Seanad Éireann díospóireacht -
Thursday, 6 Dec 1984

Vol. 106 No. 6

Joint Committee on Women's Rights Interim Report — Education: Motion.

Professor Dooge

I move:

That Seanad Éireann takes note of the Joint Committee on Women's Rights Interim Report: Education.

This committee, one of the committees recently established by the Houses of the Oireachtas, first met in September 1983. After a few meetings in which it discussed how it should go about its business it established education as a priority subject. Accordingly, from January to May of this year the committee at its fortnightly meetings was completely engaged on the question of studying the influence of our educational system on the role of women in our society.

During those meetings the committee received oral submissions from a relatively large number of groups who had many things of relevance and interest to say to the committee. I would like to say as a member of that committee how much we benefited from this process of the attendance of interested groups and individuals and how much this contributed to our report. Those who did come before the committee are listed on page 38 of the report. They included Sylvia Meehan, Chairperson of the Employment Equality Agency, and the then secretary, now former secretary, of the Department of Education, Liam Ó Laidhin. We had a group representing the Council for the Status of Women; we had representatives of the AIM Group.

There were oral submissions from the Conference of Major Religious Superiors (Ireland), from the Association of Secondary Teachers Ireland, the Irish Federation of University Teachers, the Irish National Teachers' Organisation and from the Teachers Union of Ireland. Apart from these major submissions in which the written submissions were supplemented by oral submissions and by question and answer sessions, the details of which can be read in the published proceedings of the committee, there were also a number of other written submissions which were of help to us. The committee engaged a research officer, Ms. Eunice McCarthy of the Department of Psychology in UCD, who provided us with many valuable studies. We have in the report which was adopted and tabled last October the fruits of all that work.

The first point I would like to turn to is the question of why this Joint Committee to deal with Women's Rights should have taken education as the key priority item, as the question to be dealt with in its first report. This point is dealt with in our report and I would like to quote from the introduction on page 6 what the committee had to say. It states:

It was generally accepted by the members that many of the inequalities between the sexes, are rooted in the educational system as at present structured in this country. As a result, and contrary to the many laudable expressions in support of equality, the Irish social system still accords a very low priority to the rights of women in all spheres of activity.

That is the way the report opened. Again if we look towards the end of the report, if we look at page 36, there is a clear statement that we have a key problem and that if it is not solved then everything else will be frustrated. Page 36 of the report states:

...If women are to be guaranteed liberation and equality of opportunity this must be based on equal opportunities from the very start of their education. From generation to generation parents and teachers pass on unchanged attitudes to their children and pupils and this influence is significant, as boys and girls see around them the role they are expected to play in society. In recognising the need for change in Irish society the Joint Committee agrees that any fundamental change must be initiated through the educational system, so that it becomes one of equality in the fullest sense with pupils of both sexes receiving the same education in the class room and the same opportunities to use that education when they leave school.

This is a position to which everyone in Ireland has adhered in principle in recent years. As long ago as 1967 we supported and voted for in the United Nations the Declaration on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women. Article 9 of that UN declaration is worth putting on record in this debate. It states:

All appropriate measures shall be taken to ensure to girls and women, married or unmarried, equal rights with men in education at all levels and in particular.

(a) equal conditions of access to and study, in educational institutions of all types including universities, vocational, technical and professional schools;

(b) the same choice of curricula, the same examinations, teaching staff with qualifications of the same standard and school premises and equipment of the same quality whether it be institutional co-educational or not;

(c) equal opportunities to benefit from scholarships and other study grants;

(d) equal opportunities for access to programmes of continuing education including adult literacy programmes;

(e) access to educational information to help in ensuring the health and well-being of families.

Ireland voted for that UN declaration in 1967. What the Joint Committee were concerned with was examining how in the intervening years we have lived up to that declaration that we then adhered to.

