I want to address myself to the question at issue on the Vote from two points of view. One is on the question of the actual moneys allocated in this financial year and the other is the question of policy in regard to our whole educational system, ranging from the primary school to the university. On the question of the moneys allocated under each sub-heading, the Minister has told us he is not accepting any responsibility for the figures, that they are not his figures and that accordingly he is offering them to the House as they stood prior to the General Election and the subsequent change of Government. That would be all right if the Minister had left it at that——
Committee on Finance. - Vóta 39—Oifig an Aire Oideachais— (d'atógaint).
An díospóireacht dhá h-atógaint ar an dtairiscint seo a leanas:—
Go ndeonfar suim nach mo na £244,740 chun slánuithe na suime is gá chun íochta an mhuirir a thiocfas chun bheith iníochta i rith na bliana dar críoch an 31ú lá de Mhárta, 1958, chum Tuarastal agus Costas Oilig an Aire Oideachais agus chun Costas a bhaineas leis an gComhairle Oideachais,—(Aire Oideachais).
Why not be accurate at the start? I never mentioned the word "responsibility". I simply said I had no part in the drawing up of the Estimate.
What is the difference between "having no part in" and "no responsibility for"?
These figures are my responsibility and I never tried to deny it. Let us start on fair premises and perhaps we can argue the matter out properly.
I am not prepared to accept standards of propriety of argument, either inside or outside the House, from the Minister.
That is a poor reflection on the Deputy's calibre. The Deputy is the first man who ever said that to me.
I will have a lot more to say before this Vote and many more Votes are over. If I am not to be permitted to make my own speech in my own way without being interrupted and doubts cast even on the propriety of my opening remarks, I think the Minister himself might consider the proprieties all round.
Any time the Deputy tries to base his remarks on false premises, he will get interruption from me.
I am not basing my remarks on false premises. According to the Minister full responsibility is now being taken by him for the amounts. I would have no quarrel with that if there had not been interpolated into the speech, in relation to these amounts, an insinuation that certain cuts had been made as a matter of policy by the previous Government rather than as a matter of necessity.
Again a completely false basis.
The Minister must let the Deputy make his statement.
I would like him to be honest in what he says.
Whatever the Minister disagrees with may be controverted afterwards.
It will be.
Obviously, it is not the policy of the Minister to allow any kind of criticism either of his speech in content, form or anything else. However, with your permission, Sir, and within the rules of the House, I propose to criticise the Minister's speech on this Vote under two headings, namely on the figures and on the policy.
The Department of Education in the first instance is charged with joint responsibility or by way of partnership —I will have something to say about this later in relation to the Minister's speech—for the education of the children of this country. The vast number of these children never pass the national school. Therefore, I think it is to the national school most consideration should be directed.
I can understand the Minister's proposal in the opening words of his speech not to deal profoundly with the various Votes having regard to what he says later concerning his brief intimacy with this Department. In fact, it might be said in fairness to the Minister that he has another Department tacked on which, in my opinion, would preclude his taking the same interest in both Departments as is their merit and due. I can understand the desire contained in the second paragraph of the speech under the heading "Office of the Minister for Education—Vote 39" to cut down administrative costs. Where will you get a degree of efficiency if the hub of the machine is faulty in some respects? Any Department not adequately staffed must be faulty. Under the heading of faults I include delays. If the delays in the reaching of decisions so prevalent in the Department of Education are in any way due to this reduction in the number of staff not replaced, then it is not a good reduction and the saving on it is not justified under any heading.
It is good to see an increase of £53,750 in the Primary Education Vote over last year's figure. It is true that the Minister says all this increase is accounted for by increased provision for teachers' salaries and superannuation. I do not think that is a wrong thing. I think it is a good thing. I think the people who are responsible jointly with parents for such a grave undertaking as the instruction of the big majority of our children who never receive any other instruction are people who should be adequately remunerated and for whom adequate superannuation provision should be made. There should be no quarrel with that.
The selection of sites for schools is a task delegated to the Board of Works. At the risk of criticism, in view of the shortage of land about which we hear so much, I suggest, as I have suggested previously with all sincerity, that greater portions of land should be acquired for school sites. We should adopt the long term view—a view probably outside the orbit of dealing with school children—of having an adequate playing field not alone for children during playtime but a playing field which would well become the social and physical training centre of the area served by the school.
I do not think there should be any great difficulty about it. After all, the acquiring of a site for a school is, relatively speaking, a negligible part of the cost. I see no reason why that attitude could not be adopted by the Department of Education in regard to the acquisition of school sites; indeed, in regard to existing schools, efforts should be made to provide playgrounds, particularly in the West, where the schools have large tracts of commonage around them. Land for school playgrounds should be acquired everywhere to replace the usual walls surrounding those buildings. These walls invariably do not last too long, due to the spirit of the youngsters and from sheer lack of playing space.
A noteworthy fact in the Minister's speech, mentioned on the first page, is that the number of children on the rolls of national schools is increasing and that, on the 30th June, 1956, there was an increase of 5,731 on the previous year. I am not a statistician, but it would be an interesting statistical compilation and survey to relate the increase in the number of children on the rolls of national schools with, on the other hand, the numbers who are emigrating according to reliable statistics —the children who are going away with the other members of their families. The same is true of the secondary schools. The numbers continue to be maintained and have grown substantially down through the years.
I often wonder whether speaking in this House and offering suggestions, be they good, bad or middling, is worth while because I have the feeling that the Department of Education, and those responsible for administration generally, take the view that the people who speak in this House on education are cranks who have got something to say about some particular instance and who have some particular bogy of their own. Accordingly, very few of the suggestions so made are examined. From the second part of the Minister's opening statement, I think we cannot expect any other view from him by way of direction of policy. However, that is a criticism I propose to offer at a later stage.
On the question of primary education, the need for good, warm, well-heated buildings is important. Side by side with that, I repeat that sufficiently large playing grounds are necessary. As I pointed out earlier, it should not be too hard to get them and the cost should not be too great. In dealing with policy in relation to primary education, I take it the Minister was referring to education as a whole and including primary education when he said, on page 8 of his speech:
"We find fault with the results of the teachers' work in this field or that and we argue from particular instances, but is there in fact in this country any informed criticism of the schools or of the system?"
I take it that is a suggestion that there is no informed criticism of the schools or of the system in this country and that the Minister accepts that as a fact. Only last Eastertide, the Minister had the advantage—I say "advantage" with respect—of attending the Congress of the Irish National Teachers' Organisation at Killarney where he must have heard, at least in the president's address, some criticism of the schools and the system. But perhaps he did not accept the president of the Irish National Teachers' Organisation as a person sufficiently competent or informed on the subject.
Speaking in this House on 7th July, 1955, and reported at column 410, Volume 152 of the Official Reports, I said:
"Another matter to which I would refer in all sincerity as a matter of some urgency is that of speech training. It is not very long ago since we in this country were renowned for a very long time previously, principally abroad and to some extent at home, as a nation of orators and as people who could not alone be heard but could be understood."
Further on in the same column I asked:—
"How will we go about it? We must, first of all, start with the primary schools, and starting with the primary schools, we must of course immediately go to our training colleges wherein are taught the people who will later teach in the primary schools. I am told that elocution is a subject on the programme of the training colleges for primary teachers. I am also told that as it is taught at present it is a complete waste of time. If it is not taught in a proper manner it cannot have any beneficial effect upon the teacher and consequently it cannot have any beneficial effect upon the pupil, who will be at the mercy of a teacher who has not benefited as he should by his training in the training college.
How can we except our children to be taught to speak properly if the teacher has not been so taught? I would suggest in this respect that we are not making the use we should of modern ideas and inventions in our educational system. I would advocate the installation of the wire recording system as essential equipment in every training college because nobody can fully appreciate his defects in speech, and everybody has got them since nobody is perfect, until he hears his own voice played back to him. I think the installation of a wire recorder in every training college would be a very good thing because then prospective teachers could get some idea of where the faults lay and set about repairing these defects. Such defects could be ascertained through the medium of a piece of selected reading or through the medium of a recorded conversation between two or three people.
The wire recorder could also be used to give potential teachers the proper blas. It could be used to advantage in the secondary schools for the teaching of modern languages, because modern languages could be brought right into the classrooms in schools situated in the most remote parts of the country."
That was in 1955. In all humility, I say that that is informed criticism of a system of education.
Speaking on 24th April, 1957 and reported in the Evening Mail of that date, Mr. Hardiman addressed the Annual Convention of the Association of Secondary Teachers at Galway. Mr. Hardiman dealt with several matters affecting our educational system. But then, if we are to take the Minister's question seriously—“is there, in fact, in this country any informed criticism of the schools or of the system?”—I suppose the President of the Association of Secondary Teachers is not to be regarded as a person competent to criticise or as a person who would be properly informed.
In the course of his address, Mr. Hardiman turned to the proper speaking of English and he said:
"In Ireland we are inclined to pay too little attention to the oral side of education."
In that respect, I notice the Minister says it is his intention in the intermediate examination to have an oral examination in Irish. Why confine it to one language? Why not have it for English; why not have it for French or any other language the pupil may be taking in that examination ? At any rate, Mr. Hardiman continued, as reported:
"Some attention is given to oral Irish; in English, the proper speaking of the language is generally neglected.
To remedy that I propose that much more time should be devoted to elocution, to the drama and to debates. These exercises can be of the greatest value in enabling the adolescent to express himself fluently and pleasantly and are indispensable in providing that self confidence in which our young people are deficient in comparison with their contemporaries elsewhere."
Perhaps that is not informed criticism. The Minister doubts, as given at the bottom of page 7, the success of any crusade against unwarranted emigration if it were led by politicians or teachers. He doubts if those two classes of people would be the best to lead it. I would like to hear, the House would like to hear and I am sure the country would like to hear what view the Minister holds as to the inadequacy of the politician or the teacher to lead that crusade in particular or any other crusade in general. If he finds, and gives the reasons for so finding that politicians and teachers are not the right kind of people to lead crusades of that kind, then he might tell us who he has in mind or what class of persons he has in mind who would best achieve the result he desires to see achieved, namely, the curbing of unwarranted emigration— that is, as he says, people leaving positions in which they are already remunerated in this country.
Nowhere, of course, does the Minister suggest a remedy. He says that we are suffering, that "at the core of things there is a spiritual malaise, a loss of morale”. What is the remedy? The Minister might tell us what he thinks the remedy or remedies might be, or even the suggested remedies. We want a lead in this kind of thing. At least, if he thinks the politicians are not suitable to lead, I am prepared to be led by the Minister for Education in educational matters, once he satisfies me that he has searched into every avenue for the defects and that, as a result of that search, he has an adequate remedy for each and every defect he has found; or if he has not found a remedy, let him say so.
I come in this speech to rather startling propositions which, to my mind, will not be rated as great contributions to educational thought or educational advancement, but nevertheless I am sure they will stand out on the records of this House as startling observations on what education is and what a system is. The Minister says, as given at the top of page 8:
"When I refer to what might be achieved I am not thinking at all of teaching of skills or of academic lore. These have of course their place, and a very important one it is, but for the moment I am thinking of the cultivation of an attitude. An acquired skill, if not accompanied by a contentment of mind, will only the quicker enable the possessor to escape from his environment."
I agree to some extent, not a very great extent, that education is in its result the cultivation of an attitude— but only in its result. I would like to think that what the Minister means by a "contentment of mind" which must, he says, accompany the "acquired skill" is what we probably refer to in the old-fashioned way as the vocation which goes side by side with the aptitude and suitability for a particular calling.
Not very far from here—I have not got the quotation—the superior of Synge Street School at a meeting of the Past Pupils' Union the other evening made a comment on this. He said, and in my opinion very properly said, that the sooner people realised in education that teaching was not a job but a vocation, the more progress would be made.
That brings me to a point on the selection of our teachers for primary schools that should be giving, if it has not given already, some food for thought to the Department of Education. I refer to the preparatory school system. I do not think it is fair to ask a boy or a girl at the ages of 13½ to 15½ to decide at that time that they want to be teachers, because that is the manner in which the vast majority of primary teachers have to decide. It is true that there are some limited vacancies through open competition, on the one hand, from the leaving certificate examination and, on the other hand, from honours graduates of certain standing and certain academic qualifications.
How can the child of 13, 14 or 15 decide he or she wants to be a teacher and nothing else? An administration and a policy such as that can force upon people in poorer areas, and in circumstances where no other choice is open to them, the roadway to teaching alone. It is true that at the end of the secondary school course in the preparatory colleges a limited number of scholarships is offered to pupils from those colleges to universities, in competition, of course, with the other secondary schools, but the bulk of our primary teachers are people selected by examination and interview.
At these ages to which I refer, they leave their native place and go with people of the same kind into a preparatory college to spend four years. When they depart at holiday time, they see their people at home, and then they are back with the same type of boys and girls again. I am not saying there is anything wrong with that company, but the vision that is open to people from a limited environment must of necessity be limited, too. After leaving a preparatory college, pupils go on to some training college, where again for two years they are with the same people, and if I might say so, in passing—and I know of a particular example of it into which I do not propose to delve here—an environment like that can make people the subjects of prejudices which remain with them all their lives, and, I hasten to add, not political prejudices.
If it were possible, I would like to see university accommodation made available as a solution to this problem. If you are going to preserve the preparatory college system, I would like to see the training colleges, as I said before in the same debate, used solely for the mechanics of teaching, and some course, probably a limited one, provided in the university nearest to the training college. I referred to this before in 1955. The members of the Church of Ireland Training College have that system and I think it is an excellent one. In that way, you learn the mechanics of teaching—in the training colleges where discipline is not as relaxed as it would be in university life, but through the university course you would be giving people the advantage of meeting university people, university students and professors, the advantage of broadening their outlook, having a more liberal approach and of going back to their respective districts or to similar places elsewhere, for no place is very different from any other, full of a liberal approach, as people who had met other people of different kinds, of different outlooks. They would then be able to approach their position in that frame of mind, instead of coming back to the school as somebody who has moved on in years but very little otherwise. That is a system which is not the fault of the teacher but the fault of the administration.
