——in Paris two years ago organised, again, by the OECD. There, the national secretariat did their work over a two-year period. They collected facts, figures and all the rest. Then, for ten days, the representatives from the various countries were brought together to write the report that represented and brought together the findings in the various national groups. I can testify to the hard work we put in during that ten-day period. First of all, we had open plenary sessions on the report divided into four or five major parts. Then we had the working parties set up to prepare draft reports on these which came before the full commission, again in plenary session, as often as it was necessary to bring them back until we finally evolved a document. That was done in ten days.
I believe, in relation to this present Report on Investment in Education, that, when the work has been done, if the steering committee or an enlarged version of that had been taken somewhere—Killarney, say—cut off completely from their homes, businesses and work and put down to hard work, they could have produced in ten days a really first-class set of conclusions and recommendations based on the facts that had been given here. But, as we get it, on the one hand we have the claim made again and again by the secretariat and re-enforced here—by the survey team—that they avoided all value judgments and all comments on policy issues so that their main reference went into justifying the term "economic" in the name of the organisation that put up most of the funds, the OECD.
Now, I might say that, in the group in which we were in Paris, we were under the same pressure. This pressure was: "The funds are coming from a body that is sponsoring economic development" and, therefore, you have to try to stress that at all times. I think nobody, for one moment, could hold that the report as it has emerged has not influenced policy. Even by the figures it has given about the economic advantages—with which I shall deal later—of amalgamating small schools or the economic advantages of getting money for educational development by removing income tax allowances in respect of children over the age of 16, nobody, for one moment, can conclude that the parts in the report referring to these and many other issues have not influenced public thinking and policy. I say they have a perfect right to do so, provided the public receive, side by side with these recommendations that were based on value judgments, comments on the inadequacy or otherwise of present policies, or recommendations for changes in policy. Surely, all those should have come together? It is a frightening thought that the economic aspects of something must be the first to hit the public and that, in fact, they must have the field practically to themselves over a year or more, while those who place reliance on value judgments and who believe that it is not by bread alone that man lives, belatedly, try to catch up with the supposed wonders of the economic advantages that are proposed. Had there been any type of commission at the end of it, as I suggested, then, of course, these value judgments would have been put in their proper setting and they would have been made with a full consciousness of the economic advantages that the survey team claim they found for those various recommendations.
These are general points and I hope that in future the Government, while using this type of survey team, will balance it. Otherwise, we are indeed heading into the era of economic man in this country, an era that would disregard our past, would disregard everything but man, the economic instrument.
There is another point about such survey teams about which I am not over-happy, that is, the influence of the Department concerned. I make this point without in any way making any implications against any Department. I would make the same point against the university if there were a survey team and if the work were done within the university and one of its members were a leading university person. It would be open to doubt, to say the least. Above all, the lack of criticism in this Report of Department policy is rather striking. The Fine Gael document which I have read seemed to read far more criticism of past policies of the Department into the Report than I have been able to read into it. For instance, if we take the question of increased numbers of teachers, the obvious answer, if the present output of teachers is not sufficient, is to increase the capacity of the training colleges. Yet, in this document, whether feeling that they were bound by policy decisions or not, the team accepted the fact that the Government, in 1962, increased the capacity of the training colleges from 1,100 to 1,200 and that that was the end of the increase and that all other means of getting teachers were explored, and so on, but the obvious measure and the one that will have to make the greatest contribution to increasing the number of available teachers is that the capacity of the training colleges must be stepped up to meet their contribution.
Again, I do not want the Department to take this criticism as in any way personal to that Department but I do think that if a survey committee are set up in future, they should be located outside of any Department of State and should be given its own offices. Probably, the Economic Research Institute might fulfil that role. It is a body that we know is neutral and impartial in making an assessment of whatever situation is being investigated. If the team that made the present Report had been located in the Central Statistics Office under the Department of the Taoiseach, it probably would have been more correctly located.
