(South Tipperary): Before questions, I was dealing with capital expenditure on education, referred to by a previous speaker, and available in the published statistics of OECD and elsewhere. I was endeavouring to show that these statistics, at first sight, are likely to give a false impression of the actual expenditure on both secondary and university education in so far as parents provide a considerable part of school expenses, both secondary and university, out of their own pockets. There is, of course, a small number of scholarships. As well as that, there is education by the religious bodies provided at a very cheap rate. However, that does not gainsay the fact that what I said originally is true: education as such is under-capitalised. We will have to face the fact that, if we are to hold our position in a competitive world, more money will have to be invested in education.
If education is to be made available to all our people, irrespective of income, who would benefit by it, then a more liberal attitude will have to be adopted. It is the aim of this Party to provide education at all levels to all members of our society in so far as our economy will permit. That is the humanitarian approach. It is also an essentially economic approach in this highly competitive world. It is true that numbers from the point of view of higher education are, by and large, better in England, Scotland and Northern Ireland than they are here.
Two opinions were expressed here by two different speakers. Deputy Jones, by implication rather than specifically, is doubtful as to whether too much emphasis is not being placed upon science. Deputy O'Leary took the opposite view; he thinks insufficient emphasis is placed on science. I come down on the side of Deputy O'Leary. I believe mathematics and science—I have said this before— should be the cornerstones of our educational system. If we are to hold our place in the world as a national family, scientific education must receive ever-increasing attention. It was as a result of pressure from this side of the House, I choose to think, that the Minister's predecessor was constrained to give grants to secondary schools all over the country. I have not seen in his speech any reference to progress in that field.
I should have liked a little information as to the amount paid out in grants for the establishment of laboratories up and down the country. I should like to know the number of laboratories set up and what success has attended that particular measure. It is one of extreme importance. I agree wholeheartedly with Deputy O'Leary as regards the importance of science. By science, I mean physics and chemistry, and I would include in that mathematical physics and mathematics in general. These are the scientific subjects. They are so important that Britain has found it desirable in her economy to set up a Ministry of Science.
I mentioned here previously that a few years ago I happened to be at an international fair in Brussels where there was an exhibition. I was particularly interested in the Russian exhibit. This was shortly after the "sputnik" had been launched and of course they had a "sputnik" on exhibition. But they also had a side exhibit with an amount of statistical information comparing their educational endeavours with those of America, Italy, Great Britain and other countries. It was clear that the emphasis was very much upon the scientific aspect of education. In fact, they were convinced that predominance in the field of scientific endeavour would naturally be followed by predominance in the field of power politics. Whatever about that, the scientific pre-eminence of Russia cannot be disputed at the moment, and this exhibit showed they had devoted enormous resources and large numbers of people to scientific education. They were able to produce statistics—I presume correct—showing that a very large proportion of their people and resources were being devoted to those pursuits as compared with even America or Great Britain.
I mention these points to show that that is a world trend. Unless we try to keep pace with it, there is no use talking about the humanities and quoting Virgil. It will avail us little in the harsh world of realities. I would wholeheartedly come down in favour of the advocacy of scientific education. I do not think it is being overrated. In fact, I would suggest it is being actually underdone. If we are to expand education as I would like to see it expanded, attention must be paid to it.
Telefís Éireann has been mentioned here as an aid to education. Certainly, it is a most important medium. I was very pleased to hear the Minister announce he is going to have reception units in every secondary school. I do not see why, perhaps at a later stage, that should not be extended even to our larger national schools. A course in physics has already been given on Telefís Éireann. As Deputy Jones quite properly remarked, history and geography are probably subjects that could lend themselves to adequate treatment by such a medium. We all know from our early school days that in general history and geography were most boring subjects. My memory of history is nothing more than a memory of dates to be painfully kept until the next examination, and then promptly forgotten. History is a subject that could be treated in a far more exciting fashion. But I do not think it could be treated in that fashion with the ordinary resources available in the primary and secondary schools. It is a subject that could be very adequately dealt with through the visual medium of television. The same applies to geography.
I was also pleased to hear that the library service to our primary schools is going ahead. I would ask the Minister to consider also a library service for those of our secondary schools that have not already got one. As a child grows older a library service becomes more useful to him. He is at a stage of maturity when he is more capable of utilising it. If I had my choice as to where to place a library I would be inclined to go first for the older age group, who are able to appreciate and benefit by the library service, rather than the more junior pupils.
The question of one-teacher and two-teacher schools has been mentioned here. It is a subject in which Deputy Dillon was always very much interested. Being familiar with the conditions in the more thinly populated parts of western Ireland, it is a subject which probably bore in on him very much—trying to provide a national school service in thinly populated rural areas.
