I should like to congratulate the Minister on his appointment to this important post. He follows in succession to many illustrious Ministers, and I do hope that, given time in that Department, he will live up to the leadership and to the example that is there for him.
I was disappointed, however, in reading the Minister's speech-and I hope he will remedy this in replying to the debate-to find that he pointed to no innovations; indeed, his speech is notable more for what it does not contain than for what it does contain. Many of the important projects he introduced in his Department since he became Minister were, to a certain extent, in the pipeline as a result of decisions by the previous Minister. Nevertheless, I feel that the Minister, Deputy Burke, has the ability to make a good job of education, provided he does not yield to political pressures which, unfortunately, he has done in regard to reopening Dún Chaoin school. I suppose we can pardon him for this and hope that in the future the
Minister will be his own man and will not bow to political pressures.
Education will certainly play a very important role in the progress and prosperity of this nation. Nowadays people have fewer working hours and more leisure time. Adult education, which is an important factor of our educational system, must play a greater role in the future.
I should like to see more use made of our national schools and I should like to see them made available in particular for this type of education. These schools belong to the parish and they should be parish centres of education and not just reserved for a certain section of the community from 9.30 a.m. to 3 p.m. every day. I hope the Minister will ensure that these facilities are in future made available to the people.
Over the past few months we have seen new guidelines introduced. I understand these are more or less ideas put forward by the Secretary of the Department last summer. We must not approach changes in education just for the sake of change. Where vocational education is concerned, in the past this was regarded as the poor relation of our educational system. The system has proved itself but I think an attempt is being made to downgrade it again. Control was at local level and it was exercised by the teachers and local representatives sitting together in committee. The system served the country well since its introduction in 1930. I should like to take this opportunity to express my admiration of vocational teachers who down through the years have produced pupils of the very highest calibre, well fitted for their roles in industry or agriculture.
What are our educational problems today? What can we do to solve them? What kind of education does the youth of today need? What are the factors which should determine our educational policy? What say should the teachers have in shaping the policy of the future? Our educational system remains static for almost 40 years. Not until the 1960s was an attempt made to update it. But not enough is being done and our educational system is full of uncertainties. Whither are we going and how will we get there?
The primary system of education had become stagnant and the new curriculum has put a certain amount of life into it. It should be constantly reviewed by experts from all branches of education. A very large percentage of our children finish formal schooling at 16 years of age-in other words, at the primary stage. One great defect is the fact that schooling has become synonomous with education. Nothing could be further from the truth. Formal education is for youth. Education par se is for life. Remembering this, there could be a certain compulsion towards change but, as I have already warned, change for the sake of change can be disastrous.
Our vocational education system has served the country well since 1930. It did not achieve all that it set out to achieve but very careful consideration should be given before it is radically changed. Daily we are becoming more industrialised and a dynamic system of vocational education is essential if we are to meet the changing pattern in our lives. Changes must come. None of us doubts that. A system which does not or cannot change will certainly stagnate. On the other hand, too hasty changes will not succeed. Change must come about by a gradual process.
The Vocational Education Act is under review and this is the time for careful scrutiny of this particular system of education, bearing in mind all the time our transition to a more industrialised state to which our vocational system must be carefully geared. What is suitable in other countries may not necessarily suit our country and, therefore, an independent study must be made on the spot. This is of paramount importance.
We heard a great deal over the last few years about comprehensive schools. These schools may not be as comprehensive as that word implies. Subjects like music, art, physical education, culture and civics have yet to be introduced. These subjects must play an important part in our educational system. Examinations are a formidable hurdle for our young people. How can a student be expected to give in a three hour examination that which he has taken over a three or four year course? The grading system initiated some years ago is in operation and has led to some improvement in the system. There must be an end to this formal examination type assessment. Rather the assessment should be made and reported all through the child's years at school. In order to do this there will have to be more cohesion between the different branches of our educational system. Only in this way can we compete and have a fair assessment made.
Our educational system must cherish all the children equally-slow learners and retarded children as well as our normal school goers. Voluntary organisations have played and in future will play a very big part in our educational system. More teachers and experts in the various fields of education are necessary in these organisations.
I should like to pay a well deserved tribute to Macra na Tuaithe. This organisation caters for the needs of our teenage children. It has many achievements lo its credit since its inception 20 years ago. I am glad the Minister and the Department have seen fit to continue the grant to this organisation which is vitally needed by it to continue its work for the education, on a voluntary basis, of our youth. I should also like to pay tribute to the many industrial firms who have, from time to time, sponsored competitions under the auspices of this organisation. I would ask the Minister to give deeper study and consideration to this.