Of course, the statistical and the factual work involved deserves our highest praise and has been done in an exceedingly competent manner but it is, as is usual with such work, interspersed all over the place with assumptions. Of course, one has to make a start but different assumptions in the case of different parts of the Report could very significantly alter conclusions. Any group are entitled to make their own assumptions and to work out conclusions on those assumptions but the assumptions should have been underscored and clearly labelled as assumptions.
I come now to the main difficulty I find in the Report itself and I am trying to suggest means to broaden out what we have in the Report. The main glaring fault is that there are no international comparisons whatsoever within its 410 pages. It baffles me completely how you can investigate an educational system without seeing how that system compares even with the system across the Border, or in England, or in the small countries in Western Europe. It is a pity that that comparison was not made. I did think that the terms of reference in at least two or three places would have allowed that. Clause (b) of the terms of reference included, "and also the experience of other countries" and (c) again made a reference to international experience. We have got, then, to try to provide that information for ourselves.
Another point which should strike the reader of this Report very forcibly is the segregation of the primary, secondary and vocational systems. While the ultimate aim is to bring the vocational and secondary arms closer together and to provide a type of what is called comprehensive education, the Report keeps them segregated, and especially when it comes to financial matters. While it is chasing pence and half-pence at the primary school level, it has no interest whatsoever in finance at the vocational school level. In other words, the obvious figures that stand out are that the average cost at present per pupil in the national school is £25, in the secondary school, £40 and in the vocational school, £90. If we are concerned with value for money, the question of whether we are getting the same value in all branches at least deserves an answer.
The short answer to that is, I think, that it is a miracle how any of the branches do such excellent work on the funds available to them. I do not want to suggest for one moment that the vocational school, with its £90 per pupil, is either extravagant or is getting too much money for the work it is doing. I do not think it is getting enough. I want to point, however, to the poorer and more heavily criticised branch here, the national school system with its £25 per pupil. Why be so concerned with figures that suggest for one type of school, the two-teacher school, there is something like £21 to £25 per pupil while in the three-teacher, or higher school, there may be £2 less per pupil? The fact is that both are grossly inadequate and obviously calling for much greater expenditure on them. It would be highly constructive had we been given a table of comparative costs in other countries. It would emerge, I believe, that especially at the secondary school level, because of the sacrifices made over many years by the religious communities, we are getting secondary education at an absolutely bargain price. No country in the world could produce secondary education at anything like the cost at which we are producing it here. I hope we will be given these comparisons.
There are two main problems. The first is the raising of the school leaving age from 14 to 15. We hope that by the mid-1970s the school leaving age will have been raised to 16. The post-primary training involved is a man-sized job for this country over the next decade. I regret that this was somewhat clouded and obstructed by the fact that the Report drew an enormous red herring across the trail with all the small school controversy that was stirred up. The Government are to be congratulated on shifting away from that controversy, a controversy which was doing no good to the schools or the teachers or, indeed, to the united effort to improve our educational system. Obviously there is work to be done—I shall come back to this at a later stage—and that work must be fitted into the general context of our major problems.
There is a fault in our thinking today that we should all be white collar workers and the aim of everyone seems to be a leaving certificate and a job based on that certificate or the attainment of a university degree. We all talk about equality of educational opportunity, the idea being that anyone who is capable of being directed into a white collar job or into a university should be put into that stream, regardless of national demands and requirements. I venture to suggest that what we are propounding there contains a fallacy. We are confusing equality of educational opportunities with equality of livelihood opportunities.
To my way of thinking, the skilled technician is every bit as valuable as, or more valuable than, a clerk with a leaving certificate in a white collar job. We have not faced up to giving the right equality. If we did, we would not be so concerned about whether a man becomes a technician or a clerk. Make no mistake about it, brains are called for every bit as much in the technician crafts as they are in any white collar job and the country will be in a sad state if we adopt the attitude that our technicians are to be regarded as second-class. Provided you provide the basic recruitment grade with comparable standards and comparable livelihood opportunities, there is no fundamental difference. Training as a technician involves a certain number of years at a technical school, achieving the proposed technical school intermediate certificate, followed by a rather arduous apprenticeship extending over four or five years. At the end of that period, the technician has made as great an effort to train himself as has his colleague who trained for his honours leaving certificate and the technician, therefore, deserves comparable livelihood opportunities. It is the man of real ability in the technician stream who ultimately branches out as a contractor afterwards. Once the stream is started, there are in it, as in all other walks of life, opportunities for the man of exceptional ability to prove himself and, in doing so, to give a really first-class service to the country in his chosen walk of life.