Let me go on to page 8 to the next startling observation, where the Minister says that he refuses to believe when we consider the character of the teaching personnel which we are so fortunate to possess in each of the various types of school, that our system of education is not a good one. "No one need tell me," he says, "that a system of education is good or bad as a system. It is good or ill according to the character of its teachers, and a glance at Irish history is sufficient to make that clear, for under a very alien system, the teachers handed down to the children a fine national tradition."
Let me deal with the last observation first. They did hand down a fine national tradition, but how did they do it? They did it by departing from the system which had been imposed upon them from an alien source at that time, and many of them did it under the pain of dismissal and the pain of severe penalty, the pain of loss of livelihood. It was not because it was an alien system that they were able to do it but because they departed from it.
If the champion ploughman or the Queen of the Plough is let into a good field, in which there are no obstructions, with perfect ploughshares, good tyres, everything seemingly in order, but there is a defective bearing somewhere or some belt goes out of order or slips, something happens to render the ploughing ineffective. Let the perfect plough and the champion ploughman go into a field, on the other hand, which looks good but in which there are rocks and hidden obstacles that blunt the blades; in that case the work of the ploughman is also rendered ineffective. Is that not the system? The Minister seems to think that if you have a team of experts, with no facilities, or very inadequate ones, and no method by which they can work either suitably or properly in a given instance, one can surmount the difficulties.
What is happening? The proof is in the practice of our teachers. Some of them hold on to their jobs because they have a vocation, and I would like to think they would be the majority; others hold on to their job because they have no choice; still others are leaving, either emigrating or changing occupations at home, because they have not got the vocation or because, having the vocation, they feel so futile under the system in which they have to work.
There are primary teacher Deputies in this House who may possibly not like to speak with the same critical approach to the Department that supervises their work. They may say that it is easy for me because I am not subject to inspection and I am not subject to departmental rules and I am not affected in any way by this partnership, to which the Minister refers, wherein the Department does not hold all the stakes. I speak here on this subject of education as somebody who has taught in every branch of our educational system, primary, secondary, vocational and university. In addition to that, I speak as one who has had—possibly some people would say too long; I would say too short— three to four months' experience as an administrator, as Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Education.
I would not like the Minister to adhere steadfastly to the view that if you have good teachers with a vocation for teaching, they should be asked to retain all through their careers that quantum of mental and physical capacity to plough the stony fields of an awkward system, which often results in broken men and broken women, reputations lost through no fault of their own but merely because of a faulty system imposed upon them by people who are pleased, on the one hand, to accept what has been handed down through the years, with minor modifications, or, on the other hand, are devoting no thought to the subject at all and making no provision for the future or for changing times. I agree with the Minister when he says that our teachers, from primary to university level, are doing a good job. They are doing more than that: they are doing a tremendous job, having regard to the difficulties that stand in their way.
The Minister says in his opening speech that "the teachers are, I believe, giving to the country's youth ‘a faithful message'." Now, "a faithful message" is in inverted commas. What is the "faithful message"? One can imagine all kinds of messages. One can speculate from particular view-points, but it would be a waste of time to start going through them all until we hear what exactly the Minister means by a "faithful message".
I want now to couple the remark about there not being enough informed opinion or enough informed criticism with the Minister's statement that:—
"The teachers are telling the pupils and all of us daily, in the words of Thomas Davis, ‘Gentlemen, you have a country,' but as in the days of Davis, that apostrophe is being negatived by the cynicism and certain demoralising influences that are at work among the public."
I suppose, if one puts those two together, people like myself who offer criticism which cannot, according to the Minister, be informed criticism, fall into the category of cynics and demoralising influences.
I come now to another problem to which I referred in July, 1955. I refer to the problem of the backward child. Let me get this clear: I am not referring to the sub-normal or the mentally defective. I am referring simply to the backward child whose development is slow and whose capacity will never be as great as the averagely intelligent. At column 413 of Volume 152, I said then:—
"There is no aspect of education in this country which should be looked into with greater speed than the question of the teaching of backward children. I am not referring to abnormal children or to mentally defective children but to the ordinary backward child whose development is slowed and retarded and I think it is high time that, in the larger centres at any rate, specially trained teachers should be got to deal with them—with the kind of children to whom Deputy Derrig referred. You meet them quite often in the juvenile courts—the fellow of 15 or 16 years of age and sometimes the girl who is not able to read or write because her development was slow.
These children cannot properly be attended to in large classes and consequently are left behind in the programme of to-day which is really a programme of the survival of the fittest. If you put those mentally slow children into their proper places with properly trained teachers, you will eventually get them their right place in the life of the nation and you will relieve the lot of the teachers in the classes from which they have been taken so that their progress will be even faster and the progress of the other ordinary pupils greater indeed. I would impress upon the Minister the importance of taking cognisance of that particular point in relation to backward children. He should have his Department examine it with a view to taking steps towards an early solution of the problem because it is a problem whether we like it or not. We are not all as advanced as we would like to think ourselves and the development of a proper system of education related to the people's needs is absolutely essential, because a satisfactory system of education presupposes a reasonably contented body of teachers and reasonably happy school lives for the children."
Perhaps I am a cynic. Perhaps I am a demoralising influence because that is what I must be if I am not accepted as informed. I am not alone as a cynic or a demoralising influence according to the Minister. In the Irish Times of November 28th, 1955, Mr. John Brosnahan, N.T., a former President of the Irish National Teachers' Organisation, addressed a meeting of the Graduates' Association of the National University of Ireland, reading a paper entitled “The Sins of Our Primary Education System”.
The Minister tells us that the system is all right. There can never be anything wrong with the system. Once your team of horses is all right it does not matter what class of land they have to plough. They will go through rocks if they are strong enough. As you will notice, here is a national teacher, a former President of the Irish National Teachers' Organisation, reading a paper entitled "The Sins of Our Primary Education System". He did not say "omissions in the primary education system; hardships in the primary education system or anomalies in the primary education system." He did not use any of those lighter words that might imply neglect, omission or default. He uses the word "sins" and sin, if our moral concepts are still awake, is a strong word.
Mr. Brosnahan, addressing an important body of people whose very calling would make them people likely to affect public opinion and educational opinion generally, thought fit to refer to backward children in November, 1955. He said:—
"Another great fault lay in the callous disregard for sub-normal and backward children, who were written off as a ‘bad debt' in the largeclass system. The existence of these children did not seem to have impinged itself greatly on the official mind which spoke of children as units in a school. The Irish National Teachers' Organisation had drawn attention to the problem of the backward child, but so far little or nothing has been done. He asked: ‘Will you, as responsible and influential people, help us to do something for those who by their very limitations are unable to fight for their rights?'
Mr. Brosnahan said that in England, Scotland, and Northern Ireland special committees had surveyed the problem of the backward child and recommendations had been made. It was time for the problem to be investigated in the Twenty-Six Counties; in so doing, much unhappiness and tears would be eliminated from the schools. Answering his question, ‘What can be done?' he suggested arousing the public conscience, establishing a committee of inquiry, reduction of size of classes and that a considerable modification of the ordinary curriculum be made in the case of backward children."
Perhaps Mr. Brosnahan is a cynic; perhaps he is a demoralising influence. Before I leave that, I want to refer again to a report in the Irish Times of April 25th, 1957. It is an account of the proceedings in Killarney of the Irish National Teachers' Organisation at which the Minister had the privilege and the advantage of attending. There I find, in addition to whatever I have already said about speech training, at the secondary education meeting in Galway, no less an authoritative person than Dr. J. J. Stack, Medical Director of the Child Guidance Clinic, Dublin, who went to that conference to read a paper on the problems of childhood, saying:—
"That in London recently an eminent educationalist and psychiatrist had stated that a survey had shown that one person in 20 would one day be treated in a mental hospital, and one in ten would be so crippled emotionally before reaching 18 that he would be a burden on the community. The figures were about the same in America. He did not think that there was any reason to believe that in Ireland they were any lower. In his experience, the incidence of serious mental illness in children was far too high.
A lot of the difficulty with the handicapped child was that the parents, through the kindness of their nature, did not stimulate that ordinary independence which was so necessary for them."
Apart from mental illness altogether, Dr. Stack—I suppose he would not be regarded by the Minister as a person competent to offer informed criticism —dealing with defects of speech, said:—
"There were about 5,000 stutterers among the children of the country, while there were facilities for treating only a few hundred of them. One-third of our juvenile delinquents were permanently backward children. Delinquency would always be with us as long as we had such economic and social conditions as we had to-day. Twenty per cent. of the children attending our schools were educationally sub-normal and 5 per cent. were mentally defective so that they could not benefit from ordinary educational techniques."
Those are the opinions of people that I want to submit to this House as informed opinions, people competent to judge and who cannot be dismissed as cynics or as people described as demoralising influences.
The Minister talks of thoughtless criticism of such a state of affairs. He says:—
"Thoughtless criticism of such a state of affairs takes the easy way out by demanding that the State take over the system and impose the views of the critics."
Let us, if we can, pin the Minister and his Department to some sort of policy in relation to education generally or in relation to the particular aspects of it. He says:—
"Thoughtless criticism of such a state of affairs takes the easy way out by demanding that the State take over the system and impose the views of the critics."
Why should the State not deal adequately by way of a proper system with the educational treatment of backward children? I am not dealing now with mental defectives or sub-normal children. I make a special plea, as I did two years ago, for the backward child in the big class who is generally untended and who leaves school at 14 years, or perhaps under that age, illiterate and not able even to write his name. Let us face the fact that that happens.
The Minister continues:—
"It is sometimes forgotten that at least in this country the system of education is a partnership in which the State by no means holds all the stakes."
What are we to take from that sentence? Is it a reply to the people who offer criticism, be it informed or illinformed? Is it a reply to them thus: "Why do you criticise us? We are not responsible in full for the education of the people of this country. There is a partnership"? The partnership, I take it, must in the primary school be none other than the managerial system. In the secondary school it must be the vast number of secular clergy and lay teachers who so adequately, with the means at their disposal, and so reasonably and so economically, financially, make such an excellent job of our secondary education.
Is the Minister saying to us who criticise: "Ask the managers about the primary school, as well as asking us. Ask both the religious and the laity, who run the secondary schools, because they are in partnership with us and they must accept responsibility." Is that what he means or does he mean: "Do not blame us because we are not responsible for this partnership"? Does he mean: "We do not like this partnership"? Does he mean that if this partnership did not exist he would be able to do some of the things which he would like to do without let or hindrance from any of the partners?
The Minister continued:—
"The corollary of such a proposal would, of course, ultimately be that schools or parents who would not bend the knee to a State system would be at first financially penalised and finally brought to surrender."
Therefore, there is a proposal, however academic or academically posed, in the preceding sentence about the partnership. I should like to see that that would be clear.
It is true that we would like to have more money to do all of the things we should like to do. I maintain that we have sufficient money from which some small portion at least could be devoted towards helping the backward child, on the one hand, and the removal of speech defects on the other hand. I am happy to see that recently in Dublin, as a result of voluntary effort, we have a school for, I think, mental defectives.
Action has often been urged upon the Minister and the Department of Education by what I maintain is informed opinion—the President of the Irish National Teachers' Organisation, Presidents past and present, the President of the Secondary Teachers' Association, the President of the Association of Vocational Teachers. All of these things must be taken into account. Some cognisance must be taken of them. Things cannot go on from year to year with the same old story of treating schools as buildings that cost money, equipment as something that costs more money, sites as places that must be sufficiently small as not to cost too much money and children as mere ciphers or figures on a roll book or on forms returned from time to time to the Department of Education.
In secondary education the time is fast approaching when we must lay greater and greater stress on technology and early specialisation. We must lay greater stress on modern languages. I read in one of the papers within the past few days that somebody said that, with the possible advent of a free trade area, continental languages will become more and more important. May I say, without being accused of being a pessimist or an enemy, that the advent of such an era will make the job of restoring the Irish language a much more difficult one? I do not think it is very necessary for me to try to impress upon the Minister, the House or the country how difficult that job is and how little success has attended it down the years in relation to the financial expenditure and the tremendous physical and mental effort that has been put into the process. People everywhere are clamouring for two things—a modern language which is much in use and, on the other hand—and possibly more important when you take it in conjunction not alone with the desire but the necessity for greater production— technology and early specialisation.
Bear in mind that, of the percentage of pupils who go to secondary schools, only a small number ever reach the university, where they might specialise. In passing, I might say, on the subject of the selection of teachers or professors in secondary schools, that due regard should be had to a correct relationship between the academic qualifications of the candidate and the subjects he or she is being asked to teach. In the British and Northern Ireland systems and, indeed, in other systems, the honours graduate in Classics will teach Classics. He will not be brought in to teach Classics for a few hours and then fill in a few more hours with a subject he is not qualified to teach. The same should apply to the honours graduate in Irish, French, German, Mathematics or any of the applied sciences. There should be a correct relationship between the subjects of his qualification and the subjects which he is asked to teach and is being paid to teach and, possibly, in many cases, being returned as teaching.