I should like to make a mention of the teaching of the Irish language in our schools. Language is a means of communication. Emphasis should be put on the oral aspect of Irish. The same can be said for the teaching of all languages. If a person cannot communicate in a language, he has wasted his time learning it. Modern visual aids are very helpful when properly used in the schools, but in untrained hands they become more of a hindrance than a help. The use of words is very important. At one stage it was suggested that "An Nuacht" on RTE should be reported fully in the following day's newspapers because these bulletins contained up to the minute words which would be very valuable in Irish language classes, more particularly in post-primary and adult education.
Irish text books are very hard to obtain. The Minister should look into this.
Career guidance is a very important aspect of our educational system. Not enough is being done by the Department of Education or any other public body in this sphere. This is left to a few of the more responsibly-minded individuals in our community. To prevent the ever-increasing danger of lack of job satisfaction, it is essential that the Department take a long hard look at career guidance and formulate a specific division to deal with it. Every county should have full time career guidance experts in their schools. Career guidance has been approached in a haphazard way for far too long. The Department should run courses for career guidance officers. On a voluntary basis perhaps more could be done by way of career guidance. Past pupils unions could play a useful role in helping present pupils of their old schools and colleges find their proper role and purpose in life. Some unions are already researching this difficult field.
When dealing with education one likes to speak on the part of the educational system with which one is familiar. Being a member of a vocational education committee, I should like to express some thoughts as to how the vocational system is operating at present. There is a certain discontent in regard to the slow progress that is being made towards the rationalisation of post-primary education in Limerick. Although the rationalisation proposals which were put to the various bodies and the schools in the county in 1967 have to a certain extent the support of the County Limerick Vocational Education Committee, it is most disappointing that greater progress has not been made towards rationalisation of the post-primary system in the county. In 1967 and onwards to 1969 there seemed to be a great amount of activity. Hopes and expectations were high. However, the pace over the past couple of years has slackened noticeably and no meeting, no discussion and no dialogue has taken place since April, 1970.
Although the situation with regard to the supply of vocational teachers has improved very much in the past couple of years, there is still a serious shortage in certain disciplines, notably in the practical disciplines and more particularly in typing and shorthand. Ordinary B.Comms. are not in short supply but the vast majority of those are not proficient in the practical aspects of shorthand and typing. The result is that many vocational pupils are denied instruction in those important subjects until the teacher becomes more proficient.
This unsatisfactory state of affairs has obtained for far too long. Down through the years it has been the subject of resolutions at the IVTA Congress year after year, but it is still unresolved. I know the Department organise summer courses in shorthand and typing but those short courses, to my mind, are not the complete answer since one year is a long time in the formal education of an adult pupil and this is the minimum period in which a B.Comm. without shorthand and typing could hope to qualify in those subjects. I offer a suggestion, although perhaps it may have been made before. I suggest that a complete answer to this thorny question might be for the Department to train their own teachers in those subjects. This has been impressed upon me. This could be done on the same lines as woodwork teachers, metalwork teachers and indeed rural science teachers are trained.
Here I am happy to have the opportunity to compliment the Department on the excellent quality of the Department-trained teachers. I know more of the rural science teachers, whose training period is three years in Cork, than others. Those teachers are first class. An important point I have frequently heard discussed is the unjustified expectation that a university graduate can walk straight from the college campus into a school and efficiently teach the subjects in which he has qualified. This is expecting too much. Studying a subject is one thing and teaching it is another. I do not accept that the short courses which the Department run are sufficient for this purpose.
I have every respect for the universities but perhaps the function of training teachers lies elsewhere. It in no way suggests a lessening of my great respect for university graduates when I say that once they obtain a degree they are not, apart from the gifted few, yet ready to stand before a teenage class of average and below average pupils. I am a farmer and I would be last to admit that a fresh Bachelor of Agricultural Science, perhaps with a city background, would automatically be a good farmer. His chances of becoming one are high but he would need considerable practical experience and training.
My recommendation in regard to university graduates in maths, languages et cetera is that the Department should organise a full year's training course for them in the skills of teaching and pay them the minimum teacher's salary during this training period. This would overcome the present difficulty. The future of our country lies, to a large extent, in the hands of our teachers and our teachers must be good.