At the moment we seem, I am afraid, to be drifting towards placing too much reliance on certificates. We are reaching the stage at which we are in danger of meriting the criticism made by a former chancellor of the University of Chicago, who said that he hoped every American in future could be born with a B.A. after his name and then they could begin some real education. In other words, we must diversify and develop with a proper regard to the economic requirements of the country and we should not over-emphasise certificate qualifications alone.
To deal specifically now with the Report, as one who fortunately, or unfortunately, depending on one's point of view, spent his early school days in a two-teacher school, I thought the Report unduly harsh. It found many alleged deficiencies in the system not apparent to those of us who went through it. On the other hand, we have the criticism of a teacher handling so many classes. We have the development of group teaching in relation to which the previous Minister initiated some experiments in some schools in Galway. The group teaching idea is really quite old. It is the foundation of the American educational system. There every class is broken up into groups and the groups are busy learning by doing. I hope that irrespective of the size of our schools this type of education will become more and more the pattern in the future.
We should encourage initiative rather than cramming by a very set pattern. There is a great deal we can learn from the American educational system in that regard. Many things which may be regarded as novel are working well and proving their worth. I am glad to see, in regard to primary education, that there is much more the approach now of "Let us examine the situation as it is and make whatever changes are required". It might be possible, in regard to two-teacher schools, to consider omitting the sixth class from certain schools and letting that class travel more than others. Flexibility should be the keynote of the system.
One strong criticism has been in regard to the lack of facilities in our schools, especially in rural schools. Here the lack of running water and toilets has been greatly criticised. Obviously this is a disgrace but it is not the fault of the schools. It is rather like starving a man and then mocking him because he is weak. Irrespective of what the future holds, and because this situation is a blot on our nation, we should set ourselves a three-year or four-year programme to remedy the situation, irrespective of whether the schools in question will be in existence for a further three years, five years or ten years. We can do this. We can put in running water because we have even done that in cow byres and provided grants for doing so. Why not step up the tempo in this regard and also avail of the voluntary effort? Indeed, the local voluntary effort could carry a good deal of the cost involved. We could reduce the percentage contribution, cut the red tape and leave the local groups to their own initiative to get on quickly with the job with the minimum of interference.
Another point in regard to the lack of teaching aids. A great deal is said about this on page 250 of the Report. The percentage of schools with various kinds of equipment—such as a sound film projector, which is becoming an essential—ranges from .4 per cent in the case of one-teacher schools to 12.4 per cent in the case of four-teacher schools. In other words, if 12.4 per cent have got them, it means that 87.6 per cent have not got them. Therefore, in effect, there is no such equipment available in our schools. Again, that is something that could be put right fairly quickly. Teaching aids are a must today and we can provide them irrespective of whether the school is to be renewed or not. If the school is only to remain for a couple of years, then afterwards the aid can be transferred elsewhere.
Then we come to another gap that has been discovered. This concerns the D 1 and D 2 pupils in our national schools. Some are retarded one year and others are retarded two years. The retardation, of course, is one of age. Any pupil under the age of seven on 1st February in the year in which he was in the first class is regarded as a normal pupil; if he is one year older, he is D 1 and if he is two years, he is D 2. I have checked with many people, including an eminent secretary of a Department and many university professors, and I was amazed at the number of pupils who fit the label D 2. It is a label which I too fit. It is of course a measure of the fact that in the country children tend to go to school much later, for one reason or another. In the cities many of our children are going to school much too early merely for the sake of getting them out of the house and giving the mothers some relief.
