asked the Minister for Education if he will authorise speech and drama classes during school hours in Glenasmole national school, County Dublin, in accordance with the requests of parents.
16.
Ceisteanna—Questions Oral Answers - Glenasmole (Dublin) National School.
15.
asked the Minister for Education if his Department will provide school transport to Glenasmole national school, County Dublin to enable a speech and drama class to be conducted.
With the permission of the Ceann Comhairle I propose to take Questions Nos. 15 and 16 together.
Speech training and drama form an integral part of the programme in national schools. It is a fundamental constituent of the new curriculum and a detailed syllabus for all students is outlined in the programme.
If the parents concerned wish to organise additional classes in speech and drama, for which I understand a fee would be payable, it would be open to them to do so outside school hours. The use of the school building for such classes after school hours would be subject to the general conditions applicable including the permission of the board of management.
It would not be open to me under the terms of the school transport scheme to provide free transport to enable such an extra activity to take place.
Is the Minister aware that this school — I am sure it applies to other schools — is a small school in a rural area which is not served by a public bus service? Does that not militate against children having speech and drama classes? There are two ways to do it, either to permit the classes during normal school hours or to have the Minister provide them with a school bus. Is not the Minister, in effect, debarring children in all rural areas without bus services from having the benefit of this type of training, which is readily available to city children?
I do not accept that children are being debarred from this type of facility because, as I pointed out in my reply, speech training and drama are a constituent or integral part of the programme in national schools. Therefore, such training can be and is provided during normal school hours. The Deputy also asked whether there could be provision for an additional class specifically catering for speech and drama teaching outside normal hours as is being done in a number of schools.
Is the Minister aware that in this school 30 of the 55 children attending, have, through their parents, opted for speech and drama classes? The parents have available the services of a teacher and they have made provision for the payment of the teacher's salary. However, they are unable to proceed further with the scheme because the Department have refused permission to have these classes during school hours. If that is not permitted the whole project falls, because the children have not got transport to get home after normal school-leaving time. That is the problem in the case of this rural school. The Minister has said it is an authorised part of the curriculum but the practicality is that it cannot be done in a small rural school because there is no public transport. It must be either within the school hours or the Minister must provide the transport.
I recognise the point the Deputy is making but does he in turn not recognise that it could be extremely expensive and complex to organise a second system of school transport to cater for after-hours activities? It would be unreasonable to begin to make arrangements of that nature for one or two schools without organising it for all schools. It would not be practicable to organise two sequences of school transport in rural areas. As I indicated in my reply, in the context of the existing school transport system it is not open to me to make any such special arrangements for any one school.
What the Minister is saying is, in effect, a discrimination against children attending rural schools: they are being discriminated against, in effect, by being unable to get the benefit of this course which the Minister agrees is part of the curriculum. Whatever expense may be necessary to dispense with such discrimination ought to be undertaken.
I assure the Deputy that for 20 years I have been aware of many forms of discrimination being operated at various levels of education, depending on the context of rural or urban children and children from different social categories. The desirable objective is to have equality of opportunity for all pupils in comparable circumstances. I do not see how I can organise special arrangements for one school in this instance without considering the consequences for other schools. Of course the other side of the coin is that if I cannot arrange it for all schools I do not think it would be right to prevent such schools that are in a position to offer additional activities for their pupils from doing so. That would be just as undesirable.
If there are difficulties in providing a further bus service, the situation could be met if the Department, with the approval of the school board, allowed these classes to take place during school hours. That would not cost anything. All that is required is the Minister's permission. Would the Minister do that?
I suggest to the Deputy that we examine the situation more fully in that context. If necessary, we could then have a further question or a discussion on it.