In raising this issue I am conscious of the delicate nature of the problem and I am anxious not to exacerbate the position in any way, but the problem is so pressing it is proper that the forum of this House should be used in an effort to solve it.
The problem is one which directly concerns the terminal examination—the leaving certificate—for large numbers of boys and girls. It also conerns the intermediate certificate, which is again the terminal examination for a very large number, too, a fact which tends to be forgotten in this House.
I have questioned the Minister on this matter twice, first on 16th June and again today. On each occasion the Minister quite directly implied that it is in some way improper for me and other Deputies to want this matter debated. May I say, in anticipation of the Minister's reply—and I am sure he will quite inevitably say we should not raise this subject here—that I do not accept his evaluation of the situation. I think the Minister is guilty of the same vanity as the American politician who said: "What is good enough for General Motors is good enough for the United States": the Minister seems to think that what is good enough for Fianna Fáil is good enough for the country.
My concern is with the students who have taken the examination. It is not with any group of teachers. Neither is it with the Minister and his Department. It is with the students in whose minds doubts are being sown as to whether or not their examination papers will be correctly marked by people qualified to mark them.
The second point I want to make is that I am not defending the action taken by the Association of Secondary Teachers in instructing their members not to mark the papers in the leaving certificate examination. I think that action was in the extreme tactically unwise. It is one which it is hard to defend morally, given the stresses and strains imposed on students taking the examination.
Having said that, having made my position quite clear and having anticipated any attempt by the Minister to suggest my intervention is other than what it is, I want to stress that the current dispute, as the Minister well knows, goes back into a history of tangled, unhealthy, bitter relations between his Department and all sections of the teaching profession and, most specifically, with the secondary teachers.
The nub of this present dispute is the decision of the Minister to instruct clerical managers in his departmental circular M 56/70 to inform entrants to the secondary teaching profession that they will not have the expectation of obtaining posts of special function. These posts of special function, whatever their merits or demerits—I do not think much of them myself; the Minister made it quite clear in reply to a question here that they are ill-defined and the responsibilities are ill-defined —were solemnly negotiated by the Minister's predecessor and subscribed to as part of an agreement which at the time ended the secondary teachers' strike. Then suddenly, out of the blue, there is this circular:
Managers of secondary schools are no doubt aware that negotiations with the three teacher organisations in relation to salary and allowances have been proceeding for some time. Arising out of these negotiations the Minister for Education is formulating his final proposals which he intends to place before all interested parties. Some further period must elapse however before the Minister will be in a position to put these proposals before all the parties in question. In the meantime and without prejudice to the form and content of the proposals the Minister feels that no teacher should be recruited to the secondary teaching service with any expectancy which might not subsequently materialise.
Later, the circular says:
Therefore pending the outcome of the negotiations referred to above no such teachers should be appointed by reference to the present arrangement whereby allowances for special functions are payable on a seniority basis.
In other words, the Minister unilaterally abrogates the agreement his predecessor made—signed, sealed and delivered—with the members of the secondary teaching profession.
Again, I am not defending the teachers' action, but I am trying to set it in its proper perspective and the Minister is well aware—he is not being honest with the House when he fails to express his awareness—that, in dealing with the secondary teachers, however ill-advised their actions may be, he is dealing with an outraged body of people who feel they are being ‘sold down the river', being forced by unilateral action on the part of the Minister into a different kind of salary structure and negotiating machinery. This circular was the last straw which provoked them into action, intemperate and unwise, in my opinion, and destructive of the peace of mind and expectation of the students. The result is that those who would normally mark the papers will no longer do so. That is the position in which the Minister now finds himself.
Today I asked the Minister who will mark the papers and the Minister said an advertisement appeared in the papers last Friday. I asked him what the qualifications were of those expected to do the marking and he said the assistant examiner should have taken the subject at university degree level or possess an equivalent qualification in the subject.
I say this is nonsense. This is to say that, because I took a primary degree in pass mathematics 30 years ago, I can now, at three days' notice, be told to mark papers at the highest level and I will be the person who may determine what certificates these students will get, certificates which may be the talisman to getting them hired or fired. It is not any remark of mine which casts doubt on the quality of marking; it is the plain fact that the children themselves are intelligent enough to know that people recruited in response to an advertisement last Friday could not possibly do the job with the same degree of certitude as those who normally do this work.
This is also true in the case of those taking the intermediate certificate, a teminal examination in many cases for a large section of our population not fortunate enough to proceed to the last stages of secondary education and university.
In fact—I know the Minister will call me irresponsible, but it is a fact— the Minister is saying that classes in 1970 will always have hanging over their heads a doubt as to whether the piece of paper they present has the same validity as the class of 1969 or of 1971. Is that fair to the children?
I am not interested in the secondary teachers. I am concerned only with the children and with what can be done to rescue them. This is an appalling dilemma in industrial relations and the Minister ought to have the honesty to face up to this. You cannot discuss this present problem of this year's leaving certificate without recognising that it is the tip of the iceberg. The Minister and his predecessor have so thoroughly bedevilled all sectors of the teaching profession that a great malaise has overtaken the teachers and they act, perhaps, unwisely. Industrial relations have reached the lowest low yet in the last 30 years.
The Minister, if he is a big minded man, which I hope he is, has got to work his way out of this if these people's feelings are to be placated. They are amongst the most valuable members of our community at all levels. The highest tributes are paid to them here when the Estimate comes up each year. They work in the service of the State and that entitles them to decent treatment. In my opinion, the Minister and his predecessor have played one organisation against another, enjoying the satisfaction of using the clerical managers to outflank the ASTI, the ASTI to outflank the VTO and VTO to outflank both of them, with the inevitable result that the Minister is now in the mess in which he finds himself. He is in a mess and he knows it; he ought to admit it. In the long term, he has to placate the injured feelings of all these people and to find a solution which will keep them all abreast. I wish him luck in this. I demonstrated a co-operative attitude to him which I do not feel he reciprocated judging by his replies to my questions last week and today.
In the short term, the Minister is faced with the situation that these boys and girls are doing an examination which concludes on Thursday and, as they sit there writing at their desks, this question mark hangs over their heads. The Minister will say to me tonight, in effect: "I assure them that qualified people hired by my Department are to mark their papers". If he thinks that that is an adequate assurance, it is not. Their teachers know that it is not an adequate assurance. They want to be assured that the people who normally mark their papers will do so. The Minister has it in his power to withdraw his directive and, at once, the ASTI would make clear that, this year, their members would be told to go ahead and to mark the papers. It would be a defeat, a backdown, I admit.
Whatever the Minister may say in reply to me tonight, no other branch of the profession—I am speaking specifically of the vocational teachers here—coerced the Minister into making that decision. They were seeking parity of function. They were not seeking that what they had already got would be taken away from the secondary teachers.
If the Minister were to withdraw that circular for this year, the loss to the State for one year would be minimal. He could withdraw it without prejudice to the conclusion of the salary negotiations. The Minister and only the Minister has this in his power. I am not concerned with placating the secondary teachers; my concern is the children. The Minister has the power to reassure them that their examination papers will be marked in the normal fashion.