In looking back and discussing this Declaration it is useful for us in this instance, as in almost every other instance, to look back to what was said in our own basic document, the Report of the Commission on the Status of Women established in 1970. This Commission submitted an interim report on equal pay in 1971 and its final report in December 1972. This report should be on the table for discussion as well as the report of our Joint Committee in a debate like this for two reasons. The first reason is that I want to take this opportunity, as I take every other opportunity, to pay tribute to the farsightedness of the members of that commission. They could have confined themselves to the immediate problem of equal pay which was the reason for their establishment. They did much more than that. I would like to pay tribute to them and particularly to the chairman of that Commission, Dr. Thekla Beere who, having through her own career made a breakthrough on behalf of women in the Civil Service that still stands alone, followed by chairing so successfully this commission. Secondly, when we come to study a question like the present one, we should note what changes have occurred and above all note how much mentioned in that basic document, how much of it still remains to be done.

It is very interesting to look at the Commission Report during this debate. Its first chapter deals with the Commission's establishment and the way they went about their work. The report starts to get down to business in chapter 2. It is very interesting, and largely coincidental, that just as the Joint Committee, coming together when established by this House and by Dáil Éireann, picked out education as a priority, education also is singled out at the start of chapter 2 by the Commission of 1970-72. They had the insight at that time to go to the heart of the matter. Chapter 2, paragraph 21 of the Commission report states:

In the remaining Chapters of this report we deal mainly with instances of actual discrimination against women and our recommendations are designed to remove such discriminations. However, the removal of these actual discriminations leaves untouched a larger and more subtle area of discrimination consisting of those factors which limit women's participation even in the absence of formal discrimination, that is, the stereotyped role that is assigned to women, the inculcation of attitudes in both boys and girls in their formative years that there are definite and separate roles for the sexes and that a woman's life pattern must be predominantly home-centred while the man's life pattern would be predominantly centred on employment. It is from this type of cultural mould that formal discrimination arises and it is only by the removal of such traditional attitudes that women can hope to achieve complete self-fulfilment and equal participation in all aspects of the life of the community.

We have no excuse for saying that this vital role of education, this problem of stereotyping, had not been clearly pointed out to us. It was clearly pointed out to us in the leading paragraph of the Report of the Commission on the Status of Women, reported to this House 12 years ago. With your permission, I will quote also from paragraph 22 of the Commission's report to the Minister for Finance, December 1972. It is Prl. 2760 and states:

Early sex-role development is affected mostly by the child's experience in its immediate surroundings of the home and, in Irish society the typical profile presented is that of the mother taking charge of the home with the father working outside it. These early attitudes to male and female roles may be reinforced by experience at school. By the time the average girl leaves school she sees her future life in terms of a relatively short period of gainful employment followed by marriage and responsibility for looking after the home and caring for children. This portrayal of her life-pattern is frequently reinforced and glamourised by newspapers, women's magazines and commercial advertising.

As I said, we have had this brought to our attention and it was indeed full time that we should, through the medium of the Joint Committee on Women's Rights, have taken up this question and examined what are the key points in this whole area of education.

Having decided on education as a general area, the Joint Committee identified four topics within that area as particularly worthy of attention. These were the questions of co-education, of the curriculum, of the training of teachers and promotion opportunities for women teachers. Of course there had not been any statutory or legal bar to the participation of girls or grown women in education in the sense mentioned by the UN declaration but once again we have no excuse for not realising that problems occur. A study by the International Labour Organisation going back as far as 1965, specifically mentions the situation of developed countries such as ourselves — and in the educational sense we are a developed country. I will quote from the report of a 1965 meeting of ILO Consultants on Women Workers' Problems:

The International Labour Organisation has noted that in the developed countries there are, in general, no wide gaps between the education of boys and girls but there are sometimes qualitative differences in the education given to girls, particularly at the secondary level where co-education is not always the common practice and where there is a tendency to involve girls less than boys in mathematical and scientific subjects and for girls themselves to avoid these subjects whenever there are elements of choice in the curricula.

The ILO report goes on to say that:

Equality of access to schooling does not, of course, exclude the possible qualitative differences...

In paragraph 519 in regard to the submissions made to them they say:

The tenor of these submissions has been that segregated education has a built-in tendency to be unequal education...

That has been our experience here. They continue:

...a greater degree of co-education would ensure for girls the same encouragement and opportunity as for boys.

This was the first topic within the area of education which was addressed by the report of the Joint Committee that we are considering this morning, and I would direct the attention of Senators to what is said on this matter on pages seven, eight and nine of the report.