That situation does not obtain, so far as I know, in this country. In my own personal experience, only very rarely—only twice—in my rather short teaching career was I able to get a job teaching the subjects of my degree, but I had no difficulty in getting jobs to teach subjects of which I hope I knew something but in relation to which nobody had satisfied themselves of my knowledge in advance. I do not think the necessity for teaching of science and kindred subjects can be too strongly stressed, when you find people of the stature of Dr. McLaughlin of the E.S.B. speaking on 28th November, 1955, as quoted in the Irish Press of that date saying:—
"The purpose of this is to assist the secondary schools of Britain to give better education in pure and applied science and mathematics. Many of those firms are doing business in this country and I thought something similar would happen here. I think it must, if we are to keep up with the times."
He goes on to add:—
"It was a great tragedy that U.C.D. had not bigger scientific schools and no time should be lost in providing them."
I submit the view of Dr. McLaughlin with regard to technology and to the sciences generally as an informed view to this House.
Some Deputy said there was a great lack of marine education. I think it was Deputy Brennan of Donegal who said that and he also made one statement with which I agree whole-heartedly when he said that education in this country, apart from its general cultural value, an attitude of mind or an educational result or an examination result, for the people who never go beyond primary school education, simply means that they must be equipped for whatever walk of life they follow in whichever country they can be received. Taking West Donegal along with North Mayo and West Galway, we find many constituencies where there is mainly the small holding and almost invariably a big family. Only one or, at the most, two of that family can wait at home; the others must go somewhere else, whether in this country or abroad, and surely they are entitled to an education that puts them on a par with their competitors in whatever country they seek work and in whatever sphere they seek work.
In the field of vocational education, too little use is being made of the national schools and too little use also of the actual vocational schools themselves during the long holiday periods. I think national school pupils of senior classes could, if they show aptitude— no compulsion about it—be brought into the vocational schools on Saturday mornings and there given lessons in the ordinary rudiments of everyday activities. With the advent of rural electrification, it is essential that every boy and girl should understand the various little technical matters in connection with electricity and the working of it. There should be instruction as regards minor engineering, motor cars and lawn mowers—it is the season for them—and that sort of thing.
On the other hand, you have the secondary pupils with long summer holidays in the big centres where they do little more than wander idly about, and I think if certain summer courses were provided in the vocational schools on a vocational or technical basis, in relation to the subjects I have mentioned, for secondary school pupils, we might then have some chance of lessening the tendency that is rapidly growing up here for secondary school pupils —certainly at the more mature ages— to seek work not alone abroad but in this country, in an atmosphere which leaves much to be desired.
Regarding marine education, there is an excellent centre at Galway and it is to be hoped it will get every assistance—as I am sure it will—in making the improvement it seeks to make in marine education. As a matter of fact, at the moment, through the offices of the Department of Lands and Fisheries, a couple of men are being trained as skippers, first of all, on boats, and the Galway school is so well recognised as a marine centre that these men on completion of sea training will come to Galway and, as one of them rather naïvely put it to me, "go to school again for two months".
I hope I have not trespassed too long upon the time of the House. I look forward to something being done—if I might recapitulate in conclusion these two things—regarding the backward child and speech defects. I have pointed out methods whereby something can be done about them. My methods may be the wrong ones, but at least a discussion of wrong methods may bring about the situation where somebody will discover the right ones. Out of difficulties come solutions to great problems and the greater the difficulty, the greater the solution resulting from the harder work.
If I have been in any way hard on the Minister, I have been hard deliberately and if I have divorced his activities from direction of policy, on the one hand, to the operations of his Department, on the other, I have done so deliberately. If I have succeeded in making him ask one simple question as a result of this speech, I shall regard myself as being justified. If he asks his officials in relation to any of the matters I have raised: "Has anything been done about this, that or the other; if not, why not, and when do you propose to do it?" I shall be satisfied.
Ar an gcéad dul síos is mian liomsa ag labhairt ar an Meastachán seo, traoslú don Aire Oideachais mar gheall ar an obair tabhachtach atá idir lámhaibh aige. Meastachán mór é seo—£13,500,000 ach tá díombádh ormsa, a mhéid is atá sé, go bhfuil laghdú £27,289 ar Mheastachán na bliana seo caite. Ní maith liomsa, maraon le Teachtaí eile, an laghdú sin d'fheiceáil agus aontaim leis na Teachtaí a dúirt i mbliana agus sna blianta eile roimhe seo nach maith an rud é, má tá aon airgead le sábháilt nach ceart é shábháil sa Roinn Oideachais.
Maidir leis an mBun-Oideachas, tá baint agam fhéin le 22 blian leis an mBrainnse sin ag múineadh ins na bun-scoileanna. Bhí baint agam le Mean-Oideachas agus le Gairm-Oideachas freisin. Táim ar Choiste Gairm Oideachais Conntae na Gaillimhe le 12 blian anuas. Ach, mar dúirt mé, is leis an mBun-Oideachas atá an baint is mó agam agus labharfaidh mé air sin i dtosach.
Tá méadú £53,750 sa Mheastachán seo le haghaidh na Brainnse sin ach, mar dúirt an tAire agus an Teachta a labhair romham annseo, tá níos mó páistí ann. Tá méadu ins an líon páistí ins na bun-scoileanna agus tá níos mó airgid le caitheamh ar tuarastál agus pinsin i mbliana ná mar a bhí.
Tá laghdú, ámhthach, ar an dá Brainnse eile—An Meán Oideachas agus an Ghairm-Oideachas agus 10 fá'n gcéad d'ísliú san deontas ceanntsraithe fé ndear an laghdú atá sa Mheán-Oideachas agus in óráid an Aire innseann sé dúinn go bhfuil 6 fá'n gcéad d'ísliú sa deontas bliantúil dos na scoileanna Ghairm-Oideachais.
Do chuir sé sin díombádh orainn i gContae na Gaillimhe nuair chualamar é. Do chuireamar é fá bhrághaid cruinniú den Choiste agus ní rabhamar sásta ar chor ar bith leis an ísliú sin mar bhí obair leagtha amach againn— obair thabhachtach—go mór mór sa Ghaeltacht agus i scoileanna eile i nGleann na Madadh atá' mo cheantar fhéin, agus i gCorrandula agus i mBaile Atha an Ríogh. Bhí gach rud réidh againn chun na scoileanna ghairm-oideachais nua sin a thógáil agus bhí ráta 1/2 sa £ leagtha amach ag an gComhairle Contae i gContae na Gaillimhe i gcóir Gairm-Oideachais, an ráta is mó atá in aon contae in Eirinn. Tá muid an-bhuidheach den Chomhairle Contae mar gheall ar an ráta sin a thabhairt dúinn ach nuair thánamar go dtí an t-iar-Aire fuaramar amach go rabh laghdú sa deontas agus ní rabhamar i n-ann dul ar aghaidh leis an obair sin. Deir an tAire go ndéanfaidh sé a dhicheall an bhlian seo chughainn é sin a thabhairt thar ais. Tá súil agam go mbeimíd i nGaillimh Thuaidh i n-ann dul ar aghaidh le tógáil na scoile i Gleann na Madadh mar níl aon iar-oideachas le fáil ag an líon páistí ins an áit sin mar níl aon chathair mhór in aice na h-áite sin.
Tá rud eile mar gheall ar an ollscoil i nGaillimh. Tá fhios ag an Aire go bhfuil a lán ollamh agus múinteoirí Gaeilge annsin agus tá súil agam go dtabharfar breis deontais dóibh san Ollscoil sin mar gheall ar an Gaeltacht mhór atá i gContae na Gaillimhe.
Chualamar an rud céadna arís i mbliana faoi 'n Gaeilge éigeantach. Níl fhios agamsa an fáth go mbíonn an rá sin againn annseo gach blian mar níor cuireadh iachall ormsa, agus tá mé 22 blian ag múineadh i scoil náisiúnta, níor cuireadh iachall orm an Ghaeilge do mhúineadh thar aon adhbhar eile. Caithimid Béarla do mhúineadh agus uimhríocht agus na h-adhbhair eile agus ní thuigim an fáth go bhfuil an rá nó an phrase "compulsory Irish" á thabhairt amach nuair a bhíonn daoine ag labhairt ar an Meastachán seo gach blian. Cuireann sé daoine in aghaidh na Gaeilge a bheith ag eaint mar sin. Ach, do thárla rud aisteach im' chontae fhéin le déanaí mar gheall ar an mBéarla agus tá súil agam go bhféachfaidh an tAire nua isteach ann. Nuair bhí scrúdú ar siúl le h-aghaidh príntíseach sa Bord Soláthair Leietreachais cuireadh iachall ar phríntísigh as Gaeltacht Chonnamara serúdú do dhéanamh i mBéarla agus b'in Béarla éigeantach dá chur isteach síos an muméal ar dhaoine go raibh an Ghaeilge mar ghnáth-theanga aea. Bhí rud éigin le rá againn ag an gCoiste Gairm-Oideachais i gContae na Gaillimhe mar gheall air sin agus tá mé cinnte go bhfuil sé sin ós coir an Aire fá láthair agus mura bhfuil ba mhaith liom go bhfeiefidh sé isteach air.
Iarraim arís ar an Aire gan aon rud a dhéanamh cúis na Gaeilge nó cúis muintir na Gaeltachta do chur siar. Tá áthas orm go bhfuil an onóir mhór seo ag an Aire agus tá fhios agam nach ndéanfaidh sé aon dochar ach go ndéanfaidh sé gach maitheas do chúis na Gaeilge agus do chúis mhuintir na Gaeltachta.
Before I conclude I should like to speak also about the building of national schools. I wish to compliment the Department and the Board of Works on the design of the new national schools they have erected in recent years. We were fortunate in the area in which I teach in having a new school erected. I must say that all the modern amenities of water, sewage, sanitary arrangements and so on have been installed in that school and in other schools which I have seen erected in recent years in rural Ireland. It is time that was done and I hope it will continue to be the policy.
I should like to say that I agree with the Deputies who say that there should be more planning with the Land Commission, or those concerned with the site, and with the local authority in the area, to ensure that sufficient land is acquired to provide proper playgrounds for the children. In my own school, where rural science is being taught voluntarily, I would not like to have the whole village playing there every evening. I would also be a bit uneasy about the windows of the school. I would have the playground for the children all right and give them plenty of space in which to play their games. The local authorities should ensure, when putting in water, that pumps are sunk in the proximity of new national schools.
We heard, yesterday evening, a Bill introduced in this House to ensure proper cleanliness, sanitation and so on in offices throughout the country in which five people are working. Where there are crowds of children gathered together in the early and formative years of their lives, it is more important to have for them these facilities which it is proposed to give to five people. It is very necessary to ensure that the children will have these amenities for cleanliness, sanitation and so forth, during their early years. I hope that this work will be expedited in regard to those schools, and I am sure there are plenty of them yet in the country, which have not got these facilities.
Some Deputies have spoken on a matter of extra subjects. So far as I am concerned, rural science is being taught and it is an easy matter to teach it when one has the facilities. Implements are given by the Department of Education and the Board of Works and seeds are supplied, but if one has not got the proper amount of land attached to the school, I do not see how rural science can be taught. I would say to leave things as they are and not to have any compulsion about the subject.
The national school is called the bun scoil. We have the word bun cloch or foundation. It is there that the foundation is taught, no matter to what trade or profession the children may go afterwards. I would urge the Minister to cut out the frills in the programme for national schools and have only the essentials taught there in our own language and in English, and also the three R's and history and geography. Anything else can come afterwards.
After 22 years of experience in teaching, I think it is time that we had properly graded textbooks, and we should have them in Irish and English. Nowadays, a new textbook comes out and is put on the official list from which one must buy. It is there for a year or two and is taken off and then another book comes out, so that the teachers really do not know where they are. I have been speaking to old people, some of them old age pensioners, and they can quote even to-day from some of the textbooks from which they learned under the old National Board of Education. They had Book I and Book II graded upwards. I have not seen any of them, but I have heard them quoted and one of them, I think, was called "Reading Made Easier". They were well bound and could be handed down from one pupil to another in a large family. If there is a family of five or six children, all going to the national school at the same time, they all have to buy books and it costs a good deal of money.
I think the Minister should look into the question of setting up some sort of board composed of experts which could bring together all the parties concerned, the publishers, teachers' organisations and Department officials, and get down to the problem of having textbooks properly graded and properly bound, so that they would last for a good number of years. I give that advice to the Minister and ask him to look into it. When these books are being compiled, they could have lessons on agriculture, our main industry, and lessons on civics. The board would know what different things could be printed in these books, in both languages, so that the teachers could expand on the material before them. They would then have standard textbooks of a very high order in their possession. The great majority of the people have had the experience of the penny Catechism and if they did not understand the meaning of every word of it when they were being taught, they had it off by heart and did not forget it. Later on when they grew older, they could understand it.
We have the same thing in history as we have in Irish and English. In the ordinary two-teacher national school, one may hear, as we have heard sometimes on Question Time, a child who has left the national school not knowing the names of the signatories to the Treaty. That may happen through the system under which history is being taught. In the ordinary national school, the history programme is divided into two parts. In the first year it covers the period from the earlier times, the stone and other ages, in which the majority of children are not interested up to the time of Brian Boru and the Battle of Kinsale. The second part moves from that time up to the present day. Children may leave the national school before coming to the most important part of history. I would suggest starting at the Young Ireland movement and moving on to the 1916 period. If this board was set up to go into the question of textbooks, these are some of the things which they should consider.
Before I conclude, I should like to join with the Deputies who made a plea for the teachers who resigned before 1950. Those pensioned teachers were in the language movement and the Gaelic League in the old days. After all their days of service, they now get a different pension because they retired at a certain time. I know that the Minister understands the figures well and knows that, after all their years of service, some of them have very low pensions indeed. They are entitled to a better reward from the State and I would ask that their case be gone into again.
