I am very glad to hear that. I am sure the Minister knows that there have been many meetings at the moment by groups of parents' organisations protesting at the closing of our national schools and this question of payment has been raised. Deputy Jones stated that a special inquiry should be held into each case before a school is closed. I do not know whether that would be possible. I think the Minister, up to a point, is being fairly consistent. He is receiving deputations from the various areas where schools are being closed and he is apparently considering every case but I think, by and large, the only argument which will carry any weight with the Minister is whether or not a certain number of pupils will be available on the rolls within the next five years and whether there will be enough pupils for the appointment of a third teacher.
There may be other considerations to be taken into account besides the number of pupils on the rolls. Those who are conversant with education and with rural communities in general have opposed this. While we are in agreement with the Minister's policy, we feel certain local considerations may, in some instances, make it necessary to retain two-teacher schools. We all know that there are some areas which are very thinly populated and a great deal of transport would be involved if individual schools were closed. I shall not go into as much detail as Deputy Jones did with regard to this matter but I should be glad if the Minister would guarantee that every case will be examined on its merits and that other considerations will be taken into account as well as the number of pupils on the rolls. We feel, by and large, that a case can be made for the closing of quite a number of the small schools at the present time.
I want to come back to the question of the recruitment of teachers. The Labour Party have repeatedly referred to the qualification requirement, particularly in the case of girls taking up teaching as a career, that they should be able to sing. We feel that requirement should not be as binding as it is. Very many girls who otherwise would make excellent teachers just cannot sing. Singing is a natural talent but it is by no means the only talent required to become teachers. Only a small proportion of the girls will, in any case, teach singing so we feel, particularly in the case of girls who receive high places in their examination, that this qualification should be waived. We should, at this stage, look forward to the day when the teaching of singing and music in general will become a more specialised job to be dealt with by the people who have particular qualifications for teaching singing and music in general.
The Minister has, in the past, made several references to the question of teachers—I think, in this context, he was referring to secondary teachers— teaching subjects which they had not taken in their degrees. I was very surprised, on reading through the reports on Investment in Education, to find that out of a total of 353 girls and 91 boys who sat for the teachers' final examination in 1963, no girl took mathematics and only 14 boys took that subject. This seems an extraordinary state of affairs considering that mathematics is a major subject in national schools. It is a subject to which, I think, teachers devote a quarter of their total teaching time. Therefore, I was appalled to discover that mathematics was taken by so few teachers in their final examination. Indeed, a total of only 14 out of 444 teachers who qualified in 1963 took mathematics as a subject.
There are very many matters to which we could refer but perhaps this is not the Estimate on which to refer to them. Before I leave the question of teachers, there is an innovation which has been introduced recently into junior classes in national schools, that is group teaching. I have discussed this matter with a number of teachers who have spent a number of years teaching junior classes. They are not at all satisfied with this system of teaching in groups. In classes of roughly 48 children, they teach obviously in four groups of 12. This is not very widespread at the moment and judging from the opinions of some of the teachers, I hope it will not become widespread. Apparently, while the teacher teaches one group of 12, the other 36 are free to occupy their time as they think fit. The teacher finds it particularly difficult to get anything into the minds of the 12 because of the noise. As well as that, the particular instruction must be repeated four times.
Last year the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Finance, when introducing his Estimate, told us that there were 650 national schools listed for replacement, that there were 400 schools without sanitary arrangements of any kind and without adequate heating and that a further 1,100 defective schools were being examined with a view to seeing whether they should be replaced or not. I presume that 1,100 now comes into the category of schools which may not be replaced. I just state this for the purpose of comparison with figures given to this House in 1944 when the then Minister for Education, I believe, told the House that there were 1,000 schools in need of replacement and 1,500 were defective. In that case, the total number of defective schools was reduced, within a period of 21 years, from 2,500 to 2,150. This gives us an idea of the appalling job which the Minister has to deal with.
When speaking about two-teacher schools, I referred to the sanitary conditions which obtain in some rural schools. Every Deputy representing a rural area must be familiar with the appalling conditions which exist. Assuming, as I am, that the Minister's programme for amalgamation or rebuilding of schools, as the case may be, will take some time, I appeal to him to impress, if necessary on the managers, the need to take some steps to ensure that school sanitary conditions are improved. We who are members for rural areas have seen children of tender years playing around the appalling dry closets which are the only sanitary arrangements in very many small rural schools. They have no water to wash their hands before a mid-day meal. The conditions in which these children live for several hours each day are a positive danger to their health. This is something which requires immediate attention, regardless of any programme that may exist for the amalgamation or replacement of rural schools.
