Since last week, I have had a communication from a teacher in Meath which highlights the need for the reform suggested in the motion. It deals with the case of a qualified teacher who claims, and appears to me to substantiate his claim, that the experience required under the regulations of the Department for the newly-recognised posts in physical education can be obtained only outside this country. I should like, if I may, to quote from his letter which I shall gladly pass over to the Minister and I will be grateful if he would look into this gentleman's case. The letter states:
The qualifications which the Department of Education will accept for appointment as a secondary teacher of physical education cannot be gained in this country. Secondly, the experience necessary after becoming qualified can only be realised fully in England or Northern Ireland, where the newly-qualified specialist can work with experienced physical education specialists, have the benefit of advice and direction from county organisers of physical education and inspectors from the Ministry of Education and consolidate his ideas and philosophy by being in constant touch with his colleagues in the area in which he teaches. Thirdly, the specialist needs to be kept in contact with the latest developments in the teaching of his subject by attending conferences, short courses and reading all the relevant periodicals published by physical education associations in England and America.
Hence, the specialist in physical education must go abroad for his training and experience and to keep abreast of the latest trends.
The Department recognised my qualifications for purposes of registration as a secondary teacher but refused to recognise my teaching experience in England. This meant that when I accepted an appointment as director of physical education in a secondary school here, I had to start as a probationer.
He goes on to say that his salary was reduced from the £1,090 he was earning in England to £500 when he came back here. This man is one of the few full-time teachers of physical education recognised as such by the Minister's Department and his case has been very fully considered by the Minister's Department. I shall pass his letter to the Minister and hope he will look into the case sympathetically.
The motion before the House can be justified on educational grounds, but I want to emphasise at this stage an aspect which I did not advert to at any great length last week, that is, the humanitarian aspect of the proposal. It behoves us here to have great sympathy with and concern for the position of the Irish national who is compelled by economic necessity to seek employment in England and who after six, eight or ten years working in England, is anxious to return to this country in order to bring up his children in a decent environment. We must have the greatest compassionate consideration for such a person. To expect a man of 35 or 40 years of age with a family of young children whom he wants to be reared in Ireland in Christian conditions to return here and to work for £500 a year is absolutely miserable.
Despite all the difficulties and disadvantages which confront them, some hardy spirits have returned and have started working at the bottom of the scale. To quite an extent we are indebted to qualified lay teachers who have returned from England, bought old houses in small country towns and established secondary schools in areas that were not otherwise catered for as far as secondary education is concerned because of their smallness and the fact that it is not feasible for religious communities to cater for very small numbers. We are indebted to people who have established schools in remote places. They are making great progress and most of them are thriving. But taking the generality of our graduates in England, if they wish to return to this country, they start on a salary of £500 a year. For married men with children, that is an impossible position.
There is a great scarcity of well-qualified teachers in the technological fields and in the applied subjects of science and mathematics. I learned from information given by the Minister's predecessor in reply to a Parliamentary Question some time ago that of 700 full-time teachers of mathematics only 30 are honours graduates. Honours graduates leaving the universities well qualified in mathematics and science are going into all sorts of boring jobs. One of the most boring jobs available at present is in the meteorological service and there are a number of splendidly qualified persons bored stiff in that service when the field in which they would wish to operate is the teaching profession where there is such great need for them. In the principal Dublin technological school at present, there are 16 vacancies on the teaching staff which have been advertised more than once. There is an acute scarcity of teachers while men in England are only too anxious to come home to take up the vacant jobs. I think it is true that in the technical schools very limited recognition of English service may be granted by the Department. However, it is very limited indeed and obviously does not meet the needs of the situation. Otherwise the 16 vacancies I have referred to would not exist.
I spoke last week of a motion passed at a meeting of Education Ministers of Europe, a body which is an offshoot of the Council of Europe. The motion was passed in the presence of Dr. Hillery. It called for free interchangeability of teachers throughout Europe. I had hoped to obtain a copy of that motion but have been unable to do so. I should be grateful if the Minister would enlighten us on its terms. I do not wish to repeat what I said last week about it. It is stupid of us to endorse such pious aspirations at international conferences unless we make it possible to implement the proposals. I hope the present Minister will do what his predecessor failed to do in this respect.
At present, certain limited recognition of foreign service is available for lay people who have taught in Ghana, Nigeria and Tanzania. Strangely enough, it is not extended to religious. It is an attempt to make it easy for our graduates to go to these under-developed countries for a short period. However, that scheme again is hedged with restrictions and I shall bring before the Minister later a most unfortunate case of an individual, a former constituent of mine, who went to Tanzania, believing his service there would be recognised. He taught in a first-class Catholic diocesan school but because it is a school not under Government control, the Minister's officials refused to grant recognition. They must have known that Catholic schools in Tanzania are deliberately kept free from Government control for very sound reasons. Tanzania has a radical Government, very near to being a Communist one and the less Catholic schools have to do with the Government, the happier position they are in. That is a typical example of bureaucratic bungling. I have a considerable file on that case.
With the Minister's predecessor, I was only beating my head against a stone wall. I shall bring this case to the attention of the present Minister. Of course the question of Tanzania or Nigeria is beside the point at the moment. There is also limited recognition for service of one year as a teacher of a foreign language—Irish nationals who go to France or Germany, the country of their specialty. Therefore, there is not a new principle involved in acceptance of this motion.
Since the motion was first put on the Order Paper three years ago, the Minister's predecessor saw the light of reason and granted limited recognition for service in Northern Ireland under which seven teachers now working in the Republic have derived benefit. Here again, the scheme of recognition is hedged with restrictions of all kinds. It is not retrospective. Recognition is only in respect of service gained after 31st July, 1962. I cannot see the rationality of that. If there are people in the North anxious to come back, why should not they be given credit for five years service, even though it was prior to the introduction of the scheme in 1962?
I know the Christian Brothers' school in Harding Street, Belfast. They have on the staff many honours graduates from University College, Cork. I suppose the average Cork graduate, when he became qualified and went to England, had little or no intention of ever taking up service in Belfast but years of service in Britain convinced them that even Belfast is preferable to returning home. There are, in any event, by some quirk or other, a large number of Cork graduates working with the Christian Brothers in Belfast. They would be anxious to come back without doubt.
The religious orders, particularly the Christian Brothers, are among those who would gain substantially from acceptance of this motion. It is true to say that in the present under-financed state of education in this country, the salaries paid to religious teachers constitute one of the main sources of finance for educational development. We have these dedicated teachers whose principals receive the salary cheques from the Department. Most of the teachers have taken vows of poverty and under the new banking regulations, they no longer have to endorse the cheques. In fact, they never see them. The cheques go into the orders' house bank accounts and are devoted towards educational expansion and improvement. The system constitutes a most important source of finance.
Who can blame the religious orders if, in these circumstances, they are a little slow to put themselves at a financial disadvantage by bringing into Dublin, or Cork, or Galway, teachers serving in their Anglo-Irish province, under the same control and in the same organisation, in schools in Liverpool, Manchester or Glasgow? They have people trained, ready to come back but unfortunately the Department of Education make it difficult for them to do what they would wish to do. It is very difficult for the average emigrant working in Great Britain to get home here. Contacts in our conditions are all important. Some of these people who would be anxious to get back have not got the contacts which would put them in the way of a job here. In these circumstances it is particularly important not to add to their difficulties.
I said at the outset that the case for this motion is based on commonsense. It is also based on educational grounds but primarily it is based on humanitarian and compassionate grounds and, that being so, I am very hopeful that the Minister will accept it.