The Joint Committee are quite careful to point out that they are conscious of the role of parents as the early and fundamental educators of the child and that consequently any substantial change in educational structures must respect the wishes of parents. But these parents are themselves the product of our educational system. These parents have been educated and formed by an educational system which has built-in disadvantages for girls of its very nature. So, part of the task which has to be done — by the Members of the Oireachtas who are interested in these problems, by the members of the public who are interested and by the Minister and her colleagues who are responsible in various parts of this area — includes the education of the existing parents. What has to be done has to be done with the consent of the parents and, therefore, the parents themselves have to be brought to realise what is the way forward towards a just system of education.

I do not wish to go into much detail about what is said in the report. Other Members may wish to go into other aspects, but I would point out what has been said on pages eight and nine. At this stage I would like to acknowledge what has been done in this area by the Minister. In paragraph 2.2 on page eight we mention that "The blatant sex stereotyping in school text books at all levels is a matter of serious concern".

Again I would like to hark back and pay tribute to the Commission on the Status of Women because they drew our attention in 1972 to this same problem and I would refer Members to what was said in paragraph 520 of the report of that commission. The problem was clearly outlined there. They talked of this problem that those of us who are interested know so well.

I want to pay tribute to the Department and to welcome the departmental guidelines for publishers which were issued in May of this year. In the guidelines, particularly in paragraph 3.4, the problem has been very well stated. Paragraph 3.4 deals with the question of roles. I would like to pay tribute to the Minister and her Department, not only for taking action in this regard, but for describing the problem so clearly. I would like to say — and I intend this as a compliment — that the manner in which these guidelines have been set out is sophisticated to a degree that one does not expect from the bureaucracy of large Departments. This is no normal bureaucratic circular. This circular is a model of what Government circulars should be. It clearly identifies the problems. It sets out at the beginning that "it is not the purpose of these notes to be regulatory, restrictive and censorious, but they are intended to be a guideline". So often that word "guideline" is used and the guideline is, in fact, in the nature of a ukase, that word so beloved of crossword compilers. This particular guideline not only meets a problem identified clearly by the Council for the Status of Women 12 years ago, and identified by anybody who has looked at the problem but, of course, is drawn attention to as still being a serious problem by the Joint Committee.

The other topic that the committee drew attention to is the question of the curriculum and the question of subject choice. Here again, the committee were greatly helped by the fact that they had available to them the Hannan Report, which is ESRI paper No. 113, published in May 1983. This research paper on "Schooling in sex roles, sex differences in subject provision, student choice in Irish post-primary schools", is a research effort for which we indeed should be grateful. One of the troubles is that it is so much of a research effort that it is somewhat difficult even for those used to reading such reports to go through and absorb. It is slow reading. It lies heavily on the mind at times.

We are very lucky that we have also the publication of the Employment Equality Agency which takes this report, summarises its findings and recommendations and gives its own commentary on it. There is no excuse for anybody not to be able to read this publication of the Employment Equality Agency which, in fact, does get over the message of the Hannan Report, without having to climb one's way through the academic scaffolding that was necessary in order to reach the conclusions that are in the report. I hope my colleague, Senator Michael D. Higgins, will not think that I am being impolite towards his particular discipline when I mention this. The publications have two quite separate functions. The Hannan Report stands on its own for what it is but, from the point of view of action, we are lucky that we also have the other document.

The conclusions of the Hannan Report are very interesting. Indeed the model that they use when they talk of the take-up of subjects in school is the result of a threefold process of the provision of subjects, the allocation of subjects and the choice of subjects. The report is very valuable in indicating that the problem of the take-up of subjects by girls is not a simple one, that there are these three elements in the Hannan model, and that the corrective action that has to be taken will be different in these three areas, and that it must be taken in all three areas. Otherwise we will not reach a final solution.

Before passing on from this point, I would like to mention what is said on page 37 of the Employment Equality Agency summary. In the conclusion on page 37 of this report it says:

The economic, social and cultural role of women in society has changed considerably in recent years.

The summary goes on to discuss what it considers to be these changes. In the second last paragraph it then goes on to say:

Elements of the educational system have changed also, but at a considerably slower pace. If the educational system is to prepare girls and boys equally for the rapidly changing employment circumstances and redress the persistent inequalities in terms of girls' career prospects, considerable change will have to occur in the near future.