One of the most alarming things which came to our knowledge in reading the Report on education was that 8,000 of our children leave school every year without passing the Primary Certificate examination and that a further 3,000 either fail or do not sit for the examination at all. There may be doubts about the value of the Primary Certificate as a means of estimating the attainments of a primary school child, but the position is at present that it is the only criterion we have. It is dreadful reflection on our educational system that 11,000 children leave school each year without achieving even that standard.
Further on in the Report, we are told that of the 55,000 children who left our national schools in 1962/63, 21,700 carried on to secondary schools and a further 2,200 carried on in the secondary tops and that 13,600 went on to vocational schools but there was still a balance of 17,500 who left full-time education at that stage. This figure, I believe, is expected to drop to 10,000 by 1970. When the school leaving age is raised to 15, these children will have to stay on. If we are to raise the school leaving age to 15, which is very desirable, we must arrange for continuing education for those children. One may assume that a great number of these children will belong to the poorer sections of the community. That is one forceful thing the Report brought before us. We all suspected, and indeed we knew, that the vast majority of children who did not receive post-primary education were children of the poorer classes but, having read the recent Report, there can be no doubt about it. We found that participation in education at the age of 14 ranged from 70.2 per cent in the case of children of the professional classes, managers, higher salaried classes, and so on, down to 29.1 per cent in the case of semi-skilled and unskilled workers. We can assume that the balance of the children of the higher-paid classes in our society either did not continue through the decision of their parents or they, in fact, received their further education abroad.
The position worsens when we consider the age group 15 to 19 years. In that group 46.2 per cent of the children of the former classes, managers, professional people and so on, were in full-time education. The figure for the unskilled and semi-skilled workers was reduced to 8.9 per cent. I see that for farmers the figure was as low as 26.8 per cent. It may be assumed that these were children of the smaller farmers. A noteworthy feature is that the unskilled and skilled workers and the farmers combined make up half our population. We cannot afford to have the majority of the children of half our population denied any education beyond the primary school simply because they cannot afford it.
Much more positive measures must be taken to cater for these classes. The number of scholarships must be greatly increased. We congratulate the Minister on what he did in regard to scholarships in the last financial year, but it appears to be only a drop in the ocean when compared with the position in the case of our nearest neighbour, Northern Ireland. With less than half our population, we find that in 1962 they had roughly—I have not got the figures here—one and a half times as many recipients of post-primary and third level scholarships in each category as we hope to have by 1970. We must do much better than that.
I feel very strongly that there is an urgent need for subsidisation of transport for rural children. The position is that 10,000 of our children, 26.5 per cent of our girls and 28.8 per cent of our boys, live more than five miles from the nearest source of post-primary education, either technical or secondary. Most of us in rural Ireland realise, and I am sure those of us who represent rural constituencies can speak more for such areas than for urban areas, that parents in rural Ireland are particularly keen on education for their children. Most of us have attended meetings organised by parents in an effort to arrange transport for their children to post-primary schools. We have seen them trying to fix economic fares and we have seen them succeed in arranging for a private bus where CIE fares are exorbitant or where it was uneconomic for CIE to run a service. We have seen the efforts they have made to arrive at economic fares but saddest of all, I think, we have seen that if that fare goes beyond a certain sum, mothers in the audience suddenly shaking their heads and deciding that at such a cost education was not for their children. That is exactly the position. Some parents can ignore the cost of transport of their children as it makes very little difference to them but many others simply cannot afford it. That being so, it is still very much the position in this country that post-primary education, at any rate, is only for those who can afford it, particularly in rural Ireland.
It is absolutely necessary that we should do everything we can to ensure that as many as possible can avail of post-primary education and that such education should be available. We know that if every child could be encouraged to go on to post-primary education, many difficulties would arise in regard to accommodation and staff, difficulties which might take some time to overcome.
Deputy Jones referred to a comprehensive school, the opening of which we heard about on television and read about in the newspapers. I am too far from the site of this school to be able to evaluate the considerations which went into its choosing but I was rather surprised, in view of the fact that in this town there is already accommodation for 70 secondary students and 200 vocational pupils, by the decision to build a comprehensive school to cater for 300 pupils. I agree that there were probably other considerations but it did seem strange to me, in view of the Minister's references to overlapping in school accommodation and when in many other places sanction has been refused for applications for vocational schools and the sanctioning of loans was refused in places where there were no post-primary education facilities at all within miles of the proposed site.
