The element of real democracy in education as well as the enrichment of the development process is also a new one for Ireland, though not for other countries. Other countries have welcomed the establishment of different bodies to assist in the work of education. I do not think they have the same fear as this Government have.
There is a third principle, the work of the interim board has been so farreaching and so effective that it overwhelmingly justifies its establishment as a strong, legally-based arm of educational policy-making. That interim board were always assured of their future statutory establishment both by me, by my successor, Deputy Cooney, and by the present Minister up to the moment she took office. I repeat that their work has been so outstanding that it overwhelmingly justifies their establishment as a strong, legally-based arm of educational policy-making.
These three principles come together in this Bill which is before the House this week and next and on which we will see a vote on 11 November. A technical point must be made that in order for this Bill to proceed to Committee and subsequent Stages and to pass into law it would need a majority in this House but the Government would also have to send a money certificate to the House to enable the State to authorise the expenditure required to set up this board. That is, of course, a technicality since there already is money in the Estimates for 1988 for curriculum review. Unfortunately, the Minister by hastily announcing the new advisory board yesterday has shown her unwillingness to listen to Deputies from all parties who are concerned with this question and it shows an apparently increasing fear of independent voices in education. I hope she can explain that position to the House and to the country. It is inexplicable to me.
I appeal again to all parties in this House and to Independents to support this Bill. I hope they will find it possible to take a stand on the main principles which I have set out, the principle of full co-operation between the Department of Education and educational interests in developing and monitoring curriculum and assessment procedures and the principles of permanence and strength which can only be conferred by statutory status so that the voice of educational interests can be heard and cannot be stifled or easily cast aside. The third principle is the endorsement of the work of teachers, parents, management and the energetic committees of the Interim Curriculum and Examinations Board since 1984 in bringing forward serious, well-designed and relevant blueprints for change after an unprecedented degree of national consultation and dialogue, which was never experienced before, in the world of education. Perhaps it would be helpful to take a brief look at the history of this development.
In 1966 there was some movement in the Department of Education and the then Minister was talking about an independent examinations board, but this suggestion was not carried forward. The Coalition Government of 1973-77 prepared a Bill along those lines but it was never enacted, and it did not cover the curriculum. In 1980 the Fianna Fáil Government proposed, in a White Paper, an advisory curriculum council along the lines announced yesterday, but no such council was set up and there was no mention of assessment of examinations. In that same year Fine Gael, in an education policy document called "Education in the Eighties", proposed a curriculum and examinations board on a statutory basis.
The House will recall the turbulent times between 1980 and 1982 when we had various elections. The next step was a very valuable debate in the Seanad during which a previous Minister for Education, Deputy Boland, made a detailed and admirable statement giving his plans for a board. He circulated this document widely, inviting responses. In the following election which was held shortly afterwards, the Coalition Government included the board in their programme as they had done in 1981. Finally, after a year of intense and highly valued work in the Department, in January 1984 an interim Curriculum and Examinations Board was established.
The preparatory work in the Department I recall was of a very high quality and spread over other countries. I was very impressed then, and still am, by the degree of commitment and hard work to the design and structure of the board which existed in the Department. As I said, the board was established on an interim basis in January 1984 with the commitment that plans would go ahead to establish the board by statute. An interim board was established in advance of the statutory board so that the statutory board could benefit from the work and experience in action of the first board, as well as from the advice they would have to give.
Preparation went ahead when the Government had seen the work being done. The Minister's immediate predecessor published a Bill last November — and this is largely the Bill we have before the House today. The Minister welcomed that Bill when she was in Opposition. She was very enthusiastic that a Bill had at last appeared. Perhaps she will tell us why she changed her mind. I found it heartening, as did the board, that Fianna Fáil decided to give a clear commitment in their election manifesto to set up the board on a statutory basis.
In 1984 the country was very lucky in terms of the chairperson and members of the interim board. The degree of energy and skill which marked their work from the first day was remarkable. The principle they established of continuing dialogue right across the country on each subject in order to have the willing co-operation of the people operating the system was remarkable and in the education world was unprecedented. We have a prolific volume of documents from the board, various discussion documents culminating in the main report on issues and structures in education called "In our Schools" which followed other reports. "In our Schools" broadly covered their conclusions of what they felt should now be done. This document was subtitled "A framework for Curriculum and Assessment".