I put down a question to the Minister about school transport in a rural part of my own constituency. I elicited the information from him that he had no authority to provide or supplement transport by local services to secondary schools. The position arose in that instance because a local bus service happened to shut down. This meant extreme hardship to a number of of children living in a very isolated part of the country. Previously, they had a very suitable bus service which they availed of to go to the local technical schools and the secondary schools at Thurles. Many of them now have to terminate their secondary education or, alternatively, their parents will have to make more substantial sacrifices.
I know this is a very difficult matter. Once the Minister for Education accepts the principle of supplementing transport to schools, you must ask yourself: where is it going to end? Where is he going to get sufficient money, because we are going to open the flood gates. I could see the demand becoming virtually impossible. However, these difficulties have been met in other spheres of social dispensation by the Government. I feel it would not be impossible for the Minister to devise a scheme, however limited, for the more necessitous cases to help with the transport problem. Some of these small one- and two-teacher schools are no longer able to provide adequate teaching services and there will have to be certain integration and amalgamation at national school level. I do not know whether the Department have done any research work on this question of transport. Possibly they have. But I would ask the Minister to devote some attention to it from now on. I am sure it is a question that will arise on next year's Estimate, and eventually something will have to be done about it.
The question of vocational guidance, particularly career guidance, is important. One of our national newspapers, the Irish Independent, for years has been issuing an excellent little booklet called Guide to Careers. Apart from what information they could get by local inquiry, in past years parents in rural parts were often very untutored in regard to this matter. They have often been the worst guides in the world as regards their own children. Vocational guidance as regards the type of school to attend and the careers to be followed is something which merits more attention than it has got heretofore in our society. I would join with the other speakers in asking the Minister to give his attention to this matter.
The Minister mentions expenditure on scholarships and says that expenditure by local authorities in the financial year 1965-66 is estimated at about £500,000, towards which the State will contribute £300,000. My own county council has been, I must admit, reasonably liberal in matters of this sort. It is a county where rates are a problem, as they are in all counties. I consider the proportion contributed by the State is still too low. If you are to provide scholarships on the basis of pound for pound with local rates, you will not achieve, in the near future, that degree of expansion of scholarships which I feel is desirable.
Rates are an acute problem in most counties and will result in delaying the expansion of scholarship schemes. I admit the position is slightly better than it was a couple of years ago, as the Minister mentions, but I feel this is a matter in which the State must play a leading part. I feel they should not be looking to the already overburdened local rates to come to the rescue. If you base the expenditure on scholarships on some basis related to local rates, you are merely using that as an excuse to scale down expenditure.
I have noted, although I am not aware whether it still exists, that there has been a system in operation by which secondary scholarships and university scholarships have been correlated, that is, that the proportion of secondary to university scholarships must be kept in balance. That is a mistake. The local people should be allowed a more liberal interpretation of what is required in respect of secondary and university scholarships. Secondary scholarships may not be a great necessity in some areas. There may be an adequate supply of secondary schools in the area. Therefore, university scholarships may be the prime necessity of that community and in other parts of the country the situation might be the reverse.
We have, in my county, with residential colleges and secondary schools, reasonable provision for secondary education for people who are prepared to cycle a few miles unless there is some snobbery in their makeup and they want to go to some other school in a different area. There are sufficient secondary schools in the county within a few miles of any town to cater for everybody. Therefore, secondary scholarships are not so acute a problem as university scholarships. Here in Dublin pupils with university scholarships can live at home but those from the country have to pay substantial fees for their maintenance. If more latitude were given to local authorities, they would be better judges of what is needed.
As regards the amount of money given in scholarships, it has been observed, and the Department must have observed it also, that the amount of a scholarship, which seems perhaps fairly reasonable when first awarded, after two or three years, with the rise in the cost of living and books and fees in universities, becomes inadequate. A figure is fixed for these scholarships and then the people who get them are compelled to come back with their hats in their hands to ask the local authorities to intercede with the manager and the Minister to have a few pounds added to the amount.
It would be a better system if scholarships were awarded on a dual basis. They should be awarded on university fees, on the one hand, and then laboratory fees and fees for books that may be necessary, on the other. One part of the scholarship could be given first and then the other given for maintenance, which should vary with the cost of living index figure. They would have a hedge by that means against rising costs and it would not be necessary for them to come back seeking increases. This would give security to people who get scholarships. They would have a hedge to meet increases in the cost of living and they would be enabled to complete their university courses. I feel that if the Minister devises scholarships on these lines, it will provide greater financial protection for scholarship pupils, particularly those who come from families where every pound counts.
The Minister mentions that he hopes by 1970 we will have 20,000 scholarship pupils in our post-primary schools and 2,000 university scholarship holders. That is not bad, but we must not forget that will be 1970 and by that time in all probability our position vis-à-vis Northern Ireland will not have altered because they will probably have improved their educational facilities to a corresponding degree. Therefore, there will still be a considerable lag between the educational facilities obtaining there and here.
