I move:
That Dáil Éireann criticises the Minister for Education for failing to institute a review of the financing, publishing and distribution problems associated with the provision of school textbooks, in view of the widespread public dissatisfaction with the present system.
It will be evident by now that every September, as inevitably as death and taxes, we see photographs in the daily newspapers, and particularly in the city evening newspapers, showing the incredible queues which exist outside bookshops selling new and secondhand school books. It is a hardy annual, and it would be a laughing matter if it were not so serious. The queues, however, dramatic and all as they are, are no more than the outer-sign of the malaise of a system which has got creakier and creakier over the years and which cannot by any stretch of the imagination be said to measure up to the needs of the modern age.
Books are as essential to learning as air is to breathing, virtually. This is especially true in our schools system which places a very high premium still on book learning, on academic qualities and on academic education. Allegedly we have a system of free primary education and free post-primary education. The right to free primary education is guaranteed by our Constitution. The right to free post-primary education, although not guaranteed by the Constitution certainly after the age of 15 years, is acknowledged in practice and has been by successive Governments. Yet, the fact is that many parents are now paying more for school books than ever they paid in fees before the fees were abolished at post-primary level at any rate.
It is an open secret that in many cases these fees are being replaced by voluntary contributions which sting the parents' pockets no less severely. That is by the way and I do not propose to go into that area during this debate. If we accept that education at certain levels ought to be free, if we accept that books are an essential ingredient in education at the very least we should be substantially more generous in terms of our provision of books than either of the schemes presided over by this administration. Of course, these schemes were not launched by this administration. They were launched by a previous administration and have been continued by several administrations.
When I call for criticism of the Minister on this score it is more precisely because we would have thought, in the light of many of his statements about the importance of education and the importance of primary education in particular, that we would have seen far more dramatic progress in this field than we have seen to date.
It is obvious, of course, that the queues outside Greene's bookshop, not a couple of hundred yards from here, or any other bookshop, are not a matter directly amenable to ministerial control. I would not hold the Minister to ransom for not abolishing them. Some of the problems associated with the distribution and provision of school textbooks arise from human nature. Sometimes parents, sometimes pupils, even though provided with book lists well in advance, do not actually supply themselves with the books until the term actually starts. We cannot blame the Minister for that. But there are other areas in which he has responsibility and I propose to deal with these in my address. Quite apart from that, it is now obvious from the degree of public disgruntlement which greets the opening of the school year every September, particularly in relation to school books, that people are dissatisfied with the present system. Either they do not know how to work it properly, they are not being shown how or they are not being told where responsibility lies. This is why we have put down this motion asking the Minister to institute a review. On an earlier occasion the Minister chided me when I put down another motion looking for money on the grounds that it was easy—as indeed it is, and traditional—for an Opposition to spend the Government's petty cash, but in this motion all we ask for is a review which hopefully would be carried out in public and which by a widespread dissemination of the problems facing anybody involved in the distribution, sale or prescription of school textbooks might, as well as improving the system, spread knowledge among the public of how that system works.
I put down a question today asking the Minister for Education if he would institute such a review. The reply I go to Question No. 265 on today's Order Paper said: "My Department are fully informed in relation to this matter and a formal review of the arrangements is not considered necessary." I do not think the answer could be shorter if the Minister had tried to write a shorter one—a mere two lines on the official answer sheet, dismissive in tone and totally unhelpful in character. The Minister may be satisfied that he knows all he needs to know, that no formal review of the arrangements is considered necessary, but if he had been knocking on doors—and no doubt he was, in some areas in County Cork at least in the last few weeks—he would certainly have known that people are not satisfied. My own experience while canvassing in that by-election was that at any door when I announced myself as Labour Party spokesman on Education the odds were about four or five to one that somebody would bring up the school books question. It was not prompted; I did not ask if they were satisfied with the present system. As soon as they heard the word "education" they reached for the gun, in this case school books. Certainly, the Minister has responsibility in this matter and it is not a responsibility that can be discharged by fairly bland words in answer to a Dáil question.
I turn now to the facts as I understand them to support my contention that not only is a review necessary but that a particular aspect of the review, that involving the financing of the school textbook system, is particularly in need of review. To do this I propose to review the history both at primary and post-primary level of the provision of free school books under the free school books scheme. I also propose to examine the working of the scheme. Here again is another area where a review is overdue. If we look at the Estimates for the past couple of years we see a truly extraordinary situation for any administration which has prided itself on its contribution to education in general and in particular to primary education.