Another document they issued in September 1985 was "Primary Education: A Curriculum and Examinations Board Discussion Paper". That was a solid document which examined what needed to be done in the area of primary education and was drawn up by a primary review committee set up by the board, an expert committee with members from the teaching profession, management, education research and so on. This was a very useful document. I am mentioning this because this afternoon I was surprised to hear the Minister decrying the work of the board in the area of primary education, and basically accusing them of doing nothing.
The documents the board brought out constitute a most up to the minute collection of educational signposts which will bring us into the nineties and beyond. A very small staff serviced the board most ably. These documents were a measure of the motivation and commitment of the members who felt they were involved in something historic and worthwhile, something that would shape Ireland's education system in a new exciting way. Because they were happy with the assurances of the present Minister when in Opposition, they felt that this board would not be a political football but would be established on a statutory basis — perhaps with different personnel because nobody expects a board to have the same personnel all the time on a statutory basis — as part of our legal system backing and working with the Department.
We all hope their major recommendations will be carried into legislation, particularly the new unified junior cycle system of assessment that needs to be put in place at the earliest opportunity. The Minister has appointed a different board to carry on the same work and fortunately that board still has some of the former members on it and will be able to continue the work of the old board. The board did a great deal of work on the primary education system, arts in education, language in the curriculum, science and technology and so on. This was the result of work done by different committees set up by the board which called on the experience of people inside and outside the education system.
When I am praising the board I am not in any way criticising the officers in the Department of Education. It was always a source of amazement and admiration to me that the staff of the Department could achieve so much with rapidly expanding schools and the increasing student population which put enormous pressure on them. The demands placed on the inspectorate in particular by the expansion of the examination system meant they were able to do less central, pivotal work — the monitoring, inspection and advice to schools, the nuts and bolts of the education system. The inspectorate produced work on the curriculum in the past and proposed certain initiatives for change, all of which was available to the Curriculum and Examinations Board through the departmental advisers. Of course, the inspectorate as civil servants and with responsibility for the maintenance and delivery of the service are, naturally, constrained from bringing forward ideas for public debate. Therefore, the board was a complementary and co-operative unit with the Department. The Department could now interact in a clearly structured and legally established way with all education interests. Their position as advisers to the board guaranteed that interaction.
There were some misgivings inside and outside the Department about such a new and radical departure. Some officials in the Department felt a little worried about what they perceived to be a dilution of what was hitherto absolute power over curriculum development. In any large institution, particularly in a Government Department, there is always a natural inbuilt resistance to change. There is an inbuilt resistance to change in this House and in many other establishments. However, it is the Minister's duty to be innovative, to do what is right and bring as many people as possible with her. Resistance was found among some of the bodies who were asked to participate in the board. They were suspicious of being seen to be involved with Governments they might not always agree with but most of those misgivings have been put to rest because of the superb working of the board and the effective nature of its structures.
I should like to deal with some details of the Bill. I look forward to what will be a major debate on education that will accompany our consideration of the Bill. I have had correspondence from various groups about the Bill, particularly the Teachers' Union of Ireland. That group put forward suggestions for consideration on Committee Stage. I should like to emphasise that we are anxious to hear from the Minister if the Government will provide the certificate to enable the Bill to proceed. In the absence of Government consent to sending that certificate, we will be voting at the end of Second Stage on the principles of the Bill. It is unfortunate, if one is to judge by yesterday's hasty announcement which was intended to pre-empt this debate, that little attention will be paid to the opinion of the House on whether a statutory board should be established. It is important that Members on this side indicate what they feel should be done and what they think of the attitude of the Minister in pre-empting decisions of the House.
Members may have reservations about the composition of the proposed board. It is important to point out that when the interim board was being established if the Minister did not have a range of appointments to make to that board there would have been very few women represented on it. The different bodies were not to be aware that other groups were nominating men and we might have had a board with one or two women at most. That would have been quite unacceptable and for that reason it is extremely important for the Minister to have leeway to appoint people to make up that imbalance and any geographical or specialist imbalances.
The functions of the proposed board include curriculum and asessment. The two are inextricably linked. The group which controls examinations governs the curriculum and I am sure the House will agree with that. One of the reasons why there was a long period of delay in setting up the board — since 1966 — was the failure to recognise the crucial and central idea of the link between assessment and curriculum. The areas to which the board will be required to have regard are dealt with in the Bill and the House should examine them carefully. I should like to draw the attention of the House to the requirement for ensuring favourable international comparability in our educational standards. That is very relevant to a modern education system and particularly at a time when we are drawing closer in every respect to other European countries. Our education system is held in high regard internationally and it is important that we should stand up favourably to international comparisons. Written into the Bill is a provision that the board must have regard to the elimination of any barriers to education on the grounds of sex. I will not labour that point because I believe the Minister has a commitment in that area and I am sure she will agree with the provision. It is unfortunate that, arising out of the Minister's decision yesterday, we will not have such a provision written into our laws. That is a great shame.