First of all, I should like to wish the Minister well in his new office. I want to make it quite clear that I know he has just taken over and consequently I suppose we must assume that is the reason why this policy speech is such a thin one and contains very little which is in any way likely to advance us from our present very serious position in regard to education. I hope for better things next year. I am sure the Minister will do everything he can to get a good grasp of the subject and, when he appreciates fully the size of the problem, give us really live solutions for the many problems there.
I regret to say I feel that the Department of Education is one of a fairly large number of State Departments which have been terribly badly handled over the years since the beginning of the State. I do not think the very serious consequences of that fact can be estimated—the consequences on the products of our educational system, the uneducated, semi-literate children we send out year after year as young boy and girl emigrants to the different countries of the world. There are three quarters of a million of them. The vast majority of them end their education at the age of 14 years. In that way, we have imposed a disability on our children that they can never overcome, no matter how long they live. I suspect the Minister will have quite a lot of support from his colleagues in attempting to clear up the onerous task facing him in the Department of Education.
A few years ago, Deputy Moylan said that the system of education was started by the Conservative British Government of the time with the general idea of turning out labourers and more labourers and that there would not be any appreciable change in the structure of a system wherein the majority of the people were labourers and would continue to be content to be labourers. The sad thing is that, in my opinion, there has not been a substantial change in the fundamental structure of our educational system since that time. Certainly, I believe there has been no change in the objectives it lays down for itself. I think it is still true to say that the vast majority of our children are educated to the labourer standard, and no further. At least that is so if they have not got the wealth which can provide them with secondary or higher education as good as can be got anywhere.
I should like to deal with the different aspects of the Education Estimate in order to try to point out what I believe are its major defects. I hope to be of some assistance to the Minister in putting a point of view which may help him to come to decisions which will improve the educational system, as it badly needs that improvement. Take the school building programme. I asked the Minister questions recently concerning our schools. The facts are particularly depressing. The total number of national schools in the country is about 5,000. The number which required re-building or replacement in 1947 was 600. In 1953, the figure was 643. When I asked a question the other day, the answer given was that the figure in 1956 was 822.
It is clear that the Minister and the Department have not succeeded in overcoming the grave defects of inadequate, cold, damp, insanitary, unhygienic and overcrowded school buildings in which many thousands of our children are trying to get an education and in which so many of our teachers are trying to give them that education. The position is that out of a total of about 5,000 schools nearly 1,000 require to be replaced. The answer I was given contained a phrase that "the replacement needed for new schools is comparatively non-urgent." I do not know what that means. Possibly the Minister might tell me what is the definition and what are the detailed considerations which together are non-urgent in assessing the desirability of replacing a school or providing a new school? In 1952, Deputy Moylan put it very much more bluntly when he said there were 460 schools practically derelict and 1,000 unfit for occupation. I am sure he knew what he was talking about. Presumably the 1,000 schools which, in his opinion, were unfit for occupation could not be said to need replacement for comparatively non-urgent reasons.
The rate of replacement is unbelievably slow. I cannot understand the complacency with which the former Minister prepared these Estimates, knowing all the facts as he did extremely well, because he has had considerable experience of this, and his acceptance of the present rate of progress in the provision of new schools. I tried to get the exact figure for the rate of new school buildings per annum. No doubt the Minister will correct me if I am wrong. I think it is fair to say that the average figure is about 50 per annum. The average figure for the eight years between 1947-48 and 1954-55 was 46. There are 1,000 schools unfit for habitation.
Let us take the Department's own figure, if you like—822. At the rate of 50 new schools per year—no increase on that figure has been suggested—it would take 16 to 20 years to replace these unfit, derelict schools. Surely it is not permissible that we should accept that situation calmly. I am not criticising the Minister now; the responsibility is collective. Surely we cannot accept that this type of building should be allowed to dawdle along at this completely unrealistic figure, with the formidable prospect of young children having to try to work in overcrowded conditions in schools unfit for habitation. Is it fair on those children who must attend those national schools because they cannot afford to go to others?
Is it fair that we should accept this figure of 50 per year? In addition, it is true to say that the average life expectation of a school is 100 years. It has been emphasised by the Minister's most recent figures that at the moment we are hardly even keeping up with the replacement of redundant schools, not talking at all of the schools that are nearly derelict.
That clearly demands a radical reassessment of the school building programme. I hope the Minister agrees with me that it does, that is, if we are to think of these problems in terms of human feeling in relation to the children who are a very special responsibility in any society. It is quite clear that even if we were to provide 100 new schools per annum, more would still be needed in order to make up for redundancy and to provide something like a reasonable figure for extensions and replacements of derelict and unfit schools.
There is a special schools division in the Board of Works which is responsible for school buildings, and I understand there is a tremendous accumulation of work in that division. I do not blame civil servants for these arrears: that is our responsibility. We must accept that responsibility. According to figures which I have, there is something in the region of £2,000,000 worth of work in arrears. I wonder if that high figure is correct. If so, it seems to me to add further weight to the suggestion that the Department at the moment in control of the system of building schools is totally inadequate.
Would that be the responsibility of the Minister for Education? The Deputy is now referring to the Board of Works.
In so far as they build schools for the Department of Education, I think the Minister will find, on consideration, that he must speed up the present school building programme, and the suggestion I would make to him in order to do that is that he should set up a special section, rather on the lines of that set up in 1945 by the Department of Health to deal with the building of sanatoria. In that way, I think it would be possible to get a very substantial improvement in our school building programme.
In passing, may I join with Deputy Kitt in paying a tribute to those responsible for the standard of building of our new schools, for the quality of the building; and could I pay a particular compliment to those responsible for the very beautiful school in Carraroe in the West of Ireland? Some people might call it too grandiose; I do not think so. I think it is a beautiful school. It would be worth anybody's time to go there and have a look at it. It is a great credit to those responsible for its design and building. The same can be said of many of our newer schools. The only pity is that they cannot be provided at a very much faster rate.
Another point I should like to take up is the question of the size of classes in schools. I know this is a hardy annual and I also know that the overall average number of pupils per class is relatively low. However, in the city areas, the figure is abnormally high. I wonder if the Minister thought of the possibility of reducing the overall figure to that recommended by the Council of Education. They recommended 30 as the optimum figure. Admittedly, they went on to discuss the effect of such classes on the national economy. I do not think I am particularly interested in that reflection of theirs. My main interest would be in their advice as experts on education, and their recommendation is that the average class should number 30.
It is quite clear that in dealing with classes of 60 or 70 pupils, the unfortunate teacher, working often in bad surroundings, is in the position of finding that all he can do is keep some kind of order in the school, without any hope of educating children. In addition, of course, there is the fact that there is no hope at all for the child, particularly for the backward child referred to by Deputy Lindsay. The backward child—not the mentally defective child—can get very little help from the teacher because the teacher has not the time to give the personal attention that is required. I think it has the consequence that a considerable number of our children do not reach the sixth standard in the national schools and that very many of them leave school without having got the primary school examination.
It would be wrong to assume that a higher percentage of our children are in any way less gifted or talented than the children of any other society. I believe that, given proper conditions in the schools, they would be able to benefit from them. A reduction in the average number of pupils in a class would also mean very important changes in policy on the part of the Minister. Clearly, the Estimate not having been increased to any extent means that the teachers necessary for a reduction in classes cannot be provided. I understand that, in order to reduce the size of a class to an average of 30, an additional 4,000 new teachers would be needed.
The Minister should give very serious thought to this important majority recommendation of the Council of Education. I understand that all the educational authorities are agreed that 30 is the best size for a class, in order to give the teacher a chance to educate the child and to give the children a chance to assimilate the knowledge which the teacher is putting before them.
On the question of the training of teachers, it is quite clear that the training schools provided fall far short of the number needed. The number of trained teachers is 10,000 odd; the number of untrained teachers is 3,018. Does the Minister intend to do anything about the question of the untrained teacher? Is he satisfied that the children should be taught by untrained teachers? There is a simple answer. If he is so satisfied, then there is no point in having trained teachers. Presumably, he is not satisfied with the whole problem of untrained teachers. Does he intend to lay down some kind of rule that by a certain time all our teachers shall be trained?
Now, 3,000 in 10,000 is a very high proportion. Of those 3,000, I understand a very high percentage—something like 60 per cent.—have been teaching for something like 13 years or more—untrained for all that time. In fact, I know a number of untrained teachers who are very talented and gifted and who have learned a lot in their years of experience and who are probably good teachers. I am not criticising them in any way. At the same time, the principle is a bad one and we should expect that the children would be taught either by trained teachers or by untrained—and, naturally, trained teachers is the decision to arrive at.
Would the Minister accept the suggestion that the untrained teacher who has been teaching for 10 or 12 years, or whatever period the Minister likes to fix, would be accepted, as from a certain date, as a trained teacher? The Minister could then lay down a specific period—five or 10 years—during which time the rest of the untrained teachers must become trained. That would eliminate the problem without creating undue hardship for those who have been teaching over the years in our schools—and some of them doing it extremely well.
If the Minister were to do this, it would create problems in the training colleges, which are grossly under-numbered and grossly inadequate. If he were to try to deal with the untrained teacher problem and at the same time reduce the classes to the optimum number suggested by the Council of Education, he would need, I suggest, an additional 4,000 teachers. He would have to provide training colleges also for those people who are untrained, who would have to get their training in that 10-year period or other arbitrary period fixed by the Minister.
The total number of teachers turned out by our training colleges is in the region of 400 to 500 per annum, I understand. It is clear that to provide the 4,000 who are required and to deal with the problem of the untrained teacher who requires training now, at least three or four more training colleges would be needed. Like the school building programme, the training of new teachers hardly meets the present demand which is created by the redundancy or the annual wastage of teachers, which I understand is in the region of 400. I understand that the number turned out each year by the training colleges is about 500 and that approximately 400 leave the teaching profession because of wastage, due to retirals, and so on. Consequently, the 4,000 required to reduce the size of the classes to 30 would simply take a fabulous time at the present rate of output from our training colleges. It seems to me, therefore, that this Minister or the last Minister, or whoever is responsible, grossly underestimated the need for the provision of training colleges.
There is one consideration about which I should like the Minister to think, in order to try to improve the number of teachers. I have an open mind on this point and would like the Minister's views. It is the question of the ban on married women teachers. That ban always seems to me strange in one way and understandable in another. I would like to hear the Minister's views, as its removal would be a simple way of increasing rapidly —though I do not know to what extent —the number of teachers and the only way to reduce the size of the class without waiting for the training colleges.
It is clear that many of these ladies, when they get married, have had a fair period of teaching and consequently most of them are gifted, valuable and experienced teachers. It seems to me a shame in one way that they have to give up their work just when they have become so experienced as to be particularly valuable in the school. Then, of course, there is the fact that a married woman with a family is particularly valuable in the handling of children, as she would have experience from her own children, and would have an understanding of children and their behaviour.
I cannot see any reason why they should not be allowed to continue teaching. I cannot see any reason why the ban should not be lifted—except one reason I have in mind, that probably a woman's first responsibility is to her own family. That is the only argument which would weigh with me. I do not know if the Minister shares that point of view. That is the only point which would weigh with me, because, outside that, a lady does not change her teaching qualifications merely because she gets married—she is just as good a teacher afterwards as before. Would the Minister give us his view on that question of the ban in relation to married teachers and say whether he would consider using this suggestion as a reasonably rapid way of providing himself with more teachers as quickly as possible?
There is another consideration in the whole question of the teaching profession. It is a difficult one and has been referred to in passing by most Deputies. It is the question of salaries for the profession. You always have the people who dismiss teachers, the nursing profession and sometimes the medical profession as people with a vocation and somehow or other they believe that once a person has a vocation, he does not need to eat or to provide his children with a reasonable standard of living or with a reasonable education. The vast majority of teachers do as good a job as they possibly can in the circumstances. There are a number of dedicated people with an absolute vocation towards their profession but, as Deputy Lindsay says, there are a number of them teaching because it is a reasonably satisfying job; they get what they think are reasonably good conditions of vacation and a chance to mould children's minds, which appeals to some people.
At the same time there is no doubt that in present circumstances, considering the present value of money, they are not treated as generously as the community has a right to treat them. I understand that the salary for a married teacher at the end of his career is something in the region of £800 odd a year and the single teacher has something around £600 a year. I do not think that is an adequate salary for a man after 15 or 20 years' work in such a terribly special work as teaching is. The whole behaviour and pattern of living of future generations to a considerable extent lie with the teachers. A good teacher is a satisfied teacher and that is reflected in the children's behaviour and in the diligence and dedication with which the teachers do their job.
A comparison with other salaries and other jobs of persons doing similar work, in my view not so important work, such as insurance, even the Civil Service or bank officials, shows that the teacher is not as well paid as are these people. A bank official, I understand, who gets no promotion at all throughout his life gets something over £900 a year, and it is very much less exacting work, I should imagine, than the difficult job of teaching in some of our schools.
One other point in relation to salaries is the disparity between the secondary and primary school teachers. I wonder would the Minister accept it that a primary teacher who is as well qualified as a secondary teacher deserves to be paid at the same rate. Again it is a question of the attitude one has to education. I do not think there is any period in a person's life which is more important than another in the way it is handled by the teacher, whether it is university, secondary, primary or vocational school. If a child is badly handled between the ages of four and seven it may be marked for life psychologically. The handling of the child the whole way through its life is important. Its education is just as important, no matter what phase is taking place.
I would make a plea to give the national school teacher parity with the secondary school teacher or that where two teachers have not got identical qualifications, the disparity between the two should be reduced. There is a very good case from every point of view for increasing the salaries of national teachers. First of all, we should look at it from the teachers' point of view. We should try to make them more content, more satisfied with their work, and ensure that the person coming into the teaching profession comes into it saying: "This is a satisfying job and I am reasonably well paid for it." I do not think they should be penalised because they happen to have a vocation.