In 1977, when the Minister came into office, £258,000 was provided in the Estimate for the free primary school books scheme. The Minister and his predecessor between them managed to spend £256,000, and one may say that is fair enough. What happened in 1978? All that the Minister for Education could wangle out of the Minister for Finance was a mere £260,000, only £2,000 more than in the previous year, a derisory increase of .77 per cent. This was at a time when even under this much-lauded Fianna Fáil administration the consumer price index was going up by 7.6 per cent, ten times as fast as the provision for free primary school books. The Minister spent only £238,000 or to be exact £238,193. In the first full year of Fianna Fáil Government, in his first full year as Minister for Education, the Minister spent almost £20,000 less than was spent in the previous year when he had the benefit of a Coalition budget from a Minister and an administration which he has never been slow to deride.
The amount provided in the Estimates for 1978 was £270,000, an increase on the previous year of 3.85 per cent. Comparing that with what is likely to happen with inflation in the current year—we have not yet got all the figures but it is almost certain that inflation will be somewhere between 12 and 14 per cent—we are talking about an extra allocation of 3.85 per cent for the free school books scheme in a year when inflation is running at four times that figure. We must seriously question our priorities in this regard. We cannot stop there because the Department of Education have told us, if I do not get the figures wrong, that the actual amount spent so far this year is approximately £354,500 on the primary school books scheme. This is substantially in excess of the Estimate and we must look at it coolly and calmly. It is a matter for approval that more money should be spent in this important area than is allowed for in the Estimates but we must ask how does it compare with what was spent previously and does it match the real need of the situation. When we compare it with what was spent previously we find that the apparent jump is not so great. The amount of money actually spent on free school books in 1977 was £256,000. If we ask what this sum should be increase by, given the approximately 33? per cent inflation that has taken place since then, we come out with a figure very close to this £350,500 actually spent since the beginning of this year.
Clearly, what has happened is that the Minister and the Government, impelled by a belated but nonetheless worthy sense of the importance of this area of expenditure and probably also by the undertakings they gave in the national understanding, have decided to increase the amount spent on primary school books. But we would require more proof than we have that the amount spent represents any substantial increase in real terms over the amount spent in 1977. If the Minister has such proof I hope he will give it to the House. I stress the words "real terms". We must allow for inflation and everything else and in the case of inflation let us remember that the cost of school books is a particular component of the CPI that in some regards may run substantially ahead of the average rate of the increase in prices. This is because school books are generally printed on paper and the cost of paper in the last few years has gone up not by 33? per cent but by 100 per cent. One would expect a very substantial increase in real terms on the basis of the ordinary level of inflation before one would even begin to be satisfied that a substantial increase had taken place in the value of the scheme to the pupils.
A thorough review of the operation of the scheme is long overdue. The present scheme, as I understand it, unless it has been altered since the Estimates were published, allows a grant to each school at the rate of approximately £3 per child from first class to sixth class up to a maximum of 25 per cent of the total enrolment in the school. All schemes must start somewhere, but this scheme embodied so much of the old poor law mentality that it is difficult to defend it at this time. It puts the principal teacher, whose job it is to administer it, in an extremely invidious position. He must decide subject to the 25 per cent guideline how many pupils are needy. If he concludes that 35, 40, 45 or 50 per cent of the pupils are needy, it is tough luck: I presume the 25 per cent cut-off still applies. The maximum amount of the grant the school can get is so much per child in relation to the percentage of the school roll notified to the Department as being in need. The principal then has to parcel out that money on the basis of the needs, as he sees them, of the individual pupils.
I have never aspired to the job of being a principal teacher in any sort of school although I imagine it is a very rewarding job for people whose bent lies in that, direction, but if I were the principal teacher of a school the one job that would be most repellant to me would be that of operating an effective means test on my pupils. Many principal teachers do this job with a tact and a discretion above and beyond the call of duty. That is not the point. The point is they should not be asked to do it. It is an invidious and mean thing to ask any professional teacher to do. The other thing is that it applies only to pupils from first to sixth classes. The reason for this is, I presume, that education is not compulsory until first class and is certainly not compulsory for junior and senior infants levels.