I admit at once that it is almost impossible to visualise that our educational facilities, particularly for the poorer section of the community, would be on the same basis as Northern Ireland and Great Britain where the provision for educational facilities is double what it is here, but I would say to the Minister that there is still considerable leeway to be made up. I do not consider the provision here for scholarships by any means adequate. He is really a little over-penurious in his attitude to scholarship education in general.
I have perhaps dwelt unduly on this point but I consider it is a very disheartening thing in society that there are a number of people going around who, through no fault of their own but because their parents were poor, are unable to realise their educational ambitions. It is socially unsound and socially unwise to foster a type of community which allows that particular type of circumstance to continue.
I am pleased to see that the educational bulge in secondary education continues and that we are now approaching the round figure of 100,000 pupils in our secondary schools. It is gratifying that in a decade our secondary school population has roughly doubled from a round figure of 50,000 to a round figure of 100,000. It is essential to our national well-being that that trend should continue and be encouraged.
The Minister mentioned that he intended to establish four comprehensive schools, one at Carraroe, one at Cootehill, one at Shannon and one in Glenties. I do not know where Carraroe is but I know where the other places are and as far as I am aware no other secondary schools are located in those areas. I have, therefore, nothing to say to the Minister on that score. He is providing secondary education at places where there is inadequate provision for that type of tuition.
A fear was expressed in many quarters that the comprehensive schools are intended to supplant existing educational facilities. That would be a great mistake. I do not think we should proceed with our educational development as, for a while, we proceeded with our health legislation and development, namely, by attempting to supplant rather than to supplement. I do not know whether the Minister has worked out in detail in his mind the function which these comprehensive schools will ultimately fill. All I gather from his brief is that there will be a big school servicing a big area, with a big curriculum and a big staff, and that there will be vocational guidance. Further than that, I have a feeling that, perhaps, he is in rather an exploratory mood as far as comprehensive schools are concerned. They are an importation from abroad and, perhaps, like a lot of importations, they will have to be adapted to the peculiar circumstances of our society.
I hope that if the comprehensive schools produce worthwhile new departures or new thinking in the field of secondary education our existing secondary schools will be alert and will adapt and modify, if necessary, the lessons to be learned from the comprehensive schools which the Minister is now setting up and that it will not be necessary to have a whole host of these schools dotted all over the country, perhaps, duplicating work which can easily be done by some of our existing schools.
In reference to these schools, the Minister has also mentioned the question of an extended year. On page 8 of his brief he says:
Even those who successfully complete the Leaving Certificate course could in many cases benefit by a further year of study before taking up employment or proceeding to a course of higher education.
I will make a suggestion in this respect to the Minister. This is a little country with only 2.8 million people. We have a high emigration rate. Unfortunately, many of our people who emigrated became hewers of wood and drawers of water. A number of people who do our Leaving Certificate examination will emigrate possibly to the neighbouring island which has over 50 million people. I do not know if many employers in Britain have ever heard of our Leaving Certificate but they are all very familiar with the General Certificate of Education which is their equivalent of our secondary school Leaving Certificate. I would ask the Minister to explore the possibility that some of these students who, he suggests, might stay on for an extra year, having got their Leaving Certificate, would take the General Certificate of Education examination. When these people emigrate and look for employment in Great Britain they can go to an employer and say: "I have taken your standard secondary educational examination" and their employment possibilities will be enhanced considerably. The average employer in Britain is acquainted just with his own educational system. He is accustomed to taking on apprentices and employees and the GCE is the certificate with which he is acquainted. It might be a very good idea if the Minister would examine that possibility with a view to equipping these lads who will emigrate with the type of certificate which will receive ready acceptance in England, Scotland or Northern Ireland.
There is little further in the Minister's brief that I feel I might refer to but there is a matter which I think I may mention and here I am expressing purely my personal views. It is a matter upon which there will be considerable difference of opinion. I realise that the Commission on Higher Education has not yet brought out its report although it is expected shortly. I do not know what will be in that report or how it will deal with our university situation. Deputy Jones mentioned the question of a university college for Limerick. That is good but there have been rumours at different times of break-away efforts, or thinking along those lines, as regards Cork and Galway. In Dublin, we have two universities—the National University, with its constituent colleges at Cork and Galway and Dublin University which is usually referred to as Trinity College. We must be one of the few cities in the world with two universities and they are part of our social and political heritage. When we speak in the field of industrialisation and economics, we speak of integration and rationalisation. Surely the same arguments could be brought to bear on the question of trying to run two universities in a relatively poor country. There must be some duplication in many fields where integration and rationalisation could lead to better results and, perhaps, better economy.