If the teachers are satisfied then you will get the response in the children. You will see the reaction in their care and attention to the children and the fact that they are paid well means that the highest possible standard of entrant will continue to come into the teaching profession. Therefore, I would ask the Minister if he would give that matter some thought.
I should like now to deal with the question of continuation education. I tried to find out from the Minister what the position was in regard to the number of children who get post-primary education. I am afraid the figures I got were not satisfactory. I wonder will the Minister correct me if the figures I have here are wrong. I understand that about 20 per cent. of children after the age of 14 go to secondary schools and about 11 per cent. go to vocational schools. If those figures are correct, they mean that about one-third of our children get some kind of education when they leave the primary schools, and also that at least two-thirds of our children get no education at all after they leave the primary schools. That seems to me to be a very high proportion and it is very close to the figure given here by the Minister, that about 30 per cent. of children are at school at the age of 17 or 18.
I wish the Minister would give very careful thought to this problem because this is the whole nub of the educational system of any society. If there is a system of education whereby a considerable percentage of people end their education at an early age such as 14, the consequences to that whole society must be very serious indeed. That is leaving out the consequences on the child. The child who leaves school at 14 goes out into the extremely competitive world to-day to try to make a living with nothing but, say, a primary certificate if he is lucky. Some of them do not have a primary certificate; some of them do not get to the sixth standard. It is not because they are less gifted than the children of other nations. They are just as gifted but a very high percentage of our children get very little education after the age of 14.
I think that is one of the saddest things in the whole gamut of life here. Our educational system is content to rest on that as an achievement—an achievement to turn out so many children illiterate. Certainly they are turned out with very little skill and with no craft or ability to win a place for themselves in competition with children who have the luck to be born into wealthy families, or in competition with the children in Great Britain to-day, who have the benefit of secondary education, technical education and university. All these forms of education are now available to the children of other countries in the welfare State.
I do not agree with the Minister's suggestion that people should not bend their knee to a State system. I would gladly bend the knee to such a system if it meant that, under it, our children would be better educated. I do not, of course, quite know what a State system means, but if it means that children will be more fully educated and better equipped to earn a living in competition with those children who have had a better opportunity in life and the good fortune to be born into wealthy families, then I will accept that system. As a Minister of State, I do not see why the Minister should be ashamed of providing a State system. We have such a system in primary education. Why not apply it to secondary education, too? It would be a tremendous step forward if we extended the opportunity for children to receive a higher education, both vocational and secondary.
I understand that the number of scholarships at the moment is in the region of 500. That means that less than 4 per cent. of all children attending secondary schools are holders of scholarships. That is a pathetic situation. It really means that the child of the average man and woman cannot get a good education. If we believe in education, as we do for ourselves and for our own children, then we should not settle for less for the children of those who are dependent on us collectively as a State, or as a Government deciding on a future way of life in a society to which it is responsible.
The child at 14 years of age should have three choices. If he is not very bright, he should have an opportunity of remaining on in the primary school until 15; in other words, the school-leaving age in the primary schools should be raised to 15. Secondly, he should be given an opportunity of passing on to a vocational school. Thirdly, he should be given an opportunity of going to a secondary school. I think that is the least we can do to eliminate privilege from education. At the moment, it is a grossly privileged service. There has been very little change over the years. We still adhere to the tradition the British laid down. Let it be said to their credit that they have now changed that tradition for their own people. That tradition was that the educational system would be dedicated to the creation of a vast number of labourers to make life easy for the wealthy minority. Here, we have not radically changed that system, certainly not for the high percentage of children sent out from our schools to compete against those who happen to have a better education because their parents can pay for it.
The pathetic aspect of this matter is that our people are going across to England to become, in the majority of cases, labourers—coolies. That is what most of them are. That is the work most of them do—digging the ditches, excavating the tunnels and making the roads, work that the British worker will not do, or allow his children to do. But our people do it; we ship them out in their thousands to do it. We ship them out to compete against the unfortunate West Indians for the coolie labour available and for the "skivvy" domestic service. That is all our boys and girls are trained to do. That is not much of an achievement in 37 years.
The Minister has it in his hands now to change that position. I beg of him to think seriously of this matter. It is one of the greatest importance. He has the tremendous privilege of being Minister for Education and he has in his hands the unique opportunity of advancing the cause of these children and giving them a better chance in life. In support of that plea, I should like to quote, with the greatest respect, the Bishop of Galway, Most Reverend Doctor Browne, who spoke on this subject recently—slightly to my surprise. He spoke on 25th April and he said, quite rightly, that
"the State had not undertaken the responsibility of giving scholarships to all boys and girls to enable them to attend schools and buy textbooks. The contrast with the North in this matter was very pointed and is not such as to attract the people there to join with us."
He referred then to the
"lack of support that secondary education received from the State and practically none from the local authorities."
He said also that the two serious problems confronting secondary education in the Republic were
"a proper extension of facilities for secondary education and the maintenance of proper standards. The principle of providing facilities for secondary education within the reach of every boy and girl willing to avail of them had been accepted in the North and in England but not in the Republic."
I think he regretted that fact; I hope he regretted it, anyway.
There is no doubt that the percentage of scholarships available to the average working man, with four, five or more children is altogether inadequate. Indeed, these scholarships are miserably endowed, relatively speaking, and it is a tremendous hardship on the average working man, with four or five children, to allow a gifted or talented child to take such a scholarship. It calls for a tremendous sacrifice. To the credit of many working-class parents, they make the sacrifice and do everything they can to give their children a higher education. Not only is such a parent deprived of the few shillings a week that such a child could earn as a messenger boy or a domestic servant, but he has to feed and clothe the child.
These are additional burdens on a man with four, five or six children. I think he has too many burdens. The man who has to earn his living with his own brawn and muscle cannot be blamed if he has not got the wealth to provide his children with the education he was denied because of an inequitable system. That inequitable system has remained largely unchanged up to the present day. The children of to-day will grow up and, in their turn, they will find it impossible to give their children a higher education if the present system continues. It is a desecration of a God-given talent to deny a child the opportunity of a higher education; it is a desecration not to develop talent to the full; it is a desecration not to put the whole resources of the State behind every child endowed by God with an intellect capable of development. Because of the lack of wealth on the part of its parents, however, the child cannot avail of higher education.
I feel the Minister would have a lot of sympathy with such a proposal. I would ask him to give serious consideration towards ensuring that one or other of these propositions is made available to the child after the primary school certificate has been passed, that is, to stay on at school until 15 years—extend the school leaving age —then go to a vocational school and, finally, go on to a secondary school.
I would suggest that the parents should be encouraged to send the child to one of the latter courses—the vocational school or the secondary school, as being the most valuable. That may be looked at from the point of view of the child and from the point of view of the parent who has a gifted or talented child and who cannot give such child the education he would like because of lack of wealth. It must be looked at from the point of view of our national economy. We are carrying too much weight because people are not advanced to the highest possible technological skill in modern society.
Were we to do that, as I think we ought, the natural corollary must be to extend the same opportunities to children in university education. I asked a question about the scholarships available to children in universities and was told they were something under 400 in number. About 7 per cent. of the students at universities hold scholarships. Yet we talk about equal opportunities and about cherishing equally all the children of the nation. Is all that not made so much humbug by this position, not only in relation to the secondary schools but in relation to universities? It is said that it is more difficult for a rich man to enter Heaven than for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle. It is impossible for the child of a working class family to go into a university with the exception of a tiny handful of children who go in by means of these few scholarships. There are four or five thousand people in the universities and under 400 of them go in by way of scholarships.
I believe that is quite wrong in a democratic Republic with the objects which our people had 30 or 40 years ago. Any child who has talent should, I think, be allowed to develop that talent to the full; it should not be penalised merely because its parents have not got wealth, which is what we do at the moment. The Minister should give consideration not only to the secondary and the vocational school problems but to the problem of extending university scholarships. He should see to it that the scholarships are adequate to provide proper living conditions for these children. It is no good giving an inadequate scholarship to secure which for his child a man would give his eye but because the child could not survive on it he has to pass it up and give it to somebody else who has a little more wealth. They should be facilitated in regard to getting an education at the university rather than be completely denied as they are now.
At the same time, I think we should guard against encouraging children to go into what I consider the relatively futile professions—I am not denigrating them in any way—as far as our society is concerned, professions like medicine, architecture and others of which only a very few are needed in any community. If the Minister were to encourage local authorities to extend university scholarships, he should do so with an eye to slanting the grant in favour of the student who decided to take up some form of agricultural training, dairy science, agriculture, veterinary medicine or any other allied science which would be of help to us as a society as well as to the person who is going forward in that profession.
It is quite clear that we are educating far too many professional people of the doctor, lawyer and architect type when we cannot possible absorb them into our economy. We are subsidising the universities to educate these people to go abroad. I do not begrudge it to them but at the same time we have a very great need for highly skilled personnel on the agricultural side of our economy. The extension of these scholarships is badly needed. The Minister should bear that point in mind.
The other point that, I think, he would have to bear in mind, in relation to the extension of the secondary scholarship scheme, would be to provide some grants for school building in the secondary sphere. I understand that at the moment the religious Orders and others who provide secondary schools have to do so entirely out of their own resources. I do not know if I am right there but I think that is so. It seems to me that that is a very serious burden to place upon them. I doubt if it could be continued were there to be an extension of the secondary schools education through the extension of scholarship facilities to children who would avail of them. I would suggest that any grants made would be conditional upon the slanting of education away from the present trend in all secondary schools.
The Department's lists of subjects is, I understand, irreproachable but because of the fact that too many of our secondary schools tend to have their minds upon the child going to a university eventually, the educational system in the secondary schools is determined to a considerable extent by the syllabus for the matriculation examination. In that syllabus it is necessary for a child to pass in one or other modern language and in Greek or Latin. Because of that, the secondary schools, in order to try and get its pupils into the university—it is quite understandable—attempt to concentrate upon the classics, the dead languages like Latin and Greek, to the exclusion to a considerable extent of science. It is absurd, I suggest, at this time that the level of science teaching in the secondary schools should be so low. I think the record of passes in the leaving and intermediate certificate examinations in science in the secondary schools is lower than that of any other major subject. The number of persons getting honours in science is very much lower indeed.
I am not in any way criticising the authorities of the secondary schools for that at all. It is a system that appears to have drifted on and the main affecting factors appear to be the position in the university in relation to matriculation.
I wonder if it would be possible for the Department to remedy that position by suggesting, in relation to certain subjects, that if a person is going to a university for subjects other than classics—not subjects, possibly, such as medicine, that needs Latin, but subjects such as engineering or agricultural science, for example—it would not be necessary for the person to pass matriculation and get Latin in it but that he could take some other subject such, particularly, as science in the secondary school. In order to facilitate secondary school authorities to provide for extended classes in science, it should be possible to help with grants towards the provision of the very expensive equipment needed in order to teach it.
I think these are considerations which would enter into any thought the Minister would give to the extension of secondary school opportunities and university opportunities to children through the means of scholarships. An agricultural bias is very badly needed, indeed. The technological slant or bias and the agricultural slant or bias in our educational system are completely missed, as far as I can see. I asked a question on that matter the other day.
An infinitesimal number of schools teach rural science or nature study. I do not think it is either wise or healthy that in the secondary schools very little attention is given to trying to make a child—we are in a largely rural society—have some understanding of the whole tremendous importance of agriculture in our economy. I know it is a very unpopular thing to suggest to the teaching profession to add anything to the curriculum, but, for the reasons I have given, the Minister should seriously consider the desirability of adding rural science or nature study to the subjects taught. It is a very important consideration.
We have drifted much too far away from our roots on the land and our understanding of the importance of the land and the importance of agriculture in our whole society. Therefore, I feel that in the primary schools and in the secondary schools, the Minister could do very much more than has been done in the past to see that the education provided for our children is more in keeping with the type of life we must lead as a large rural society with relatively small urban communities.
There is one other side of the educational system which appears to be neglected and to which I should like to refer briefly, namely, the agricultural schools and colleges. The total number of agricultural students in these colleges in 1953-54 was, I understand, 260—under 300. Clearly, that is a completely inadequate figure. The whole way from the primary schools, through the secondary schools and on to the universities, agriculture as a subject, as the most important aspect of our life in our society, appears to me to have been practically neglected. I would ask the Minister to bear that in mind in order to try to remedy that defect which I think can easily be remedied as a result of changes in the curriculum for the primary schools and the secondary schools and in attempting to popularise it. The extension of agricultural education—rural science and nature study in the primary schools and agricultural science and dairy science in the secondary schools—would help to condition the minds of the children to go to the agricultural colleges and take higher study in agriculture when leaving school. At the moment, when a child leaves the primary school it has but little education and, on leaving the secondary school, its whole educational slant has been towards the classics or modern languages, but away from what is most needed, I think, in Ireland to-day.
The vocational committees on the whole have done a very creditable job through the years in the various areas in organising vocational education. If it were possible to extend vocational education in the way I have suggested, it is clear that the vocational committees would have to be asked to draw up schemes for their areas to be put into operation over an extended period of from five to ten years, so that it could be done without unnecessary disruption of existing services. It would be desirable to consult the vocational committees and ask them to draw up schemes suitable for their own areas.
As I have suggested, I would give three different choices—staying on in the national school or going on to a vocational school or secondary school. It is clear that you could not do that or extend compulsorily the education of children to 15 years if they had passed the primary certificate at 13 years unless you were prepared to facilitate the child, if it went on to the vocational school, by allowing it to have completely free education there. I know that the cost of these courses is very small, but, at the same time, it is a consideration in itself.
In addition, there is the sacrifice the parent must make, if he or she is to permit the child to deny itself the chance of making a few shillings or some money in some sort of unskilled job. There is also the point that the parent has to feed and clothe the child and deny himself the income that the child could make if it did not go to the vocational school. Therefore, the least that could be done is to provide completely free vocational education to children who choose to go to vocational schools.