There is plenty of evidence that this scheme simply does not match up to the financial needs of the situation, whatever about the invidious distinctions that its operation must inevitably cause. I understand that the major teacher's organisation in this area, the Irish National Teachers' Organisation, have initiated their own inquiry into the cost of school books at primary school level in order to prepare a submission to the Department for an improvement in the present scheme. I do not know whether that submission has yet reached the Department, but I can assure the Minister if it has not, that when it does it will pose very serious problems for the financing of the present scheme. I am informed, for example, that even at infants' level the cost of books can range between £2 and even £5 to £6. In other words, even before the child has gone into the junior school proper, class one, his parents may be spending twice the maximum grant allowed by the Department of Education. Naturally as he goes up in the school, the cost of books increases. At third class level, according to the sample carried out by the organisation, the cost of primary school books ranges between £8 and £9, up to three times the amount of the maximum grant. At sixth class level, where the work is fairly specialised and intense, the cost of books can range from £13 to £16, almost five times the maximum grant allowed by the Department.
I would be more than grateful if the Minister could explain how any school principal is expected to perform the miracle of the loaves and fishes on this kind of financial allocation. Even at that the situation in the primary school is, to some extent, made better by the fact that even though they have abandoned the idea of having the single textbook per class per year, they do their best to minimise the changeover in texts, subject of course to their evident desire to expose the children to as wide a range of educational materials as possible.
There is another problem in relation to this on the other side and that is that the book producers in their laudable desire to keep the cost of books as low as possible often have to make do with slightly less substantial materials than they would like with the result that the books do not last as long on the secondhand market as they might otherwise do. I think I have said enough on this point to argue very strongly that the question of the organisation and financing of the free book scheme are long overdue for review.
A year or so ago I put down a question asking the Minister for Education what the cost would be of providing free primary school books for every child in the country. At that time I was told that the cost would have been about £4 million. I am sure it is more now but I am sure also that the amount which the Government then handed back to the people who formerly paid wealth tax, when they abolished the wealth tax, is now also very substantially bigger. I make no apology for contrasting the £4 million it would have cost to improve our primary system in this basic regard with the £8 million, £10 million or £12 million which the Government gave back to the people who need it least.
I quote for the Minister's edification a speech by Dr. Birch, Bishop of Ossory, reported in The Irish Times of 1 November 1978 when he queried whether free education, in the commonly acceptable sense of the word, was available.
He asked: "What happens when the parents have few means?" He added: "We have numbered off social classes. I wonder what guarantee of full education social class five, as we call the totally-disadvantaged, has in this respect from the State or most of our schools? There is ample evidence that, for a variety of reasons, they certainly cannot expect the promised equality, no matter what their innate talents may be, and they know it from hard experience."
The Minister never told us whether he considered such a dramatic scheme but if he did many people would thank him for it.
I find it extraordinary that in 1977—at a time when the economy, according to the then Opposition, subsequently the Government, was in ruins and needed Fianna Fáil to get it moving again—we were spending on free primary school books an amount of money which, after adjustment for inflation, is virtually on a par with what the present Minister is spending at a time, according to the Minister for Industry, Commerce and Energy on the radio last Sunday, when the economy is booming. All those statements cannot be true. Either the economy is not booming or something else is wrong.
In relation to the secondary area, the figures are almost equally surprising. In 1977 £600,000 was provided in the Estimate for free school books for necessitous children at post-primary level. A sum of £628,000 was spent. In 1978, in the first budget to include a specific contribution from this Fianna Fáil Minister for Education, the amount remained static at £600,000. This represented a decrease in real terms. The Minister was not giving more money for this scheme; he was giving less because books cost more. He managed to spend £540 more than the £600,000 allocated. Given the fact that Departments and Ministers sometimes manage to spend less than they are allocated, I suppose this is something to congratulate him for. Certainly it did not bring his spending up to the level needed to keep pace with inflation. In 1979, the current year, the Estimate increase is £636,000. In other words, in 1979 the estimate for free school books for primary school children has gone up by 6 per cent over 1978 where inflation is expected to run at at least double that figure. I should point out that in using a figure for 1979 inflation I am obviously restricted to the first three-quarters of the year but I doubt very much that the final quarter will add very much to it or, even more importantly, subtract anything from it.
At post-primary level the books are even more expensive. I bought books this year for one of my own children in fifth year and I counted myself lucky to get out at £40. This was in a school where the maximum attempt is made to avoid unnecessary changes of books and to pass on books if they can be used a second time.
