asked the Minister for Education whether, in view of the fact that the education of many children, especially those in remoter rural districts, is now being entrusted to untrained teachers to the detriment of the children concerned, he will reconsider his decision not to alter the rule requiring women national teachers to retire on marriage.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Women National Teachers' Retirement.
As I have stated in reply to earlier questions on this subject the continuance in operation of the rule requiring women national teachers to retire on marriage is a matter of general policy involving considerations of a social and economic as well as of an educational nature. It would not be appropriate to rescind or modify this rule for the purpose of dealing with a shortage of teachers.
Every effort is being made to ensure that an adequate number of trained teachers will be available for national schools at the earliest possible date. The following measures have already been taken:—
(1) It has been arranged as a temporary measure that in certain circumstances principal, assistant and lay assistant teachers may be retained in the service until the end of the quarter in which they reach 68 years of age.
(2) In addition to increased accommodation which it has been found possible to secure in St. Patrick's and Mary Immaculate Training Colleges, for men and women respectively, provision for the accommodation of 55 extra women students in Our Lady of Mercy Training College was made with effect from September, 1954, and accommodation for a further 65 women students will be available in that college as from September, 1955.
(3) As a temporary measure, from September next, pass university graduates (as well as honours graduates) accepted as training college candidates will be permitted to complete the training course in one year, instead of two as was the practice hitherto. This will result in an increased output of trained teachers from the training college.
The question of how the supply of trained teachers may be increased still further is being examined.
Can the Minister say whether or not he gave a definite undertaking to the Irish National Teachers' Organisation in 1948, when he was Minister in the previous Coalition Government, that he would alter the regulations in question?
Do not talk rubbish.
All the Minister has ever talked is rubbish.
The Deputy is simply making use of an opportunity here to say, or to suggest, what is emphatically an untruth; secondly, he cannot but know it, and he could not produce the slightest scrap of evidence to show that the suggestion in his remark has even a scintilla of truth in it.
It was like everything else the Minister gave in the way of undertakings—he never honoured them. He would not know how.