There is no need to bring that to the attention of the Minister. It is obvious from the work that she has already done that she is endeavouring to step up this pace. It is for us, not only in the report of the Joint Committee, but also in this debate here, to support the Minister and to urge her towards even greater efforts.

In regard to what the Joint Committee itself had to say about curriculum choice, I would like to draw attention to what the committee says in paragraph 3.2. It says:

The Joint Committee is pleased to note that the Minister for Education, through her Inspectorate, is encouraging the managerial authorities in mixed schools to offer subjects equally to both sexes and in particular to give girls the opportunity of taking technical subjects.

Then the report goes on to say:

Encouragement in itself however may not be sufficient and the Joint Committee hopes that the Minister will be able to make the necessary resources available to bring equality of choice into the curriculum in those schools where it is at present not available and where girls are usually the losers.

Of course we are all aware of the difficulties that the Minister for Education has in regard to availability and distribution of resources. In that connection, there is one comment that I would like to make in this regard which relates to the work of the committee. I would like to pay tribute to those Members of the Opposition who were members of the Joint Committee on Women's Rights on the fact that they did not bring political considerations or the difficulties of the Government in finding resources into the discussions of that committee. I must pay that tribute here. It was very welcome and this is the spirit in which our Joint Committees should work. Then they can be really valuable. The Joint Committee on Women's Rights did show a great example there. I pay tribute to my colleagues from the Opposition for their attitude.

I want to make it clear to the Minister that what we are saying here, and we are all saying it together, is that as resources become available it is highly necessary that additional resources be very carefully steered to some of the areas in which a relatively small increase in staff or other resources could make a very real difference in overcoming the disadvantages in regard to girls in school and this general problem.

I would also like to draw attention to paragraphs 6.1 and 6.2 on page 16 of the report. In paragraph 6.1 we are talking about maximising the benefits to pupils where two or more post-primary schools exist. The Department have already taken a part in urging managerial authorities to assist in the amalgamation of these schools. This is something that we feel could make quite a real contribution. We go on to deal in paragraph 6.2 with the difficulties that girls still find in being able to take subjects such as physics and higher mathematics at leaving certificate standard. Here I think the question of the mobility of teachers among post-primary schools in an urban centre is something that we would like to see used much more widely.

In paragraph 6.2 the Joint Committee asks the parties concerned — the Department, the teachers, the management and the parents — to come together and devise some arrangements for the interchange of teachers pending the outright amalgamation of schools. I must say here that, when this point was discussed with the representatives of the teachers, the teachers' unions who appeared before the committee, they were receptive to this and they indicated that there would be no trade union difficulties. I would urge the Minister to take action for the longer term problem of amalgamation and for the interchange of teachers pending amalgamation.

Another topic that the Joint Committee adverted to specifically because of its importance was that of guidance counsellors. It is interesting that once again I can pay tribute to the Commission on the Status of Women because, even though they were only dealing with education to a minor extent because they were largely concerned with the problem of the formal discriminations, nevertheless in paragraph 5.23 of their report they did refer to this question under the term that was used at the time of career guidance. It is worth indicating what their opinion was, if only from the point of view that it is exactly reinforced by our committee working over 12 years later. I quote from paragraph 523 of the Commission's report:

A subject that has been brought to our attention many times as being of importance in relation to equality of educational and employment opportunity for girls is that of career guidance. Girls have in the past tended to study subjects and courses without any clearly defined career in view or else they have aimed at careers in already overcrowded occupations. Effective career guidance at an early stage in a girl's career could do a great deal to remedy this position and to encourage girls to adopt a less conservative attitude towards career patterns. It could also help to alter the educational consequences for girls of the sex-typing of many occupations by encouraging them to aim at careers which may in the past have been regarded as "men-only" preserves. Of course the career guidance offered to girls must be realistic and take account of their potential, trends in employment and the likelihood of access to the proposed employment. Career guidance also has an important part to play in influencing a girl to look ahead of the immediate pattern of her career on leaving fulltime education.