We all know that in regard to post-primary education, the best facilities can be provided in the larger schools but personally I am doubtful about the decision to limit building grants for vocational schools to those places which can provide a basic complement of over 150 pupils. We have been told that there are only 154 such areas in the country and even if there were no segregation of boys and girls in some areas, it would be practically impossible to establish schools catering for 150 pupils at the outset. In the interests of making post-primary education available to all children, it would be a good idea to look at this matter again and see if it would not be possible to make exceptions in specific cases of schools which could not hope to have a pupil enrolment of 150 at the outset, or maybe not at all. We know that difficulty will arise in regard to staffing and it will arise in particular if the restriction is to be put on teachers to teach only those subjects which they took for their degrees.
We find in this context that only 44 of our mathematics teachers took mathematics for their degrees and much the same situation applies in the case of science, history and geography. A motion was introduced by Fine Gael some time ago to the effect that teachers who had emigrated to England and who wished to return and teach here should be facilitated by being allowed their service abroad for increment purposes here. This is a motion which the Minister should have accepted with a view to making it possible to have more post-primary teachers here to have the qualifications which are so lacking in regard to mathematics and science. There should be no obstacle in the way of these teachers returning to teach here.
Personally, I have a very high regard for vocational schools. They are the nearest thing we have to free post-primary education which should be the ultimate aim for all children. In this regard I heartily congratulate the Minister on his recent decision to introduce a common certificate for vocational and secondary school pupils. I have no doubt that there will be some objection to this as some people may feel that it will lower the standards but I hope that will not happen. This is one sphere of education in which no social barriers exist and I am very glad that the status of these schools will be raised and that pupils will now be able to sit for the Intermediate or Leaving Certificates. I hope this will attract a better type of pupil in the future, a pupil who will be more concerned to continue his or her education, rather than, as happens at the moment, biding time for six months or a year until a job turns up.
There should be no question of lowering the standard of the Intermediate Certificate or the Leaving Certificate for I am quite sure that the vocational teachers are quite capable of getting children up to the required standards. This uplift was very necessary in the case of vocational education which for long has been the poor relation of our secondary system. Indeed, a very large majority of pupils did not sit for the certificate at all but went to vocational schools because transport was available to them. There seemed to be no future in that type of situation up to now and no outlet for entering higher education and they left it as soon as a job became available.
One thing about which I am disappointed is that a very small proportion of boys in rural Ireland avail of secondary education or post-primary education of any kind. These boys are the agriculturists of the future, the people on whom the economy will be depending, and certainly in view of the recent trade agreement, particularly from the agricultural side, this is one field in which a great deal more could be expended. Farmers of the future will require to have made available to them the best type of education suited to their particular problems and perhaps some arrangement could be made between the Department of Agriculture and the Department of Education to ensure that more of our boys in rural Ireland continue their education beyond the primary schools. As I said, rural science should be introduced into the primary schools and should be followed up in the technical or comprehensive schools.
In the industrial sector we know that there is a need for highly-trained manpower with a scientific background. A recent survey undertook a detailed analysis of present trends in the retraining of technicians with a view to determining the needs by 1970. While it is not possible to go into the pros and cons of the arguments put forward in support of the conclusions they reach, it is sufficient to say that the conclusion was that with a most optimistic forecast, with present facilities for training, we will fall far short of our requirements by 1970. That is even taking into account the lopsided ratio which exists between technician and technologist. The idea would appear to be three technicians to one technologist. Should that be the target, they maintain the deficiency in technicians by 1970 would assume enormous proportions. That being so, this is one field which must receive very specific treatment in the immediate future.
Chapter 8 of the Report deals in great detail with educational requirements in the labour force as a whole. A target was selected for educational/ occupational relationships. It was emphasised that the target was a minimum one and that a much higher one could have been selected in many cases. When applied to the whole labour force the conclusion was that by 1970 there would be enormous deficiencies—a deficiency of 340,000 with junior post-primary qualifications, of 160,000 with senior post-primary qualifications and a further deficit of 90,000 with third level qualifications.
