or for or against the Government without any critical examination of what is at stake in the strike and in the general work of education in the country in which we should be so interested. There are very many discreditable elements in the disastrous situation which exists at the present moment. I submit to the Minister that if the Government see any reason in the situation why they should stand out resolutely, unimpressed and stubborn, against any of the demands of the teachers, that in their own interests they should sit down in council with them, the managers and the school attendance committees, so that they can restate their case clearly in the atmosphere of the council chamber and be all the more ready then to stand by what they think should be done when these discussions are over.
I am quite convinced, knowing the things that are at issue, having seen them brought out in debate year after year and brushed aside, knowing the shock that this dispute has given everybody, that if this matter could be brought inside the council chamber, not only would you end the strike but you would harmonise the whole atmosphere in which education is being carried out. You would give us what we all want—a chance of looking objectively at the various problems involved and a chance of correcting things that are wrong at present. In my opinion, you cannot continue, after what has happened, with the discrimination in pay and rating against poor city areas or outlying country districts. You cannot educate children in classes of 50, 60, 70 and 80. You cannot continue to judge the ability of teachers to carry out the work of their profession by a casual visit of an inspector, who bases his judgment on some particular type of question on some type of subject at a particular day. What we want is a system by which the general work of the teacher will be so judged that the Department will be able to say whether he is carrying out the functions that the Minister sees to be the functions of a teacher in this world of ours, whether, to quote him again:—
"The task of the teachers is the basic one of laying a solid foundation without which no specialist superstructure could be built or maintained. The future development of the country depends on their leadership, more than on that of any other body. What was the essential task of such leadership? The giving to the coming generation of a keen sense of social service, such a feeling for the community, such a knowledge of it, such grasp of its continuity, its profound values, its inherited obligations, as would enable that generation which now look to the teachers for inspiration to face the tremendous task of shaping the new Ireland."
When a teacher is being judged for his category or for his rating why is he not judged on how he carries out his task? Why is he judged on how some particular piece of information is retained by the child? I ask the Minister and every member of the Government Party, would it not be better now, after seven months have passed, if this difficulty were referred to the council chamber, to see whether it cannot be solved or cannot be eased a bit, rather than continue the situation that exists at present, which cannot lead to anything but a very disastrous state of affairs in the whole Education Department?
There are other questions that will arise for discussion. The bodies referred to here know themselves what these questions are. To attempt to argue the merits of the strike in this House and to deal with every aspect of the details of the issues that might have affected the strike would bring us to a position that would lead us nowhere. I ask the Government to accept the proposal to refer this question to the bodies I have set out there. If it is a question of a strike against the State, let us hear about it in calmer discussion. If it is to be a question of the teachers collaring from the public purse more than they should collar from it, let us hear that also in calmer discussion. As to the question of conciliation, why should the teachers be the only body of people in the country who are refused a conciliation board? The Labour Court has been welcomed by every section of the community as a substantial contribution to industrial harmony and peace. Civil servants are being offered their own particular type of arbitration. The only group of people left outside that scheme of things are the teachers. I do not want to have discussed even now the question of whether the teachers should be provided with arbitration machinery. I only ask that all the things that are at issue should be referred to this particular group in an ad hoc way, to discuss the strike that exists at present— the things which have arisen and the things that can and ought to be done in future to give us a harmonious atmosphere in which the teachers and the Department can work in the interests of the children, the people and the future of this nation.