To my mind, it is a greater problem to know at what age formal learning should begin. At present it begins at the age of four but we should have far more playschool approach, the type of approach common in the United States and, of course, elsewhere. There is also the need which we all recognise for developing parent-teacher associations which are really a means of harnessing all the voluntary effort in the school district. If these associations were operating, then the members would quickly see that many of the matters which could be put right by voluntary effort would be put right. The Department could provide a small subsidy, cut the red tape as far as possible, and let us get on with these necessary district projects on a voluntary basis.
There is also the question of uniformity in education all over the country. The Fine Gael document has done a good job in stressing the necessity for trying to introduce a certain amount of flexibility, a great deal more than we have. If you examine systems in other countries, you find that this is the case. In fact, the United States is divided into at least 1,000 school districts and every district is guided by a parent-teacher association which, by and large, is in charge of education. They appoint a superintendent and working with him, evolve their educational system. Perhaps that may be a bit too democratic but it is better than the other extreme of rigid centralisation, which is our system. We should make way for experimentation and for adaptation; we should at least be prepared to accept that the problems of Dublin are not those of the small villages and towns in the west and south-west.
I want now to come to the point on which the newspapers seized as being the solution to many of our problems. It involves the strategies of replacement, going from smaller schools to larger schools. The strategy involved here was a computer strategy and the result of it was that it claimed that at the date in question, if all the schools that were obsolete were treated in accordance with the strategy proposed, it would release 1,225 of the 1,757 teachers involved—the balance of 532 teachers being sufficient for staffing new schoolrooms where these were required locally together with reducing the chronically over-large classes in the city schools to a maximum of 40 per class. It was found by means of the computer programme that this could be done and that 1,225 teachers could be saved in the process, saving the Exchequer a calculated sum of £1.6 million in current costs. That of course is spectacular and it was seized on by commentators and writers as showing what really could be done by rationalisation of the system.
Having had considerable experience in computer programming—in fact, I would venture to say that I have more experience than anyone else in the country in this field; at least very few have more experience—I have always found that the results of computer programmes have always to be checked against the yardstick of commonsense because the possibilities of error in a computer programme are enormous. In this case I went through the figures very carefully. The first figure that caused me to wonder was that there are 470,000 children in the schools concerned and it was held by the computer that these were capable of being taught by 12,252 teachers, on subtracting the saving of 1,225 teachers. That gives an average of 38.5 pupils per teacher. To ensure that you have a maximum of 40 in any class and yet arrange that the average is 38.5 is, frankly, a very improbable situation indeed, and is one that is not accepted in English planning. In English planning, where they aim at having a maximum of 40 in any class controlled by a teacher, they reckon that to do this on a national scale the national average would scarcely be in excess of 30, compared with the 38.5 average given by our computer!
I have figures worked out and I can give the Minister a copy of them. The figures show that no matter what assumption you make on how the pupils of the schools that are now obsolete are to be disposed of, whether they go to local two-teacher or three-teacher schools and these are upgraded in the process, or any other assumption you make, you find that, having provided for the balance of the one, two and three-teacher schools, you are left with an impossible average figure for the remainder. As I work it out, the remainder would have 5,786 teachers for 256,500 pupils—an average of 44.3. In other words, by the test of commonsense leading to the argument sketched here, which I regard as giving absolute conclusive proof, it is clear that there must have been an error somewhere in the strategy involved. The setting up of a computer programme is a very highly complicated and a very highly technical job and the possibility of error is always there.
The Minister, I know, is an engineer and therefore is a man who can approach a problem like this with an engineer's mind. He will want to get the facts and the figures and will recognise and understand a proof when it is given to him. I will have pleasure, at any time at his convenience, in producing those figures to him and showing him my proof of this absurdity. This shows, I think, that you cannot place your trust completely in computers or anything else. You must always get back to the yardstick of commonsense.
We come now to the post-primary education. Here the main difficulty is the provision of teachers, teachers with the specialisations that are required. If the Minister comes to the universities and has talks with them, I think the universities will not be found wanting in their contribution to this major problem, seeing that the Arts Faculty constitutes almost 40 per cent of university students today. Therefore, a source of teachers is available, provided the Department and the universities get together and work out any modifications that are necessary in degree structure or degree programmes necessary to produce students better suited to what is required, and that the Minister will simultaneously make the conditions sufficiently attractive to attract the resulting graduates. If that is done, the teachers will be forthcoming.