It is incumbent on us to ensure that the Irish economy will hold its own in the industrial sector when meeting unbridled competition from Britain and the countries of EEC and EFTA in the years to come. Far from telling us in the Labour benches that we have no confidence in our workers, we should be training our workers to raise their educational standards to the levels enjoyed by those with whom they will be competing when free trade makes itself felt. Such a back-log has been created that it cannot be rectified in time now. For that reason further training of the persons already in the labour force must be commenced. That is something we should consider very seriously indeed. These are people who, through no fault of their own but through faults in the educational system provided for them, have not the required training and basic scientific background to enable them adapt themselves to the new forms of employment which might be necessary for them in the future. We must think very much about this and do all we can to ensure that as far as possible retraining and scientific technical training will be available to those already in the labour force.
With regard to our secondary schools, the education generally provided in them is satisfactory to a point. At this stage we do not want to go into too much detail on the curricula in the secondary schools and the vocational schools. But it has been argued that a great deal of cramming and attention to detail has occurred and that possibly it would be a better idea at all levels to develop a love of education and an interest in particular subjects in pupils rather than concentrating on details which they will possibly forget. We have all gone through that and forgotten most of what we learned at that stage. Therefore, it might be better if less emphasis was placed on cramming and more on arousing interest in subjects and equipping children with a background that would lead to a voluntary following up of these subjects at a later stage.
Without doubt the standard of general knowledge of our secondary school pupils has been considerably raised over the past ten or fifteen years. One need only look at television programmes such as Mark Time and Teen Talk to realise that the children attending secondary school now have a great deal more general knowledge than we had. This is only a personal view but I feel, however, that the standard of Irish displayed by pupils in secondary schools is, if anything, lower than what we had ten, fifteen or twenty years ago. Children are given a simple sean-fhocal and asked to give the English counterpart of it. In many cases you find the children cannot even translate them. Those of us who left school fifteen or twenty years ago have no difficulty at all. I hope I am wrong, but I feel the standard of Irish may have gone down a little bit over the last ten or fifteen years.
I know this is something in which the Minister has a keen interest. I know he is keenly interested in the revival of Irish, in seeing that as many people as possible speak Irish and that the last thing he would want would be any deterioration in the standard of Irish. Perhaps I am wrong. Perhaps this is just something I observed and possibly does not hold good. But certainly there is a variation in the standard of Irish between the various schools. We all know that the schools with the least amount of snob value attached to them have always been the schools where the standard of Irish was the highest. On the credit side it must be said that the general knowledge of the pupils has increased considerably. These schools are now turning out young people much more fitted for life today than we were so many years ago.
While welcoming the introduction of civics, which is very necessary in present conditions, I personally deplore the complete lack of physical training and games of any sort in many of our girls' schools. This leads to a very unhappy school life. Games build up a team spirit and develop a sense of give and take in people very necessary for the life they will lead when they leave school. Apart from that, they allow for a certain amount of diversion which is necessary in view of the very extensive studies children have to undertake.
I would like to see much more emphasis on games and physical training in all our schools, but particularly in the girls' schools because it is there the deficiency is greatest.
On the whole, what I am mostly concerned about are those children who cannot avail of post-primary education. I would appeal to the Minister—I know this is something which presents enormous difficulties— to realise that this cannot wait. Apart from the economic side, it is in the interests of social justice. Whatever else is economised on, education should not be economised on.
I am glad that great strides have been made in the matter of the education of mentally and physically handicapped children. However, there is one section which does not seem to be catered for as it should. I refer to blind children. Down through the years the system appears to have been to provide them with some sort of social welfare allowance and then allow them sit there and live out their lives. They are very often highly intelligent people and, with proper training, could contribute to the society in which they live. They deserve the right to take their place in normal society. Emphasis must be placed on the provision of qualified teachers for the education of blind children in general.
I realise that the Minister has come into the Department of Education to improve educational facilities and in particular to extend them to a large section of the community. He is hampered by the fact that he has come into office in a year of particular financial difficulty. As against that, he has come into office in a year when the interest displayed by the public in education has never been greater. Anything he will do to extend education will be welcomed by the public generally. The money derived from increased taxation can be utilised to the greatest effect on widening our educational services and that fact would be accepted by the public in general—certainly it would be accepted by us on these benches. Whatever else can be cut back on this year, or whatever else can be left as it is with no further improvements for the time being, education is not one of them. As the report says, it is an investment and an investment which cannot further be delayed. It is also a matter of social justice which has for too long been delayed to a great number of people in this country.
