: Before the break for questions I had been dealing with the question of community schools and in particular with the various aspects of the deed of trust to which the Minister may or may not be committed. I referred in particular to the question of reserved posts. This concept is strange at the best of times and, possibly, is repugnant to the Constitution. Certainly, it is not one that should be included in the draft deed of trust. It is inescapable that many aspects of the draft deed of trust will worsen the conditions of service of teachers in these schools and of teachers who may transfer into these schools from other types of schools, notably schools under the control of vocational education committees.
To give one example of what I have in mind I would point to the right of a teacher under a vocational education scheme not to be dismissed except in certain circumstances. This right is being weakened seriously as a result of the draft deed of trust and if the deed is retained in its present form the likelihood is that many teachers from these areas whose skill might be needed in the community schools would not be persuaded to move into such schools.
The basic problem is not solved simply by getting however many teachers to apply under inadequate conditions of the deed of trust. The basic need is to change the deed of trust to make sure that it reflects the conditions of service which are generally agreed by and agreeable to the organised teachers in these and other schools when they want at any stage to be transferred to them.
The third point is in relation to the presence of teachers on boards. Here again we are at a loss to know whether the Minister feels himself committed in respect of the schools which are already operational, to sign the existing draft deed of trust or whether he considers it is open to him to redraft it in order to put teachers on it. He referred to this at length in the addendum to his Estimate speech. I read this with considerable interest but ended up no wiser than when I began. All that emerges from this detailed exegesis of the present state of the community schools problem is that we still do not know. We know one thing from this and that is that the Minister's personal opinion, and presumably that of his Department, would tend to favour a situation in which you can have different kinds of deeds of trust for different community schools and in which he could sign 24, 35 or whatever number there are, deeds of trust for the existing community schools, sweep them off his desk and get down to a round of further negotiations about subsequent deeds of trust.
At the same time he puts us on notice that both managerial and teacher organisations are strongly of the view that decisions in regard to existing and future schools should be taken at the same time. Here we have what appears to be a ministerial group and what appears to be the view of the managerial and teacher organisations with whom he is negotiating, and it appears to be a stalemate position. In this stalemate position the best the Minister can suggest—and I can see his reasons for suggesting this—is that the revision should be feasible on the basis of the experience acquired to date. He also suggested that even if he were to sign deeds in the present form in relation to the original group of schools, it might also be feasible to make provisions as agreed at a later date in the case of deeds already signed.
I would love to be as optimistic as the Minister that such deeds, if signed, could ever be subject to any substantial revision. He will be aware of the fuss and hullabaloo which occurred when the last Minister for Education but one made some relatively insignificant changes in the structure of management in primary schools, a system that had remained unchanged for over a century. When I say "relatively insignificant" what I mean is that the fundamental power structure in relation to the management and control of these schools remained unchanged after the introduction of boards of management.
The Minister will be aware that this series of changes necessitated a complex and lengthy process of negotiations, discussions and arguments with all the parties involved. Given that history, for him to expect that it will be possible to review and revise within anything like a reasonably short period deeds of trust signed with various parties to govern community schools in the form of the draft deed of trust which we have now seen, is surely to be optimistic beyond the wildest dreams of any political reality.
The fundamental problem within the context of which I raised this, and which should now be obvious, is that this problem of the composition of the boards of management in community schools cannot and probably never will be solved satisfactorily at the level of the individual school. The corollary of that is that it is unlikely either that we will have a satisfactory resolution of the problem of our education administration simply by creating direct links between individual schools and the Department of Education in Marlborough Street.
Ask any community school principal what he thinks of the arrangement by which he has to go cap in hand to the Department for every last halfpenny he wants to spend in his school. It is a system which is not suited to the nineteenth century, let alone the twentieth, yet it is a system which is frustrating development, cramping flexibility, creativity and innovativeness in our educational system. As I said, the answer to it is for the Minister to take the radical step—it is not so radical when you consider what was done in 1930—of having an educational administration which is locally based, locally responsible and accountable, as well as being nationally and financially accountable in Marlborough Street.
The doggedness with which the Minister is continuing to insist on trying to solve the community school problem at the level of the individual school is indicative of the thinking that the Government and the Department are unwilling to allow any of the strings of power leave their hands. The same is true of their attitude to the science and humanities project of the City of Dublin Vocational Educational Committee which already has been referred to at length by Deputy Collins. I am glad he referred to it because that means I do not have to repeat anything he said. I agree with him that it seems to be extraordinary, at a time when we are spending so much, that such a relatively small project which has such substantial potential for innovation in Irish education should have been told that the special mode of examination, without which it will die, is not going to be extended beyond June 1979. The total amount involved is less than 1 per cent of the current budget of the City of Dublin VEC. There are 24 schools involved and 15,000 children who have been introduced by these projects to a type of education and a way of learning that was not available in Irish schools before now.
The principal of one of the schools in question told me that at the beginning of this project he was seriously worried by the absence of any real interest among his pupils in science. The science part of the project was started and now, within a few short years, he has more demand for places in science classes than he can satisfy in his school. That is a good omen for the future of the country, the economy and the children attending schools.
The decision not to fund the assessment system beyond the end of June 1979 is serving notice to these schools that this experiment is regarded as not being important enough to continue, and furthermore it is also serving notice that the Department still believe all curricula innovations and development can best be organised from the centre of the system.
With all due respect to the many dedicated and skillful people who work in the Department, the overall approach of the Department to education is not conducive to promoting the kind of innovativeness which has reached a flowering in this project. I know projects have been started by the Department which are still going under the aegis of that Department. This is authentic, school based, real and important to the children, and it is amazing to the teachers, but it is being knocked by the Department because it is not under their direct control. That is the beginning, the middle and the end of it.
It is one thing to say that, whether in relation to the organisation of schools or the organisation of curricula, the Department will not let go, but the Department are under the control of a Minister who has a mandate from this House to do what he wishes in relation to the education. It is ultimately up to the Minister. If the Minister decides that the Department should let go, at least in part, it is important that he should create the conditions where this can happen. We have no evidence that this fundamental aspect of the problem has yet been considered by the Minister.
I will review the manifesto in the light of the Minister's speech this morning and in the light of some of the things that have happened since the manifesto was published which are not referred to in the Minister's speech. I described the manifesto before as a rather cautious, careful response to organised pressure groups rather than a coherent and carefully thought out policy. However, there were a number of commitments in the manifesto which I intend to bring to the attention of the House.