I know the short-term approach the Department has adopted in the past of trying to train special groups of students by means of extra university courses, rural science teachers and others. These students get neither a diploma nor a degree and it is something that should be discontinued because if the effort put in by the students over the period were properly channelled and co-ordinated, a suitable university degree could be awarded. Such a degree course would provide the required teachers and would give them more professional standing, thus avoiding the creation of further divisions within our teaching body. The aim should be towards a more unified teaching body with the possession of a degree a sine qua non for any teacher. At present the cost involved to the State of these crash programmes is rather high because, the students themselves have a full allowance while they are in training of £350 or £400. That is all right, but I suggest that if these teachers were recruited from university degree holders, the money concerned could be spread much more widely and at least three scholarships could be provided for every full maintenance award made today, thereby providing a much wider recruitment base.
In regard to the very large amount of finance that is required for all education, and in our anxiety to make the best use of our limited financial resources, I do not see why a certain number of student grants should not involve a commitment to spend a period teaching within this country. We do not have national service and we are thankful that we do not have to shoulder this onerous burden, but I do not think it would do any harm to any graduate, especially those who have benefited considerably by grants and scholarships, to spend a couple of years as a teacher. This contribution in the teaching field could well be made on a part-time basis. All authorities are conscious of the lack of science graduates, and especially graduates with some ability in mathematics, in our secondary and vocational schools. Yet we have a very large number of science graduates, engineers, chemists and others in various positions within the country. Their services are being used at night time in some of the Dublin technological colleges and technical schools. It would help to get over some of our difficulties down the country if county councils and corporations were encouraged to give graduates time off during the day to teach a science, or mathematics, class in a local school. I think this is well worth considering.
In regard to secondary schools, there is a certain amount of confusion, due to the idea of the comprehensive school. Our aim should be to make all schools comprehensive in the light of what the word "comprehensive" really means, that there should be some choice of subjects available and that the programme should not be strictly confined to the subjects that are usually identified with secondary schools today. The aim should be, rather than to create another division within our schools system, to encourage the liberalisation and the development of the schools we have. Indeed, some of our better secondary schools can rightly claim that their programmes are both liberal and comprehensive, and they are doing a very fine job in providing a liberal education. However, we want to see that same excellent service made available also in the poorly-financed schools.
We benefit enormously in this country by the sacrifice that is being made by the religious orders, and the Christian Brothers. It seems to me a pity in the task ahead that this great potential is not used to greater effect; by having as many religious as possible serve a few years abroad, be it in England, America, Australia, or elsewhere, anywhere they have houses of their Order, where they can fit into the system and where they can, merely for the cost of passage, get what is really invaluable post-graduate experience. When they came back, they would then play a vital role in liberalising and giving our system the dynamic push forward that we all desire. The same applies in equal measure, in fact even more so, to our lay teachers, but it costs more to send such lay teachers abroad. It is not as easy to make the necessary transfer arrangements and there would probably be a higher proportion of loss from this group, some would probably stay abroad permanently on finding opportunities greater than at home. However, it is something that should be encouraged by every means possible. It is by going and seeing what is happening elsewhere that teachers can return —not copy what they have seen—but to use their experience to improve our system.
That brings me to the vocational schools. The only basis on which I should like to see the comprehensive idea coming in is not in a new comprehensive school but in what one might call a comprehensive district plan. I should like to see each district, say, a small town with 700 or 800 population and a hinterland around it, setting up a committee representing the parents and those interested in making a contribution to education in that area, with the guidance of officers of the Department and of the teachers' association, and planning for the district as a whole. If, for instance, there is a lack of science facilities in the district, why not put up a science laboratory—one science laboratory, not three or four—and let it be shared by all the students in the district, whether they are from the boys or the girls secondary school, or from the vocational school? Let the committee work it as a unit and let the one teacher be responsible for all the classes. As to where it would be located, I do not think that is a matter of very great importance. The teacher probably could be employed by the local school board or committee.