As I mentioned already, we have considerable emigration in this country. We also have considerable emigration of university graduates. It takes generations for a university to build up an international reputation. The employment possibility for a graduate is not associated with the university from which he may come. It would be a retrograde step if, for instance, Cork seceded and decided to establish itself as a university. You would have a position whereby graduates would classify themselves as B.A. Cork, M.B. Cork, and so on.
At present, we have two universities and it would be bad for the students of the future if there was disintegration in our university system. Rather, I would plead for integration. If the situation arose that we could have graduates who would write after their names M.B. Ireland or B.A. Ireland, after several decades with a large number of pupils coming from all university courses combined, such a qualification, from whatever college the students came, would have an international standard which never could obtain if we fragmented. The future international recognition of our university education would be enhanced by university integration and the reverse would be the case as a result of disintegration. These are purely personal views I am putting to the Minister. He will later on have to consider these when the Report of the Commission on Higher Education is presented to him. I wish to mention one final matter which again relates to university education on a more specialised line, medical education. I realise now that I am on the hinterland or twilight zone of the Minister for Education and the Minister for Health. We have, unfortunately, in this city too many small hospitals and the first people to recognise that, and are well aware of it, are the medical teachers and specialists in the city. Medical education here, I found from my experience elsewhere, is severely handicapped, firstly, by the number of small hospitals, and, secondly, by the poor liaison that exists between the universities and the hospitals. The degree of autonomy the hospitals enjoy here seems to be greater than obtains at other university centres. In other universities in providing group medical teaching the university educational authority has great influence and occupies a predominant position in devising and controlling the educational services provided in the hospitals.
Very often one will find there is what is called a university hospital, one large comprehensive hospital in which the specialist hospital staff holds a much more dominant position in their university hospitals than seems to obtain here. Our hospitals serve two functions. In our city hospitals one function is to treat the sick and the other is to educate. While the care of the sick patient has taken precedence over teaching and training of doctors, I think closer liaison should exist between our universities and our teaching hospitals. I fear that our universities have tended to become too much a mere examining body.
This lack of closer contact was adversely commented upon by the American medical group who came over here two years ago, and some improvements were made after that. Still, one cannot help feeling that the position could be further improved. It would mean a sacrifice of independence on the part of the governing bodies of some of our hospitals but I feel the overriding interest of good medical education must be served. I think our universities must be placed in the position that not alone may they test the standard of academic knowledge of prospective graduates but they must also be able to test, supervise and control the standard of training provided during the years these students are deemed to be undergraduates of a university.
I would, therefore, press these considerations on the Minister because they will, no doubt, come within his purview during his term of office. If we consider, for instance, our teaching hospitals as such, while teaching is requisite to university degrees here, if the teachers and lecturers attached to these hospitals were to provide teaching facilities within their hospitals, firstly, they would have no authority to do so, and secondly, they would have to provide the money out of their own pockets.
For example, have we provided in our teaching hospitals library facilities; have we provided lecture theatres; have we provided in these theatres, if there are such, the modern audio-visual help which we associate with teaching? Have we provided adequate residential facilities? Have we provided adequate laboratory facilities? Yet we have three medical schools in the city. Medical education cannot be given entirely by didactic lectures at the university. It must be provided partly by ward apprenticeships. After all, it is not an exact science; it is a combination of art and science. The favourite dictum of the late Professor McArdle was: "From the bedside to the study, and from the study to the bedside". I believe that if we are to improve the educational facilities in the particular field with which I am dealing, we will have to improve the facilities available to our students in our teaching hospitals.
Our hospitals are subsidised out of the Hospitals Trust Fund, so they have lost, so to speak, the absolute autonomy or independence which they enjoyed many years ago. If their educational purposes are to be preserved and enhanced for the future, that will probably mean a further sacrifice of their autonomy and independence. These are changes which are inevitable, and the Minister will appreciate that they must take place. At present in Cork there are two teaching hospitals which by modern standards cannot provide the type of undergraduate teaching which would be supplied at a place like Guy's Hospital in London. At present agitation is afoot as regards a hospital for Cork.
Here is a field in which the Minister could collaborate with his colleague, the Minister for Health. It should be possible to amalgamate the existing services and the existing staffs, and to build one university hospital in Cork under the management of the university for educational aspects. That would considerably enhance the medical faculty at the Cork constituent college. The situation is more difficult here, because we have an already established set of circumstances, than it is where the situation is more fluid and where developments may be taking place in the future. I want to draw the attention of the Minister to that aspect of the problem and I hope he will consult with his colleague, the Minister for Health. It would be a permannent tribute to himself and the Minister for Health if he could secure that developments in Cork will proceed along the lines I have suggested to enhance the teaching facilities and prestige of one of our constituent colleges.