Again we must recognise the clarity of vision of that particular commission and ask ourselves how we have reacted to it. I must say that, until I became concerned in this committee, I had forgotten that they had said it. I am sure I am not the only one who has forgotten that that particular commission addressed itself so clearly to many of the problems that we in the Joint Committee are concerned with. Indeed I have taken a vow that I never start to study any topic in regard to women's rights again without taking up my precious copy of this out of print Commission report and seeing what the Commission had to say on it.

The Joint Committee also dealt with this problem in paragraphs 5.1, 5.2 and 5.3 of the Report. While, of course, we must acknowledge what is being done in this regard, and it is extremely welcome, there may be a degree of complacency creeping in. People may think that, once so many guidance counsellors have been appointed, this problem has been solved. The committee calls attention here to a number of important points.

The first point relates to how the guidance counsellors already appointed are being used. The committee is concerned that, in many cases, the work of the guidance counsellor is not integrated into the planning and the management of the school, that the guidance counsellor is regarded as somebody who is doing his or her own specialist thing. Here in paragraph 5.1 the Joint Committee says:

The guidance counsellor is unique in that he or she, of all teachers, should be in a position to bring some influence to bear in breaking the sex-related study and career choice.

The Joint Committee is of the opinion that the guidance counsellor may not be involved to a sufficient degree in policy making, time-tabling, planning etc. as seems to be the case at the present, and it agreed that counselling should commence in the schools at a much earlier stage, certainly no later than the first year in post-primary education.

Of course the committee are conscious that they are laying out something here that should be done and that, with all the willingness that the Minister may have, it is not possible to do everything at once. The Joint Committee asked that, in recommending an increase in the number of guidance counsellors employed in schools, priority should be given to the areas of the greatest need where there is a difficulty here in regard to either the provision of subjects or to the actual choice of subjects as recognised in the Hannan Report.

I am gratified, and I am sure the other members of the committee are, that this priority seems to be recognised by the Minister in paragraph 5.8 of the Programme for Action in Education 1984-87 which was published in January of this year. We, in our report here, have given some advice which we hope will be acceptable to the Minister in regard to what some of these priorities should be.

There is another subject which is related to the question of the curriculum. We await with interest what the new Curriculum and Examinations Board will have to say. The committee did feel it necessary to stress the importance of a programme for living skills. The committee were struck by the fact that most groups who made submissions to them, emphasised the need to introduce a programme for living skills in the school curricula. Such a course is vital, not for any immediate advantage in the secondary school, but it is something the benefits of which would be reaped during adult life, particularly afterwards on the occasion of marriage and the foundation of a family. This is something that modern living conditions certainly do require. Equally, the modern living conditions which create problems in schools also require some new departures in regard to the training of teachers. Teachers have always been trained in the psychology of education. Nowadays a teacher almost requires to be a clinical psychologist. So serious are the pressures of modern society impinging on young people, the problems of drug taking, the problems of environmental conditions, the problems of lack of parental control and the problems of early expressions of sexuality. All of these now seem to be coming into the compass of the role of the teacher beyond this role of the teacher at the blackboard. I am not asking that teachers should do more in this respect but rather I think the position now is that teachers wanting to do something in this regard find themselves in a sense helpless, in that they are being exposed to these particular problems of guidance, particularly where pupils who are not finding a response in the home environment look to a response from the teacher.

We have seen, in the past year, tragedies arising from teenage pregnancy and from community attitudes towards it. We welcome the fact that moves are now being taken in regard to the gradual introduction in a responsible manner of sex education in schools in the context, which was made quite clear by the Minister and was made quite clear in a broadcast question and answer session by the Taoiseach, that what we are concerned with here is education in the area of responsible personal relationships. This, indeed, is something to be welcomed.