I want to talk now about the use of a radio schools service. I see nothing in the Estimate in that connection and I wonder if the Minister has given any thought to it. One of the dullest things in the world at school is, I think, history, and yet, I suppose, one of the most exciting subjects in the world must be history. My recollection of it is one of unrelieved gloom for weeks and weeks on end, trying to assimilate the information which the teacher was doing his best to impart. I feel that, more than anything else, radio offers tremendous opportunities for the dramatisation of historical events, and this has now become a platitude of truth because of its use in very many countries. Why have we not developed the use of radio in the schools, using the magnificent actors and dramatists we have to dramatise, as Deputy Kitt said, the events leading up to 1916, and even earlier? It could be done in a very much more effective way than by the appalling business of opening a dull class book, starting at page 1 and reading through to page 5,000—at least it felt like that when I did it.
I have listened to schools broadcasts in Great Britain, not only on history but on other subjects. There is no doubt that radio means a tremendous advance in the education of children. An even greater advance still has been brought about by the use of television but I suppose it would be too much to hope that the Minister would consider that at the moment. Would he, however, give some thought to the question of providing for the use of radio for the education of children in the different subjects which can be put over incomparably well on the radio, much better than any harassed and overworked teacher can do it? This is so particularly in the case of history, which I had in mind, and also in the case of literature, poetry, science and various other subjects in which you can get a person who is a complete expert at putting across a point of view to put it much more convincingly than the average, overworked teacher who has tried to master so many subjects—he has mastered some of them but he cannot be master of them all.
I think that is a very remarkable gap in our whole educational system. I would ask the Minister to try to devise with Radio Éireann programmes for dissemination to the schools and provide wireless sets for those schools which would care to use them. In addition there is great need and great demand for the use of travelling film units for schools. Again, the use of films in schools is old in many countries; the film as an educational medium is an incomparable one but we hardly use it at all. I would suggest that the Minister consider the question of trying to provide film units which would go round to our schools with films, in Irish I suppose, preferably made here at home, dealing with different subjects, scientific and geographical, and subjects of interest of all kinds, which are available in the National Film Institute. There is a tremendous library of films available there and I am surprised that there is no mention of an attempt to extend the magnificent educational media of the film and the radio in the departmental Estimate.
The Minister referred to the language in his speech but so far as I can see, he loved it and left it. He said something about: "We have for example thrown most of the weight of the restoration of the Irish language on the teachers...." He did not go on to do anything to remove the weight of the restoration of Irish from the teachers, so far as I know. I do not think he made any useful suggestions as to how the Irish language could be revived. Possibly that is due to the fact that he has only had a very short time in office and has not had time to give it as much thought as he would like to give it, and will have given it by this time next year.
I should like to say a few words about the revival of the language. As Deputy Lindsay said, or implied, the language revival movement—I would prefer to take responsibility for the statement myself—has been a complete failure. I say it has been a complete failure; I think I can honestly say that, in so far as I am only concerned with and interested in it, as Davis, Pearse and these other people were, as a spoken language. Irish is not the spoken language nor is there any chance of its being the spoken language, I think, under existing circumstances for the foreseeable future, if you like to use that lovely phrase.
I believe it is true to say that the national language is not spoken among the ordinary people in their everyday work. I think that statement cannot be controverted. I would go further and say that among a very high percentage of our people the language is not loved. That is very strange because it is a very beautiful language, probably one of the loveliest languages in the world and the most beautiful one I have heard. It is rather unnatural that a nation does not love its own language. I say that not because I think we are in any way abnormal or unnatural. We should try to find out why we do not love the language and, through the Minister, try to remedy that situation, try to create a desire to speak the language among the children. It is clear the revival can only be successful when the children speak the language after leaving the schools. I do not want to appear to be deriding the efforts of people who have tried to revive the language; I think practically every one of them has done everything in his power, genuinely intending to revive the language, and the reasons it has not been revived are very difficult indeed for anybody to ascertain. I suppose each one of us has as much right to put forward his point of view as the other.
To a certain extent, I believe it has to do with earlier days and the antinational attitude of many people towards the language. That is largely gone, although there may be a vestige of it remaining in people who would be hostile to anything like the language. I think there is a certain element of that hostility present still but it is very much weaker now than it used to be. In fact, I wonder if it were a bit stronger and if there was some open hostility would the language not be stronger too?
There are a number of reasons for the failure of the revival but I think some of them are concerned with the curriculum in primary and secondary schools. Among the obvious reasons is, of course, the fact that a language is a terribly difficult thing to teach to children when the children do not learn to speak it at home. A child learns Irish for a few hours a day and then goes home and hears nothing but English, and this makes it terribly difficult to get the language across to the child.
Again, a number of teachers, through no fault of their own, have not complete control and understanding of the language in many cases and it is an effort to them to teach. At least it is not as easy for many teachers on this side of the country as it would be in Clare or Galway and, consequently, the difficulty they may have is reflected in their attempts to teach the children. Another point is that so many of our children must emigrate—I believe the figure is one in three—and the practical parent feels that if a child is going to emigrate—750,000 have emigrated— what on earth is the use of learning the language?
I know that is a practical approach to the matter and does not leave room for emotion or sentiment but the average parent is primarily conscientious about the child's ability to earn a living. He consequently feels that the language interferes with the amount of time spent on other subjects and that the time spent on the language is time spent learning a subject which might be of no use to the child afterwards. That, I believe, is misinformed to a considerable extent, but it happens to be true in respect of so many children. It is understandable that parents should feel that the child is learning a language which will be no use to him later on because he must emigrate. We have been told that many children must emigrate and that it is a good thing that they should emigrate; consequently, an intelligent parent will say: Why should the child learn Irish which will be of no value to it afterwards?
There is the other consideration— Deputy Kitt referred to it slightly and there is confusion about it—that is, the question of compulsion in relation to the language. I agree with Deputy Kitt that effectively there is no compulsion in relation to the language, but there has grown up a feeling that there is compulsion, in this way, that a certain number of posts, Civil Service posts, local appointments, and so on, are subject to the language test. Over the years, many thousands of people have gone forward for these posts and were not successful. They were not successful, for the perfectly good reason that they were not the most suitable persons for the job, but a feeling, or spirit, or idea, or whispering campaign has grown up that the reason they did not get the job was that they did not know Irish. It is a lovely, simple explanation for their own inadequacy in many cases. That idea has gone around and has become very much stronger. It may be true in a minority of cases but, broadly speaking, I do not think it is true. That does not weaken the point that, many children having to emigrate, the intelligent parent may say: "I do not think he should know the language."
I very much regret that fact as a person who has a deep regard for the language, but it is a fact and it has to be faced. Of course, it goes outside the scope of the Minister's Department because the only solution to that aspect of the problem is the ending of emigration and I shall not put that responsibility on the Minister; but, while that is there, it is an important factor in colouring the views of people on the language.
In relation to the primary curriculum and its effect on the language, teacher Deputies here will bear with me if I give my views as a layman on the question of the curriculum in educational matters. I fully appreciate the limitations that a layman must have in discussing these matters, but, for what it is worth, I believe that the curriculum of the primary schools is very satisfactory in relation to the language question right up to the last hurdle, that is, the primary certificate. Up to that, I understand, most of the teaching of the language is oral teaching. Most of the work done is oral work of one kind or another. There are reading and writing, but the emphasis is placed on facility to speak the language. I understand that that is so.
When the teacher and the child are faced with the primary certificate, they are faced with a written examination in Irish and it is quite clear, therefore, that if the teacher is to try to get his pupils through the primary certificate, he has to concentrate on the written side of the language, to the detriment of the oral teaching of the language. That is probably true. The Minister will correct me if it is not true, but I think it is. There comes then this awful obsession with this primary certificate, and with Irish in the primary certificate in particular and the child has the frustration of sometimes a very large class, the difficulties of the teacher, the fact that only English is spoken in the home—it is all right in the Gaeltacht areas—and Irish then becomes a terribly difficult subject to try to write.
There is no doubt that the only way to learn a language is by the ear. That is an outrageous statement for a complete amateur to make, but that is my own belief, that the easiest way to learn a language is to go to the country where it is spoken and to listen to it. However, I think it is broadly true that oral explanation of a language or education through oral methods in a language is the quickest way of picking up a language. One might not be able to write or even to read it very well, but one could speak it reasonably well and that is the thing we should aim at, to speak the language and, in addition, to love the language because we will not speak it unless we do love the language.
We should not lose sight of that fact, and, because of that fact, I would suggest that we lose sight of the necessity or forget the present necessity to have a written test in the primary certificate and eliminate that written test altogether. I know there are people objecting to it and it is said that they object to the whole idea because they are against the language. That is not true. It is because I am on the side of the language and want to see the language grow stronger that I suggest that we must accept that the present system is wrong and needs some radical change. I suggest that the subject should be dropped from the primary certificate, that we should have an oral test in the language and that the oral test should not be associated with the primary certificate at all. I know that that is a suggestion which may appear to be rather radical and unacceptable, but again I come back to the point that the people must love the language.
I have heard people speaking Welsh in Wales and they speak it, just like they sing, because they love the language and are pleased to speak it. That is not like us. The antipathy towards Irish stems from the method of trying to teach the language in the primary schools. Why I would urge the removal of the language from the examination altogether is that if the child, first of all; goes to the stress of any examination—which we all know is a great strain on any individual— and goes through the examination and finds that he fails in Irish, in the written Irish in particular, then the child visits his resentment, just like the adult visits his resentment when he loses a post, on the language and blames the language because of his inadequacy in some other way.
Because of that, I would suggest that the language should be taken away from examinations. The whole emphasis should be on the relaxation that the language lesson is during the day. The idea for the half-hour or hour or whatever the class may be that is devoted to Irish should be: "We will relax now and we will talk the language," instead of: "We will get down and flog this into them and they will learn the genders and the past participles" and all these things which, no doubt, have to be learned by people doing a serious study, but for the child whom you just want to get to speak the language, it seems to me that they are not necessary. It would be much wiser to remove the stress that is associated with this competitive element of examinations and try to create the attitude: "We are teaching you the language; it is a wonderful heritage and in the Irish class all the stress disappears. We learn it because it is a very lovely language and a great treasure which you must be very proud to own and to hold and to promote." I would remove the language from the examination altogether and have simply an oral test.
Another reason for removing it is that if you have an oral test and you have an examiner going around the schools, if the child is a shy child, the stranger coming into the school and trying to talk to him in any language at all is likely to frighten the child, and consequently a child who is shy but possibly very good at the language might fail at the language, although he spoke the language very well indeed. I would suggest that the Minister should bear that point in mind and abolish the written paper altogether, except, of course, in the Gaeltacht areas where it is no trouble to them at all. The primary school has that defect and it is still in the secondary schools. It is possibly even worse in secondary schools from what I can gather.
In the secondary schools, there is little or no emphasis on spoken Irish at all. I understand that in the intermediate or leaving certificate, a person could get high honours in Irish and not speak a word of the language. It seems an extraordinary state of affairs to me and it seems to go back to the curious emphasis we place because we insist on teaching the language as if it was mediaeval history. We are doing more damage to the language movement by this wrong approach to the teaching of the language than was ever done in the years before we took over the educational services ourselves. It is depressing, but I do not wish to be taken as being in any way superior or criticising people who have made a mess of things. I think everybody has been genuinely anxious to revive the language and I am not suggesting I have a monopoly of suggestions on how to revive it. I am merely suggesting that these are considerations which might be important ones in helping the Minister to make up any policy which he might devise for the restoration of the language during his years of office.
The odd thing is that apparently in the Six Counties one must, in order to get the senior certificate, pass an oral test which is compulsory for all modern languages and for Irish. That is an interesting speculation. I think the subject of the revival of the language is a terribly complex one, and, as the Minister said, it has some of its roots in education and emigration, in so far as so many people do have that shadow over them. Consequently, the movement towards the revival of the language really encompasses every Department of State. The only work in which the Minister has responsibility is in relation to the curriculum in the primary and secondary schools.
I wonder would he consider restoring the old idea of the Fainne for children who can speak fluent Irish? I remember in my own school days it seemed a tremendous incentive to us to try to secure the silver Fainne and the gold Fainne. Then, it was more of a competition and more a pleasure to try to wear these badges and to show that one could speak the language. There was none of the resentment which seems to be current to-day amongst so many children towards the language. It is difficult to generalise about all these things, but, broadly speaking, it is true that there is a current of resentment. It may be transmitted from the child to the parent, or perhaps from the parent to the child, or it may be transmitted from the teacher to the child where classes are too large. To try to remedy that situation is another of the wonderful opportunities which lie with the Minister.
There is only one other question which I should like to deal with very briefly, that is the question of punishment in the schools. It is a matter to which the Minister will possibly have to give some thought. I am probably in a considerable minority in my attitude to this question for I hold the view very strongly that corporal punishment is an utterly mediaeval and barbarous practice. I say that both as a parent and as a doctor, and not as a specialist in those subjects, but as a person who has gone through school. I suggest that it is a very wrong thing for an adult to beat a child which is, in effect, what we do in our schools. I am not talking about the brutal beating that takes place occasionally, but about the normal chastisement which is allowed by the Department of Education.
I think it is wrong for a number of reasons. I think it is always wrong for an adult to beat a child, for a grown-up to beat somebody smaller than himself. The odd thing is that among adults we accept the principle that a bigger person should not hit a smaller person, but at the same time we have adults hitting children. I do not know why it is done and my feeling always has been that if one has a rational intelligent child and puts an argument forward to that child that this is the correct pattern of behaviour, if it is correct behaviour, the rational child will accept that.