The biggest gap that has been found by the survey team is the lack of technicians. That has been emphasised again and again for many years by the Engineers' Association, Cumann na nInnealtóirí. So far, we have made no significant advance in filling that gap. The new apprenticeship laws and the raising of the school age are all designed to further the recruitment of that grade. On it depends our success or failure in meeting the challenge of the Common Market, if we get in. Industry requires quite a large number of technicians for every one technologist employed. Modern industry is a team effort. Our Leas-Cathaoirleach has contributed a great deal to the thinking on this problem. I hope we will realise it is this grade above all others we are concerned with recruiting. It is a grade which will have to be given status commensurate with clerical position obtained via the honours leaving certificate.
In recruiting and training technicians, there is one pitfall we have to watch very carefully, that is, the position of mathematics in the school curriculum. We are in a dangerously unbalanced position with regard to mathematics in this country. This is due to the fact that in the early part of the century a large section of applied mathematics was split from physics and was called mathematical physics. Today all applied mathematics is done under the title mathematical physics and Irish mathematics is confined to pure mathematics. If the Minister for Education and his Department wanted to get advice on mathematics in England, they probably would turn to a department of mathematics in one of the universities. In an English university, consisting of from 3,000 to 4,000 students, its department of mathematics would probably consist of two professors of pure mathematics, one professor of applied mathematics, one statistician, one professor of engineering mathematics and one of computional science. The view available to the Minister would be the balanced view of this composite group. Indeed, I would venture to say that, if asked what mathematics should be taught to technologists and to technicians, it is the view of the professor of engineering mathematics that would carry most weight. In this situation the view of the professor of pure mathematics would carry only a very minority weight in the final assessment. It is a pitfall we have to watch here in deciding on suitable mathematics courses in all our schools.
In this context I wish to refer to the Report on Applied Mathematics for Engineers recently issued by the OECD. This concerns the future engineers, technologists and technicians about to be trained in our secondary schools, vocational schools and comprehensive schools. It is essential that these get a fully modern type of mathematical education which will equip them to be technologists. What is a technologist? He is a man who understands the physical world, who produces figures and quantitive measurements for the various quantities with which he is concerned. Therefore, the emphasis has to come back to this side of mathematics. I do not want to detain the Seanad on that but I think I should quote from the Report which has just been published, the following resolution concerning school mathematics, passed unanimously.
The Conference, recognising that School Mathematics is at present in a state of rapid change, a change which has not yet had time to affect the standard, at entry, of students to the University,
Urges that the situation should be kept under close and continuous review by, amongst others, the relevant Engineering Institutes, Institutions and Faculties, and the national study groups,
Counsels that major changes in curricula should, at national level, be preceded by adequate group experimentation, and that immediate steps should be taken to provide the necessary body of skilled teachers,
—this is all in relation to school mathematics—
Stresses that considerable inservice training will be necessary to ensure that teachers get the adequate knowledge of practical Applications of Mathematics, to match their mastery of the fundamentals of Modern Mathematics.
—in other words, you must tie in with the practical applications—
Requests that suitable courses in practical Applications of Mathematics including probability, statistics, numerical analysis and computer training be provided without delay in University courses for teachers,
—today, these are almost non-existent, although we have taken a step recently in UCC which will make some of these available—
Calls for the introduction, as a first priority, of introductory courses in calculus probability and statistics, where these are not already available,
—the Department are to be congratulated in getting both of those under way in the recent new course and on introducing probability and statistics into the leaving certificate—
Suggests that a close liaison be established between teachers, scientists and engineers, both at local and national level as the most effective means of assisting the teachers in motivating and developing the new courses by practical examples drawn from the real world, and
—this is what I want to underscore—
Strongly recommends that a balanced approach between the development of understanding, reasoning and the ability to formulate and manipulate problems, should be adopted to curriculum reform in Mathematics to meet the challenge and opportunities of the computer age in furthering economic cooperation and development.