I have spoken at some length on the question of curriculum choice because it has many facets. There are other problems also. The joint committee did not neglect and, indeed, the community should not neglect, the problems which occur after leaving school. I want to talk about two of these only. I want to talk first about the problem of training and apprenticeship for girls. Despite the removal of some barriers in this regard, there is still a discouragement for girls in regard to the question of apprenticeship. The committee did receive a special report by Eunice McCarthy and Maeve Casey from the Department of Psychology at UCD which was most revealing in this regard. In regard to apprenticeship for the three years 1982 to 1984, only 3.8 per cent of the applicants for apprenticeships were girls. This really is a deplorably low figure. If we take what happens to those applicants, there are figures available for the year 1983 where the number of girls applying was unusually low. Of the number of applicants, 2.9 per cent were girls. The process was that, following application, they were technically assessed for their suitability and then they were subjected to interview before being accepted. It is clear that the girls who did apply were not only as suitable technically as the boys, but more suitable, because although only 2.9 per cent of the applicants were girls, 3.7 per cent of those technically acceptable were girls. What happens after is the interview when stereotyping on the other side of the interview table takes its toll. Only 1.0 per cent of those recruited were girls. We had a drop of almost four times based on impressions at interview.

Here is a problem which must indeed be solved. We have the case of girls who have overcome all the inhibitions about applying, girls who have proved to be technically capable of benefiting from this particular sort of training, being rejected at interview. We get the old stereotype attitudes coming in, in order to refuse them a chance. There is a huge task to be done here in regard to the question of ensuring that our social attitudes are changed.

There is another point in regard to the education of adult women that I want to advert to here. The question of adult education is dealt with in the report of the Joint Committee in paragraphs 9.1 to 9.8 and indeed the committee received a special report on the provision of day time adult education. I want to say here that one of the most interesting developments in adult education over the past few years has been the development of second chance education both within the VEC system and as a result of independent community activity. In particular one cannot read about the community based activity of day time adult education for women that is taking place today without a degree of excitement about this development. There are examples here of what can be done in Coolock, in Finglas, in North East Dublin and in Leixlip. What has happened here is something quite remarkable. There has been a tapping of enthusiasm, a tapping of a desire for knowledge, a desire for self expression. Anyone who has heard, on some radio programmes, of the results of this cannot but be enthusiastic. This is something very different from the old adult education for leisure activities. This is something socially very much more important. In many instances it is the question of second chance education, the question of women seeking to make up for a secondary education which they never had, which enables them not to found a career on a leaving certificate but enables them by developing this formal knowledge to allow themselves to understand better the complex modern world about us. Also, in many cases these community based efforts of adult education have resulted in courses in creative writing and in self expression. This, too, is a remarkable development.

Only two days ago I happened to be listening to the "Women Today" programme on the radio. They were dealing with this topic. There have been previous programmes which have dealt with it also. Some of the women who were concerned in one of these creative writing programmes read extracts from their work. Listening to this is one of the few instances in recent months where I had an experience which gave me real hope for the future of our society. This is a direction of hope. Women who have not had an opportunity of being educated to their full potential, whose self expression has been cramped as a result of this, suddenly have a chance to change this by a few people starting and others coming together. We are talking now of courses like those the Minister has to worry about. Are there going to be ten people in this course? Can it be put off? We are talking — in these centres and in these communities — of over 100 women coming together in these activities. I am almost afraid to ask the Minister to foster it, because the hand of the Department might kill this wonderful enthusiasm. But there are ways in which the Minister can help.

There is one minor difficulty for those who are trying to have their second chance at secondary education. Because of the way they are studying, because of the way in which their lives are organised, it is not possible for them to do more than one or two subjects. The only way they can test themselves is by sitting for the State examinations. Yet I understand the position is that in order to do so they have to pay the same fee as somebody who is taking six, seven or eight subjects. I would be glad to know whether it would be possible to introduce a fee per subject basis to avoid this situation. The paying of a fee of £30 may appear minor but to a wife who is making this effort, possibly with the disapproval of her husband, this could be a real hindrance. We must acknowledge what these women are doing, the spirit they are showing.

There is a considerable problem in regard to creche facilities. Here the women are showing remarkable enterprise in this regard. They are organising this themselves. They are indulging in the usual activities for raising funds. I know that to provide full facilities might be difficult. But if the Minister could use her good offices in regard to the question of where there is even vacant space available for the accommodation of creches this would be a contribution.

It is obvious from what I have said that I believe this particular topic is worth a report on its own and worth a debate on its own. I mention it here as a topic of particular importance.