If the child refuses to accept what is a rational argument from the teacher, then there can be only one of two explanations: first of all, that the teacher has not put his point of view clearly and has not been able to convey the idea behind his argument to the child and the child misunderstands the case that the individual is making. The alternative is that the child is not a rational individual and is in some way intellectually substandard, and has some emotional disturbance in the background which makes it particularly recalcitrant; but the emotional circumstances in the background and the inability of the teacher to make his argument clearly understood are not justifications for beating the child.
If one has not been able to persuade the child of the wisdom of one's argument, how can one hope to explain one's point of view merely by hitting the child across the hand with a stick or beating the child? Is it not clear that it is complete futility and completely wrong and an abuse of our position as adults vis-à-vis the child ? The inarticulate child cannot defend himself and is unable to put its own point of view to the adult. For that the adult beats the child.
I may say that my antipathy to beating children extends to parents as well. I would not like to seek to deny the right of teachers to beat children, without equally saying I do not think any adult, parent or teacher, should beat a child. Possibly in time I may be able to persuade more people to my point of view. Many other countries have accepted that point of view. In most books now, educational authorities sum the whole thing up by calling it a barbarous practice. The difficulty indeed, when reading into the question of corporal punishment, is to find an average modern book on child education which recommends the beating of a child as an aid to education. To me, it is so clearly absurd that I cannot understand why it is still retained. I know that most of us were beaten at one time or another. I do not think that justified the retention of the evil from one generation to the next. I have been told "I was beaten and look at me" by people who believe in the thing. I do look at them and I wonder are they the same people they think they are. Is this anxiety on their part to beat a child not one of the consequences of vindictive retention of hostility to an adult which they are now trying to pass on to the child ?
It seems to me it is very difficult to make a case for the beating of a child. If the child is not a rational being, then it is a medical case. It is a case for the doctor or the psychiatrist, as was mentioned here by Deputy Lindsay. Magnificent work is being done by the psychiatrists in the upgrading of children, in upgrading the substandard child to fourth-grade, the fourth-grade child to third-grade, the third-grade child to second-grade and the second-grade child to a higher degree. Equally, the child who has some emotional disturbance in its background is again a case for the psychiatrist, the doctor and medical attention.
The beating of a child may be explained, but cannot be excused, as being the only way in which order can be kept in big classes. That is an understandable argument from teachers trying to prevent bedlam breaking out in 60 to 70-pupil classes. However, it cannot justify our beating the child for something the child is not responsible for, that is, providing teachers with classes they can control. Many investigations have shown that, in the majority of cases, the recalcitrant child in school comes from a home where there are difficult domestic circumstances of one kind or another. These are circumstances over which the child has no control. Inarticulate teachers, its own inadequacy, domestic circumstances in the home, overcrowded classes, difficult, insanitary surroundings—these are all conditions over which the child has no control whatever. Consequently, it would seem to me that the whole question of punishment for children in the schools should be—and I hope will be— radically reconsidered by the Minister.
For the life of me, I cannot see how, if a person has failed to put across his point of view by rational argument, he is justified in taking a blunt instrument to get that idea into the child's head. That is what it more or less amounts to. Imagine ourselves as politicians if we were to adopt that attitude. Suppose if a person did not or would not see our point of view or refused to acknowledge our point of view, how would we feel if we were to walk across the House and start beating one another over the ear or over the head, taking violent action against our opponents because they could not, would not or did not accept our point of view?
I would ask the Minister to give this whole question serious consideration. I know it is a complicated subject. I may see it too simply. To me, it is so simple that I find it difficult to understand any rational background for continuing that practice. As I say, it comes to the point with me that, if you are going to hit anybody, then choose somebody your own size; do not choose a child.
In sum, I hope most of the points I have referred to will be of help to the Minister in the terribly difficult problem ahead of him. I think he should get a lot of sympathy from a number of his colleagues in the Government because they have at different times expressed themselves in sympathy with the idea of improving the educational system generally and expressed themselves in sympathy with the idea that we should not have a preferential educational system, a system in which preference is absolutely rampant, in which the child of poor parents is penalised because of the lack of wealth of its parents. One of the Minister's colleagues described our educational system as one of the worst in Europe. I have not sufficient experience of educational systems in Europe, but I would be prepared to take his word for it, because he is a person who has a fair knowledge of these things.
I would suggest then to the Minister that what he should aim at would be an educational system that, first of all, gives a child, no matter whose child, the same chance as he would expect for a child of wealthy parents —the open sesame of the cheque book to our secondary schools and our universities. The aim of the men in the 1919 Dáil was to provide a democratic programme, cherishing equally all children in the nation. The Minister now has a magnificent opportunity of redeeming that great pledge made on behalf of the men who sacrificed so much 30 or 40 years ago in order to establish a militant democratic Republic, of putting an end to a system established by the British régime and which we have retained practically unchanged in its fundamentals.
I followed with great interest the speech of Deputy Browne. He went into the various phases of education very minutely. I am sure that if all the points he put forward in such great detail concerning primary, secondary, vocational and university education could be carried into effect, we could say we had the ideal system of education in Europe.
I have only one or two observations to make. They arise more or less from what Deputy Browne has said. If we had an ideal programme in the school and if we had well qualified teachers— this applies equally to primary, secondary, vocational and even university education—I can assure you we could leave the rest to the teachers, provided that these are well equipped, good schools with all the amenities necessary in modern society.
Many views have been put forward here by Deputies from year to year and quite recently by the various organisations—the national teachers, the secondary teachers and the vocational teachers. I feel sure the Minister and his officials must realise fully what would be good for the welfare of education. They have been told all the difficulties and have been given suggestions on possible improvements. The blame for any of the difficulties in the present educational system cannot be laid at the door of the Minister. He has not been sufficiently long in office; but as his term of office goes on, we will be in a position to criticise him for what he did not do and to praise him for what we hope he will do.
One of the greatest difficulties in the present system is the lack of co-ordination between primary, secondary and vocational education. I will not deal with university education because those who can afford to send their children to a university will be all right. I am speaking now of our educational system in so far as it affects children who at the present time cannot get secondary education, or even vocational education. I think it is necessary in this modern age that our children should not only be well educated mentally but also that they should be taught how to use their hands.
I may put forward two suggestions through which our children could get good primary education, secondary education to a certain extent, and then vocational training. You must either bring the children to the schools or the schools to the children. We know very well that, in remote rural areas, where the schools are long distances from the homes of the children, it is utterly impossible for most children to get any secondary or vocational education, unless such instruction is made available close to the rural national schools. If possible, we should have attached to the rural national schools a separate department where children could continue their education after the age of 14 years— something on the lines of what I might call higher primary education.
Of course, such a system would require specially qualified teachers who would be able to instruct the children up to the intermediate certificate stage. Then, having reached the age of 16 years, the children could be given vocational education. At present most children leave school at the age of 14 years. Some of them leave before that because there is no compulsion in respect of children who have to travel long distances. Perhaps my suggested system would be the ideal thing. The only alternative would be a certain degree of centralisation, which would mean the provision of one big primary school, secondary school and vocational school in the same place. The children could be brought to this centre by some system of subsidised transport. C.I.E. buses might be made available and the fares subsidised by the State.
It is only in one of these two ways that we will succeed in getting our children properly educated. It is in one of these two ways that we will have any hope of reviving the Irish language. Up to the age of 14 years, a child learns against his will. Perhaps that is why corporal punishment has to be resorted to. I do not at all agree with what Deputy Browne has said in connection with corporal punishment. I think corporal punishment is essential to a certain degree. Reasonable corporal punishment is necessary in the home; it also occasionally becomes necessary in the school. I agree that corporal punishment should not be used after a child leaves the primary school.
My suggested system would also make provision for what I would call the retarded child. Every teacher has experience of such children. It is very difficult to make proper provision for them under present circumstances, because, under our present system of inspection, a teacher, being human, will always give the greatest attention to the intelligent child and has no time to devote to the individual attention needed by the backward child. Various views have been put forward as to how backward children should be dealt with in our schools. Special teachers might be provided for them, if that is possible, in special classes. Under the present system, they are kept back in classes, but I do not think such treatment has the desired effect, as it may give such children inferiority complexes.
Backward children have been known, when given proper vocational training, to have become very skilled in such arts as carpentry. These children would have excellent opportunities if we could provide a system of higher primary education and subsequent vocational training. I should like to give an example of how successful a backward child can become if given the proper opportunities. In my school, there was a very dull boy. He was a very fine fellow otherwise, and as a dull child always comes to school unwillingly, so did this fellow. I often told him that unless he came to school more regularly and endeavoured to learn, he would be forever a hewer of wood and a drawer of water. That boy went to England at the age of 18 or 19 years. He remembered what I told him. He went to a technical school in London and became an architect. I can tell the House he was one of the head men in the erection of the beautiful building in Kildare Street, the Department of Industry and Commerce. To-day he is one of the leading contractors in Dublin. That is an example of what can be done by vocational education.
All that will require money. The ideals of Deputy Browne would require millions of money. That is the whole trouble in a country like this where we have not got the money. Everything should be done to give the children that type of education. Then, whether they stay in this country or go to another, they can regard themselves as skilled workers.
As one who was a teacher and who is a member of a vocational education committee, I regret very much, and we all did I am sure, the cuts in the grants for vocational education. Perhaps it could not be avoided and I was glad to see in the Minister's opening statement that, while there can be no hope this year of renewing these grants, they may come back next year. Committees, of course, had their schemes laid down for the work and they had to review the schemes for the vocational schools.
As regards school buildings, heating and cleaning, I am sure that vast improvements have been made in the erection of new schools and the renovation and improvement of existing schools. The Department of Education and the Board of Works have done their best to carry out all those very necessary improvements, having regard to the financial resources which were placed at their disposal. The system of heating and cleaning is not satisfactory. There are various views put forward by the teachers about it, but there is one thing certain, that teachers do not want to make any change in the present managerial system and the managers are really responsible for the heating and cleaning.
Anyone will understand that, after all, the manager has no funds to carry out these requirements. There is a grant given to managers for heating and cleaning in accordance with the average of the school, but of course that is a wrong system because there may be a pretty large school with a small average, where you have to keep two fires and you require just as much for that as you would for a still larger school. The only solution is to increase the grants to the managers. If the grants are increased, I am sure managers will do their duty with regard to heating and cleaning.
In various places, the parents help wherever they can and, by the way, it was my experience that even the poorer parents were just as helpful and anxious as the wealthy parents to see the school properly heated. The poorer parents are always very anxious about the education of their children. They are willing to scrape everything to try to get them as good an education as possible. One need not bother about the children of wealthy parents as they will be well looked after.
Like some other Deputies, I should like to finish up by saying a word for the pre-1950 pensioned teachers. I need not dwell at any length on the case which can be made in their favour, because past Ministers, Deputies and Senators have given their views and they have been put forward here. When Deputy Mulcahy was Minister for Education from 1948 to 1951, he increased the pensions for all pensioned teachers up to that stage. That was one good thing in favour of Deputy Mulcahy. When the former Deputy Moylan was Minister for Education from 1952 to 1954, he came to the rescue of those pre-1950 teachers to a certain extent. At that time, I think it would cost about £1,000,000 to give the gratuity which had been given to all teachers who retired after the 1st January, 1950. He gave them one-third —something like £350,000.
There is still two-thirds due to those teachers. I am afraid that in the meantime many of them have passed away. I hope that, as Deputy Mulcahy made provision for all pensioned teachers at one stage and as the former Deputy Moylan made some provision to help pre-1950 teachers, the present Minister will, as soon as the financial situation allows it, pay those pre-1950 teachers the remainder of the gratuity. Even if he cannot pay the whole amount, which would be something in the neighbourhood of £750,000, perhaps he could pay them one-third in one year and another one-third the year after. I am sure those pensioned teachers would be quite agreeable to that and I understand they would be, so long as they eventually get the whole amount which is really due to them.
In Northern Ireland, all the pensioned teachers get the gratuity away back, no matter from what period they retired. I hope now that the Minister will see that that will be given also to the pre-1950 teachers in the Republic of Ireland.
Inné bhíos chun freagra do thabhairt ar gach uile phoinnte a ndeárnadh tagairt dó le linn na díospóireachta a bhi againn i rith an lae, ach ó shoin tá an méid sin poinntí curtha os cóir na Dála nách féidir liom tagairt do dhéanamh do gach ceann acu. Dá mbeadh ar mo chumas é a dhéanamh, tá mé cinnte go dtóg-fadh sé i bhfad nios mó ama ná mar atá agam le tabhairt do.
Ba cheart, pé scéal é, ar a laghad, tagairt a dhéanamh don chuid is mó des na poinntí a dhein an t-iar-Aire tagairt dóibh le linn a óráide indé. Ceann des na rudaí is mó ar dhein sé tagairt dó a b'ea an Chomhairle Oideachais. Fé mar is eol dó, tá an Chomhairle sin ina suí go fóil agus ní dóigh liom go geuirfidh mise aon chose lena cuid oibre.
Maidir leis na moltaí a chuir an Chomhairle os cóir an iar-Aire agus na poinntí sin a bhí glactha aige sar a d'fhág sé oifig, nílim cinnte gur ceart iad a chur i bhfeidhm fé mar do chuir sé féin iad i bhfeidhm. Bhíos ag éis-teacht le ceathrar no cúigear de Theach-taí a bhí ina noidi náisiúnta ar fud na tíre agus ní dóigh liom go raibh duine acu i bhfábhar glacadh leis na moltaí sin—sé sin, tuaith-eolaíocht, liníocht agus corp-oiliúint a chur ar an gclár le múineadh ins na bun-scoileanna. Tá fhios agam go maith go mbeadh sé an-deachair ar mórán des na múinteóirí na h-ábhair sin a theagase os rud é go bhfuil an-chuid díobh agus iad ag teagase i scoileanna nach bhfuil ach duine no beirt eile ag teagasc ins na scoileanna sin, agus—fé mar a dúradh liom agus fé mar thuigimse—ós rud é go bhfuil an clár sáthach lán faoi láthair go mbeadh sé an-deacair aon ábhair eile a theagase le linn an lae, fiú amháin leathuair sa tseachtain a thabhairt dos na hábhair sin.