I should like to bring to the Minister's attention a matter which may not seem to be unusual but becomes unusual when it confronts a vocational education committee at a certain time. At the end of September, the beginning of the school year, one of our senior woodwork teachers died, but the committee were not allowed to fill the vacancy or to advertise for a replacement. I concede that the Department had a point in refusing permission to advertise in this instance because it would probably have meant robbing another committee of a teacher at a crucial time of the year when schools are getting under way.
However, it could be asked is not this rather cutting the situation finely. Have the Department tailored supply and demand to such a nicety? I wonder can such fine tailoring be done, or is it right to attempt to do things in this way ? Surely extra teachers should be trained and recruited to meet such unforeseen circumstances. The extra few over and above the foreseen demand would find plenty to do looking after evening courses or relieving many of the existing woodwork teachers of heavy burdens.
At any rate, the pupils of this centre are now suffering a serious check in woodwork, drawing and other such subjects because the entire timetable has had to undergo major revision and adjustment. I ask the Minister to bear this in mind particularly when he comes to reply.
I now come to another problem facing vocational education. It is the question of school gardens. There was a time when the vocational school garden played a vital role in rural areas. Perhaps school gardens are still meant to play such a role, but the emphasis there seems to have diminished. This is a great pity, a great loss to vocational education and to the pupils. In my view, there are three main reasons for this regrettable decline: one, over-emphasis on academic subjects following the introduction of the intermediate and leaving certificates to the curricula of vocational schools; two, increasing pressures on rural science teachers; and three, the greatest offender of all, the encroachment of prefabricated rooms on school gardens.
All I can say in regard to No. I is that if the introduction of the intermediate and leaving certificates has led to a diminishing interest in practical subjects in vocational schools, including rural science, these certificates and their importance have been misunderstood in certain areas. In regard to No. 2, I should like to point out that many of our rural science teachers are headmasters or assistant principals or hold other posts of responsibility and have heavy burdens in regard to administrative as well as teaching duties. They, therefore, cannot devote as much time as formerly to practical gardening classes and other outdoor experiments. They could, of course, be relieved of some of their responsibilities, thus giving them more time for gardening activities, by relaxing the teacher-pupil ratio imposed by the Department, For those reasons I ask the Minister seriously to consider my final recommendation.
I come now to point No. 3. The encroachment of prefabs is a most serious development. These structures have been condemned by nearly all educational interests, not least by the teachers. They may be acceptable as a temporary relief, but some of them have been there for a long time and there is no sign of that source drying up. I am particularly disturbed that in a number of our schools in County Limerick under the authority of the vocational committee, prefabricated classrooms have eaten drastically into school surroundings with the result that some school grounds, once a joy to behold, now look like army camps. I do not want this to be taken as a piece of preaching, but many of the prefabs I have seen are unattractive. Surely they could be made brighter and more acceptable.
This encroachment on school gardens is a great if not the greatest drawback. Many of our best farmers, many of our industrial workers and many of our best teachers got their basic scientific training and their inspiration to high achievement in the well managed and beautiful gardens of our rural vocational schools and it would be a pity if this trend is allowed to continue. The sooner it can be corrected, the sooner prefabs are removed, the sooner we can regain lost ground in this vital sector.
Finally, as a salute to rural science and to our vocational schools, I wish to quote from the first document on economic development which is to my mind one of the most important documents to hit the Irish scene and which has had such a leading role in generating economic progress. At page 112 it is stated :
It is in vocational education there are best prospects for advance in agricultural education
I should like to refer also to page of the document and the quote is :
If a concerted drive were made over the next five years to spread agricultural education among the rural population by improving the teaching of rural science in vocational schools the effect on agricultural productivity could be very significant. Its secondary effects would reach even further afield in preparing the way for the shaping of primary and secondary education on an agricultural basis and in creating the much-desired love of the land which would discourage migration.
I said a.t the beginning that I was happy to have an opportunity of expressing my views. I would ask the Minister to look as soon as possible into the question of post-primary education in County Limerick.
That report was made in 1967. Many of the figures in it are now out of date. These figures should be updated. The present position should he studied. Post-primary education in County Limerick should be examined. After such examination negotiations should take place between the teachers, the school authorities, the vocational committees, the parents and all others interested in promoting education.
I am happy lo have had an opportunity of expressing these views. I hope that the Minister and his Department will find food for thought in them.