I move now to the question of teacher training. It is quite obvious that the role of the teacher in eliminating sex stereotyping in schools is a vital one. From the evidence we heard at the Joint Committee it is quite clear that a number of individuals in training colleges and in the Department of Education do advert to the need to take this factor into account in the training programmes. It is a factor that is adverted to and discussed in their particular course work but there is a need that this element should be more widespread in the training of teachers and possibly on a more formal basis.

The final point I wish to deal with is the question of promotion of women teachers. This is dealt with in paragraphs 10.1 to 10.6. It may be sufficient merely to record what the situation is. The situation in primary schools is as follows: 75 per cent of the teachers are females; 47 per cent of the principals are females. You could put that the other way and say 25 per cent of the teachers are male but they hold 53 per cent of the principalships. There are historical factors here. The marriage bar in the past, which is not gone all that long, must have some influence. We have now removed this marriage bar, but we must take affirmative action to redress the imbalances that remain. When we look at the community schools, which show such a good approach to co-education in other respects, we find that the women are almost half of the teaching force — 46 per cent. How do they fare out as principals? Five per cent. Here, surely, is an imbalance not completely explained by the subjects which were taught in the schools, that were the foundation of the schools, Here there must be a very real problem in regard to interview boards, in regard to the membership of interview boards, in regard to questions and in regard to the evaluation. I am glad to note that the Minister has, in recent weeks, revised the regulations for interview boards. This is something to be welcomed. I think the committee will thank the Minister for this. But this is not the end of the problem. Ensuring that there will be one woman, and with due regard for equality at least one man, on each interview board will ensure that the occurrence of undue questioning will not go unnoticed. But we still have the problem of the evaluation of the answers.

We have only to look to Northern Ireland to see how subtle is the way in which discrimination can be practised on interview boards. I came to know of a case recently, of an interview board for the Civil Service in Northern Ireland under direct rule. It has been a very long time since anybody was asked at an interview board in Northern Ireland: "What is your religion?" It was never necessary to do this because with segregated education all you were ever asked was what school you went to. When you answered what school you went to this revealed the answer that was being sought.

I had thought that this was now gone. But I was rather interested to hear that in this recent interview for the Civil Service in Northern Ireland under direct rule the first question which was asked of an applicant, whose name did not reveal his religion, was: "Do you play soccer or do you play Gaelic football?" He was able to give the truthful and unhelpful answer that be played neither and was a member of a rugby club, thereby adding to the difficulty of the interview board.

But where people wish or tend to discriminate they cannot be stopped. They cannot be stopped by composition of interview board unless one can weed out all these people, nor by a list of prohibited questions. The board in the case mentioned were not a bit interested in his playing rugby. The next question was: "It has often been suggested that Ireland would do better in international soccer if Ireland had one team drawn from the North and the South. What do you think of this suggestion?" The questions were all about sport, of course. This is a typical subject at an interview in order to explore people's personality and their attitudes. Here is an instance of how such a topic can be abused. What the Minister has done in regard to interview boards is a first step. A lot more steps will have to be taken, more in terms of education. It is difficult to say what the time scale is going to be for the solution of this problem.

In conclusion I would like to point out what has been said in the conclusion to the report. In the conclusion, on pages 35 to 37, I find of particular importance the first paragraph on page 35:

While accepting that there is now a greater awareness among the general public of discrimination against women in all walks of life, insufficient affirmative action is being taken to eliminate the problem. A restructuring of the existing educational system, backed up with a positive commitment by the Government, and spearheaded by the Department of Education, to eradicate all elements of sexism in the area of education is seen as a necessary first step to bring about a society where equality for all the citizens will no longer be an unfulfilled dream but a reality. Changes in the educational system will not be effected overnight, and changes will come only through the wholehearted efforts of the Department, teachers, management and parents, each group working in close co-operation with the other. Attitudes long held must change if society is to appreciate the benefits, educationally and socially, that will inevitably ensue from an educational system free from every form of discrimination.

The Minister is being asked to spearhead this particular attempt to create, in this respect, a new social order. It is up to all of us to support her. It is a work which must be tackled with increased determination and vigour. But it will be a long haul, and in starting it we should realise that.