Mar sin fhéin, ón méid a chuala mé ós na Teachtaí sin—na Teachtaí MacFachtna, Mícheál Cárthaigh as Gaillimh agus MacEoin as Luimnigh —is ceart domsa mar Aire Oideachais ath-smaoineadh do dhéanamh ar na h-ábhair sin do ghlacadh mar ábhair éigeantacha ins an clár laethúil ins na bun-scoileanna.
An dtuigimíd ón Aire gurab é atá ar siúl aige ná ath-bhreithniú a dhéanamh ar an cheist sin?
Is ea. Maidir leis an Ollscoil, ní aith-bhreithniú atá le déanamh ach breithniú nua. Tá fhios ag an iar-Aire gur ceist an-mhór í sin, Ollscoil nua do chur ar fáil i mBaile Atha Cliath. Tá saghas tosnú déanta, ach mar sin féin ní raibh am agam tabhairt fé'n cheist in a hiomlán nó tabhairt fúithi cor ar bith. Ós rud é go mbeidh an méid sin caiteachais airgid ar an scoil caithfimíd é d'infhiúchadh, ní hamháin mé féin ach an Rialtais uile.
Deineadh mórán tagairtí don Ghaeilg agus táim ar aon aigne leis na Teachtaí sin a dúirt nach raibh aon rud i gclár na scoileanna gur cheart "compulsory Irish" a thabhairt air. Ní gá tagairt níos mó a dhéanamh dó sin ach measaim gur ceart níos mo áird a thabhairt ar labhairt na Gaeilge ins na scoileanna agus gan bacaint ró mhór ins na bun scoileanna le scríobh na Gaeilge. Dúirt an Teachta de Brún gur ceart an scríobh d'fhágaint amach ar fad ón mbun-teistiméireacht. B'fhéidir go bhfuil rud éigin san méid a dúirt sé.
Ós rud é gur labhair cuid mhaith des na Teachtaí as Béarla san diospóireacht, sílim gur fearr domsa Béarla a labhairt chun na Teachtaí eile do fhreagairt.
Some Deputies criticised me for the fact that I was unable to enunciate in my statement what the policy of the Department of Education should be under my ministry. Personally, I think I would have a cheek to come in here after one month in the Department and try to promulgate a policy that should be followed, so far as education is concerned. It would be rather presumptuous of me to put across Deputies, many of whom are teachers, some changes which apparently many of them desire to have put into effect. I prefer, having given a general intimation of my broad approach to the problem of education, to examine the points that have occurred to me in the light of expert advice, in the light of non-expert advice, and particularly— and I am sure no Deputy would wish that I would do otherwise—to have regard to what the Deputies themselves put forward for my consideration. I believe that is the best approach.
Deputy Norton, in particular, accused me of being complacent. I am in no way complacent about our system of education, but I will repeat that I think the system we have is a good one. I will not deny for a moment that it has its defects. Any system that has so many branches and is of such magnitude as the educational system could not but have its defects, and, so far as I can and in the time at my disposal, I hope to contribute to the eradication of those defects.
The suggestion was also made by Deputy Norton that we ought to establish some form of inquiry into the question as to whether or not we were getting full value out of our system of education for the money the nation is pouring into it. In the next breath, Deputy Norton asked me what had the Council of Education done in that respect. The sequence of his remarks indicated to me that when he was making his suggestion about the establishment of such an inquiry, he forgot that while he was Minister and Tánaiste in the first inter-Party Government this Council of Education had been set up, and when he was Tánaiste in the second inter-Party Government, the council had made a report on the system of education of our young people up to the age of 12. I believe that they were fairly representative of the community as a whole and I am sure that to set up another committee of inquiry would be redundant, futile and certainly would be a sad reflection on the work the Council of Education has done to date.
Deputy Norton also criticised the standard of education the average young person has on leaving school, particularly the primary schools, at the present day, and like many another person went back to the good old days. I often wonder were the good old days as good as they are painted. I am tired of people telling me that people in particular spheres, whether in education or sport, nowadays are not half as good as the men in that sphere 50 years ago. I say that from the educational point of view, they are a great deal better than the men of 50 years ago, especially having regard to the fact that there are so many attractions with which the young person attending school nowadays has to contend as a distraction from his course of learning in school. For one thing— I am sure Deputy Norton will agree with me—the degree of illiteracy that existed 20, 30 and 50 years ago was far in excess—in fact I am sure it is wrong for me to make any comparison, but I will be generous to those of the old days—of what it is at the present day.
I wish to make another comment on something that is too often repeated, that is, the cliché of "illiteracy in two languages," as suggested by Deputy Larkin. I do not know why people repeat that cliché so often. Possibly it sounds funny and it may seem a good argument to put across, but I have yet to be convinced on that point. I have not been very long in charge of education, but, as a layman, I have yet to be convinced that the teaching of Irish has in any way dulled efficiency in our schools, whether they be primary or secondary. I have yet to be convinced that it has in any way affected the ability of children, irrespective of age, to learn English. I agree with some Deputies that if we had perhaps more spoken English, as well as spoken Irish, the standard of English would be generally higher and our method of expression would reach an improved level, a level that it would be desirable to reach. But until such time as someone can prove to me in a practical fashion that the teaching of Irish has resulted in this dual illiteracy, I refuse to be convinced by the type of argument put forward here; I refuse to be convinced that either the learning or teaching of Irish has done any damage to the general standard of education here.
Reference was made yesterday by a newcomer to this House, and I am sorry that I have to contradict him so early, to the fact that there was so much dissatisfaction amongst our teachers that they are emigrating at a very fast rate. He suggested that in the past year 60 teachers emigrated to Canada. I have taken the trouble to find out exactly how far correct that statement was. The statistics and returns available to the Department show that three men and 12 women went to Canada last year. There were four other instances of emigration to other parts of the world, bringing the total to 19. To suggest, therefore, that 60 emigrated to any one country, much less to any place abroad, is completely false. It is time that people stopped repeating these falsehoods. For what purpose they repeat them, I do not know.
Deputy Dr. Browne spoke at great length. He obviously went to a great deal of trouble in preparing his arguments. I agree the school buildings programme at the present time is not nearly adequate to replace the existing substandard schools and to provide against annual wastage. The present figure is somewhere in the region of 50 per annum. Over 800 schools need replacement, some not as urgently as others. With other schools coming in, which are not at the moment scheduled for replacement, we shall, I am afraid, have to strive for a higher target than 50. My target would be something in the neighbourhood of 75. If that is not sufficient, we shall have to strive for a target of 100 per annum.
Deputy Dr. Browne referred to the size of the classes. That is, as he himself suggested, a hardy annual. I agree that the problem there has a direct relationship to the problem of backward children but, as Deputy Palmer rightly observed, in order to achieve the objectives put forward by Deputy Browne we would require several million pounds. I am advised that to reduce the size of classes to the desired number—Deputy Browne suggested 30 —would require 4,000 new teachers. To increase the school leaving age to 16, would require 400 to 450 extra teachers. Taking one with the other, I do not have to impress on anybody, I am sure, what the cost would be. Nevertheless, irrespective of what the cost would be, it is a goal at which we should aim; it is a target we should endeavour to achieve in the shortest possible time.
That, again, has a direct relationship to the question of untrained teachers and married women teachers. Deputy Browne asked directly what my attitude to married women teachers is; I can tell him offhand that I think it is a great waste of teaching power that women teachers, on marriage, are obliged to retire at the present time. I have not had sufficient time to examine the problem any more closely than that. I know there are several points of view, apart from the one which he himself suggested and which is, apparently, the only one that would commend itself to him, namely, that a married woman's place is in the home. I am sure that, as a doctor, he realises there are many other considerations.
I shall not deny for a moment that the number of scholarships available to secondary schools and universities is very, very small indeed having regard to the numbers who attend these establishments. In so far as I can achieve it—I do not know what my powers are in relation to persuading local authorities to increase both the number and the amount of scholarships—I shall do everything in my power to bring about some improvement in the position. I assure other Deputies who spoke on this matter that I agree that the agricultural and scientific slant ought to be part and parcel of the allocation of these scholarships.
To deal with all the points made would be rather laborious and would make for a very disjointed offering from me. With regard to vocational teaching, however, I agree whole-heartedly with the suggestions made by Deputies on both sides of the House that the time has come when we shall have to get more and more deeply into the technological field. Having regard to automation, to the improved standards required in industry and agriculture and the new techniques in factories, it behoves us through our system of education to equip, so far as we can, our young people with the knowledge and technique to compete with other countries in the economic sphere. We can only do that by giving our vocational education a technological slant and our university education a scientific and agricultural slant. In that way we shall ensure that our people will be in a position to compete successfully with people abroad and will be in a position equally to live in their own country instead of going abroad to try their skills.
It was Deputy Browne who suggested that certain faculties in our universities seem to be overcrowded, which rather suggests to him it is a waste of our time and money to a large extent to educate doctors and architects, who cannot possibly be absorbed at home, for service abroad. The benefits of that service will never be got in this country. It is some satisfaction to us to know that those who are obliged to go abroad, having equipped themselves with medical or architectural training in this country, are able to take their place properly in whatever country they go to. Having regard to the virtual starvation in regard to technical and scientific knowledge, I think our efforts should, in so far as we can channel them, be directed towards making that knowledge, which we so badly need, available to our factories and farms instead of for the benefit of other countries—there is plenty of scope for that, particularly in view of the fact that we are criticised in relation to our lack of technical skill in our factories and on our farms by many people who come here.
I was going to correct another Deputy—Deputy Brennan—who suggested that we should have marine instruction in our vocational schools, but some other Deputy did it for me by saying that we had that type of marine instruction under some of our western vocational education committees. I can assure the House that it was with the greatest regret and reluctance I had to accept the 6 per cent, reduction imposed on the vocational committees in the current year because I felt that 6 per cent, could be utilised very well by these committees on such extensions of that type of instruction and on certain types of mechanical instruction which in these ever-changing times would be quite suitable, and not only suitable but essential to the people in the rural areas, particularly in the West of Ireland, to help them in their way of life.
I want to express my appreciation of the action of my predecessor in making a decision such as he did in that respect—a decision which was by no means a popular one—within a short time of his leaving office. It was a decision he might have left to somebody else. It appeared there was some indication of it in the Book of Estimates, as far as I know. Nevertheless, it was something for which I, at least, admired him for, that he was able to live up to that unpopular decision when it was necessary. It was necessary in the light of the financial situation. I regret he found it necessary, but I regret more so that I found it impossible, in the light of the financial situation, to restore that cut.
The same applies to the 10 per cent. cut in the capitation grant to secondary schools but, as I said in my opening statement, personally I shall leave no stone unturned, and I hope the opportunity will not be denied me, to ensure that these cuts will be restored and that they will be able to go ahead, particularly the vocational schools, with these very essential schemes they had planned and which, in some cases, they had to abandon in the current year.
I think it was the ex-Tánaiste who said, in relation to our expenditure of money on education, that we were too poor a country not to expend more on education. I think it was Lord Hailsham, the new British Minister of Education, who said that they could not afford to expend less on education. That is very true of this country also.
I want to take advantage of this occasion to mention something that has been suggested to me which ought to form part of our school curricula but, having regard to the facilities available, I find it would be practically impossible for most of our schools to do anything about it. I think this time of the year particularly opportune to mention the subject of life-saving. Life-saving cannot, under present circumstances, be taught in our national and secondary schools but it is well to remind teachers that life-saving classes are organised by the Irish Red Cross from mid-June to the end of August. They have instructors whom they send around to different centres and they have, I believe, three sessions daily which will suit practically all types of individuals, young people, adolescents and grown-ups. There are morning, afternoon and evening sessions.
I am told that anybody over 14 is eligible to take instruction in these classes. During the last warm summer we had, in 1955, there were almost 150 people drowned in this country and of these I am told a very high proportion were double drownings. In other words, the obvious reason is that people went to the assistance of the drowning people not knowing the fundamental technique of life-saving, and they also suffered the same fate. In the same year there were upwards of 70 people saved by more elderly people who had got instruction from the Irish Red Cross.
In these classes, too, artificial respiration is taught, I am told, and artificial respiration applies not only to people who have been taken from the water in a drowning condition but also to people who have suffered from electric shock. In these days, when rural electrification has expanded to such an extent, instruction in artificial respiration is most useful and is certainly a very desirable subject to be learned by the average person. I would commend that not only to the people generally but to the teachers in particular. I know that their time is well taken up already but since there are alternative methods of acquiring the necessary rudimentary knowledge, I think the teachers ought, in so far as they can, whether it be inland or at seaside areas, impress on their pupils the desirability of learning the fundamentals of life-saving and artificial respiration.
Has the Minister anything to say or any view to express, or has his Department any plans in progress or in contemplation with regard to the backward child and speech-training?
If the Deputy had been present for the earlier part of my speech, he would have heard me refer to that point. I admit I did not go into it in any great detail. However, I said that the backward child problem was tied up with the size of classes in schools. There are certain centres where backward children, if the Deputy is referring to backward children as subnormal children——
No, the ordinary backward child.
Then I can only strive to do my utmost, within the financial limits available to me, to reduce the size of classes in order to give the teachers a fair chance of dealing with the backward child.
Vote put and agreed to.