In our search for technicians we have to make sure they have a balanced approach and that they are trained to face the problems of the world into which we are heading in the '70's and '80's
One of the most interesting features to emerge from the recommendations in this Report, Investment in Education, was that for a development unit within the Department of Education. Steps have been taken to get that under way, although I think many of us are not happy with the unit as it has evolved. The unit is in danger of becoming just another part of the Department of Education, whereas in effect it should have pretty well separate standing, much like the Central Statistics Office has in its attachment to the Department of The Taoiseach. Above all, it is necessary that the presentation of the results of the professional work of the development unit should remain in professional hands right up to the point at which they enter the administrative machinery of the Government. In other words, it is a professional job right up the line. That brings up the conflict of which we are all only too acutely aware, between the professional and the administrator in the Civil Service. This unit should be treated as a pioneer unit and should be given independent status.
The question of the professional may lie at the root of most of our troubles in that a professional person is not someone who has not got a degree and thereafter loses contact with his profession and, therefore, becomes very much out of date. By and large, an administrator even though he has no contact with the profession concerned is, I think, better than a professional who is ten years out of date in his thinking. At least an administrator is capable of appreciating the modern professional view on a subject if that is presented to him. There is a danger with the professional that his point of view will be largely conditioned by the professional training he had himself and, therefore, unless he has developed as a fully professional man he is more of a menace than a help in such a unit.
That brings me to the point that undoubtedly we need professional people in this unit but we must take every possible step to ensure that they keep up with their professions in the years they are connected with this project. That can be done in two ways, both of which are complementary. First, a great many of the professionals in this unit, I believe, should be on a loan basis from the universities here or elsewhere or from professional institutions. Probably half the staff could be got on that basis whether for one, two or three years secondment. It would mean that they have come because we know they are up to date specialists and accordingly would contribute an up to date external viewpoint. We must see that the regular full-time people involved are given the opportunity to keep up with their professions. If we have statisticians there we must see that they keep up with their professions. Likewise, in the case of economists. The only way that can be done is to ensure that these people, every four, five or six years get leave of absence for periods ranging from six months to a year to go back into their professional field or into the research field and thereby re-invigorate and renew themselves. If we do that, we can build a first class development unit; if not, the unit will start out well but will eventually deteriorate as time goes on and become conservative and unimaginative.
I might point to the work of the prototype, the statistics unit in the Department of the Taoiseach. We are all aware of the great work it has done. That has been largely due to the fact that we were very fortunate in the two directors we have had, Dr. Geary and later, Dr. McCarthy. These were fully professional in the highest sense of the word before they entered the Civil Service and took up their positions in the Central Statistics Office. They had established reputations in their field and both had the enthusiasm and courage to work long hours outside their office hours keeping up with their subject, after joining the Statistics Office. Consequently during their period in office, they remained professionals of the highest type. If we can get men of that calibre into this development unit all will be well but we cannot expect very much if we appoint men of lesser calibre who are not provided with opportunities to keep abreast of their profession.
I have only touched briefly on many items and I do not want to go into any greater detail at this stage. I have tried to contribute some suggestions that may be new and may help to contribute something to the formulation of educational policy. We must be very careful to keep education out of politics and, above all, keep it out of the distorted type of propaganda and smear campaigns that come, unfortunately from both Telefís Éireann and the Irish Times at the present juncture. I want to warn about how pernicious this campaign can be. Many of you may have seen over Christmas the criticisms of University College, Cork and later of University College, Dublin, about which a student said that the professors were never on time and did not turn up for their lectures and so on, presenting an appalling picture of what was happening in the universities, a picture that is, of course, totally untrue.
What are the facts behind this? The facts are that a motion was being debated in the College Philosophical Society at that time, one of the usual motions: "That the College does not provide a university education for students." This was a typical debate, for and against. A Telefís Éireann reporter appeared to interview students shortly afterwards but he was only interested in interviewing one side, those who were for that motion. The candidate who made all the strictures on the universities spent two years in First Arts, without passing an examination, followed by a short period in Commerce. Now he has left the university. That is the type of "representative" student used to denigrate the universities. At the same time, another student was interviewed. He was president of the Students' Council of the previous year, a most outstanding student not only in the hurling field but academically, Mr. Jim Blake——