There seems to be particular problems in relation to certain areas. Set books are prescribed for different subjects and this works reasonably well in modern languages. However, in some areas, such as history, geography and Irish, different books are available and the teacher may select books that he or she particularly likes working with. We must maintain reasonable flexibility in relation to the provision of text books at post primary level. I do not think that any of us wants a grey uniformity in text books, not least because children like reasonably bright well-produced text books and will learn well from them. Mistakes do happen. Teachers may allocate books for the following year and may not be teaching that class in the following year. Their place may be taken by a teacher who does not teach from those books. Parents have given me instances of situations in which books were prescribed and bought and never actually opened from one end of the year to the other. Perhaps this is something the Minister cannot do a lot about, but if he instituted the review we are looking for he could enable responsible parents to ventilate these grievances and could enable teachers and other organisations to explain some of the problems they face and some of the needs that they are experiencing.
One of the aspects of the cost of post-primary school books is VAT. On several occasions I have pressed this Government for action to reduce the level of VAT on school text books and school materials. Time and time again I have been told that under Common Market regulations it is impossible to take VAT completely off text books. This, of course, is an evasion. It is possible to reduce VAT to a zero rate. Although the Common Market is not exactly keen on this procedure, it has been known to wear it from time to time. It would also be possible to at least reduce VAT to the level at which it does not become a penal imposition on learning. Ireland's rate of VAT on books at the moment is the second highest in Europe. If the Minister had the welfare of the education system at heart he would do more than he has done—and I know he has done a bit, so far unsuccessfully—to persuade his colleague the Minister for Finance to do something about it. Unfortunately, the Minister for Finance has shown himself impervious to argument from the Department of Education, who have written to him to ask him to do something about VAT, and from his own party, who at their last Ard Fheis passed a resolution urging him to remove VAT from school books.
The National Federation of Christian Brothers' Schools Parents' Councils tell me that, according to their information, the total VAT collected on books in 1973 was only £699,000. Even on the basis of an increased figure, we must seriously ask the Minister whether he can do something about removing, or at least lessening the impact of, this tax. Now is the time to end the confusion or to at least do something to explain to the people who labour under it, whether teachers, parents or book publishers and distributors, who themselves have to pay the cost of an inefficient system, exactly what can or cannot be done to improve the system. It is no joy to the publishers of textbooks to have to be sending five or six different parcels of books off to a school when one parcel would have done the job far more expeditiously and efficiently.
I believe that some kind of centralised book-purchasing or requisition system, perhaps operated under the aegis of the vocational education committees for all the schools in their area, primary as well as post-primary, might go some of the way towards ending the annual September rush. As well as that the Minister should be organising courses in his Department to enable those teachers who have been given special responsibility for school books in their area to organise the distribution of the books within the schools, to organise the collection and re-use of second-hand books and in general to make the system even more effective and efficient than it is now. Under pressure of finance it is becoming more so, but we should not have to wait before we do anything until books become so expensive that they become virtually out of reach for many parents. We should institute such a review now and we should do it in an open and public way so that the Minister and his officials can explain their difficulties, the teachers can explain their difficulties, and the parents, especially the parents, can air their grievances.
The Minister for Education has put down an amendment to welcome his action in increasing the financial allocation for the free book scheme and his initiative in expanding the publication of textbooks through Irish. By including the question of the publication of textbooks through Irish, he is, of course, dragging in what we would call extraneous matter. This was not what I put down my motion for and it is not why I am critical of the Minister. On the basis of the figures that I have given to the House, I find it hard to believe that he can even begin to stand over the phrase which seeks to welcome his action in increasing the financial allocation for the free book scheme. I have already pointed out that, on the basis of the published figures in the Book of Estimates, no such increases have taken place. On the basis of what has actually been spent—and we have some information as recently as this afternoon to indicate that there may have been a slight increase—there is no indication that it has done any more than keep pace with the rate of inflation since 1977. I doubt very much that people are satisfied with the organisation of the free book scheme and its financing. I should be very surprised if the trade union movement, which has behaved extremely responsibly in this matter in seeking an undertaking from the Government on educational expenditure in the national understanding, will be satisfied with the situation as I have outlined it. That is why I moved this motion on behalf of the Labour Party.