We ask the board to have regard to the development of a capacity for critical thought in pupils. We consider that to be very important because one of the most fundamental elements in a modern education system is that it should develop the independent critical faculties of young people in an age when they are being bombarded from all sides by strong commercially-based interests in the media. We must emphasise the essential importance of a critical thought capacity. It is unfortunate we do not have time to go into the section in any great detail but I hope we will have an opportunity of discussing it on Committee Stage.
Section 3 (4) requires the board to cost its proposals. If the board spent time devising plans without costing them they would be planning in a vacuum. The Minister made some play about that earlier today. It is in the interests of all those who will benefit from the work of the board that such a provision should be included in the Bill. I do not think any Member should underestimate the importance of the Bill which could open up a new era in education. In my view we will be asked to vote confidence in the education system. We will be asked to show a respect for and confidence in all those who work within the system by giving them formal links with the Department of Education. In the Bill a range of bodies have been designated to have a right of close relationship with the board and they range from the industrial to the academic and the trade union movement. Those bodies will have the right to make submissions, to be consulted and receive copies of the board's publications. That element of co-operation and involvement of the wider society in education is long overdue.
The object of setting up a curriculum and assessement board on a statutory basis is to bring together the world of so many different curriculum initiatives across the country, to translate them into action. Its design is the result of Irish and international research. It brings the responsibilities of curriculum and assessment together in a major new arm of educational progress designed to work with and not against the Department of Education and the Minister because the Minister, in the final analysis, must hold the responsibility for the people. In my view the setting up of this board will be the best educational practice and other countries will look to Ireland in the future, as they did in the past, to see our initiative in action.
There is no reason, at a time of economic difficulty, to call a halt to the proliferation of ideas for the promulgation of excellence. Many people believe — and I am one of them — that there is a strong wish in the educational world to move ahead, to welcome new ideas and to put them to work even if extra demands are put on teachers, students, parents and management in order to do so. Teachers have risen to the challenge of change in recent years in undertaking new experiments and curriculum projects in classrooms across the country. Parents have generously responded in helping to raise funds and communities and employers have shown a willingness to encourage and facilitate such initiatives. The establishment of this board on a statutory basis is a recognition of all that good work and all the involvement outside the Department in curriculum reform.
I am more than slightly worried about one of the elements the Minister mentioned in a press release announcing the establishment of a new board, a new council for curriculum and assessment, to be known as the National Curriculum Council. I understand that the Minister has given that body three years to fulfil their mandate. I find that a very alarming aspect — apart from all the other alarming aspects — of yesterday's announcement. What happens after three years? Does education stop then? Does society stop evolving? The refusal to give a statutory and permanent foundation to the work of educational reform, thereby guaranteeing its continuation, is a major change in direction and a change for the worse. It is, as I said at the outset, totally inexplicable but I hope the Minister will explain why she has taken this approach and why that main central initiative could not be carried through. She called for such an initiative which her Government undertook to fulfil in their election manifesto. I hope the Minister can give a clear, succinct answer as to why she has this problem about setting up a statutory body.
It is so important as well to encourage the people who met all the committees of the interim board. They travelled the country and gave days, weeks and months to consultations and meetings in pursuit of their remit to undertake curriculum reform. We have seen in their actions scores of educationalists fired with the commitment to working for their country. To stop that impetus, to deny them the next phase in that development would be to depress the genuine desire to serve which the interim board tackled so strenuously and effectively.
I hope it is not too late to conclude with a renewal appeal to the Government and the Minister to take up this impetus, to tap into this great well of goodwill which is there for the asking by establishing the board on a statutory basis, giving it the backing of Dáil Éireann and the confidence of the country. To do so, even at this late stage, would gain the applause — not only of all sides of the House — but of the country, in particular the world of education which so wholeheartedly welcomed the opportunity to involve itself in what it saw as great national work. In the final analysis, we are talking about a commitment to our unique, inspiring young population who depend on this House to put political considerations aside in their interest.
I commend the Bill to the House.