In the last paragraph of our report we said:

The Joint Committee on Women's Rights emphasises its convictions that co-education is the vehicle by which this situation will be brought about and that the advantages deriving from co-education will eventually be reflected in all areas of society. It is further convinced that the implementation of all the proposals it has made throughout this report is vital for the education and training of our young people if they are to take their places as equal partners in the modern world. Accordingly the Joint Committee exhorts the Government and in particular the Minister for Education to accept and implement the recommendations of this first interim report.

I echo that request. From what I know of the Minister and from what I have seen of what she has done since taking office, I do not think we will be asking in vain.

Mr. M. Higgins

It gives me great pleasure to second the motion: "That Seanad Éireann takes note of the Joint Committee on Women's Rights Interim Report: Education." In doing so I am at the disability of following on a very comprehensive, wide ranging and very thorough speech by Senator Dooge. I share all of the feelings that he has in relation to the importance of this report. Senator Dooge, in the earlier sections of his speech, set the report in a near historical context. He has very correctly emphasised the important preceding documents, very particularly the major report, the report of the Commission on the Status of Women. He equally has drawn attention to the work of other agencies such as the Employment Equality Agency. All these preliminary documents and activities were terribly important.

I would like to approach this report in perhaps a slightly different way. It is important to see the circumstances in which the committee on women's rights made a decision to choose education as a principal area of investigation, as the topic with which it would begin its review of the position of women in Irish society. It had other choices available to it. It could have, for example, started in the area of health where there is a very much less than satisfactory set of arrangements as they involve the health of women. One could have turned to the legal system where there are many disabilities. One could also have turned to social welfare. All these areas are areas to which the committee, in time, will have to turn.

It chose education because of the centrality of education in the experience of most people. It recognised the tremendous influence that the different aspects of education can have as a socialising agent on young children. It was a good choice in many ways. But it leads me to raise some preliminary cautions in this regard. There are two broad contextual issues in relation to a report of this kind. One is in relation to what can be achieved by education. The second is, within the problem of sexism, how much can be done to reduce sexism by activities within educational reform.

It is an important question because no member of the committee, a committee who worked with an extraordinary commitment to making progress and to avoiding narrow divisiveness, as Professor Dooge has mentioned already, no member of that committee suggested that education of itself could undo the problems of sexist society because it would be an incredible error to make such a suggestion. The approaches we have adopted raise questions as to what education can do at all in relation to any problem, be it in relation to sexism or economic performance or whatever. I feel we had a disability in this regard. I think that the issue as to the relationship of education to society is only now beginning to be examined in a comprehensive form in Ireland.

I can be more explicit. Should education generally be regarded as the passing on of the received culture of a society in a relatively efficient manner in as much as it is possible, should it be regarded simply as reflecting the existing needs of a society, or should it enable the society to be critically examined? A fourth model, which I would not follow here, is that in a society that has experienced, let us say, some kind of transformation, should the educational system be used as the vehicle for a particular ideology, something that I would reject myself? I favour very much the third model, that is that the educational system should be one in which the structure of society could be examined critically, in the best sense of that word "critically", exposing the connections of society so that they might be understood. I feel we are very far from that.

To make my point somewhat sharper, I think that in a situation where there is so much pressure placed on the educational system to serve economic needs there is a very great danger that what one will have in the social order of the school, for example, are such arrangements as will enable the efficient transmission of information to the greatest number of people with the minimum amount of effort and hopefully the most reduced cost that one can have. This would be one model. If, for example, you are to make education a critical experience in which you will generate more questions than answers you will have a social order in the school which will be far more democratic.

In that regard I am convinced that we are far from that day, because I believe that democracy is something that is practised through every day of the year. I refuse to accept definitions of democracy that regard election behaviour for 13 days in an entire lifetime as an experience with democracy. Democracy is about the way you treat minorities, how you arrive at decisions, the negotiation of consensus and so forth, and it is to be hoped that we will have experience in classrooms of what democracy is in practice. I realise in saying this that the educational system does not exist divided from the economy nor does it exist divided from the inherited ideological structures which exist at the present time, and it is these that serve as obstacles in moving towards that day.

I say this to emphasise the point that no member of the committee was suggesting that education alone can deal with the problem of sexism. I am convinced in approaching this question that what has been produced has been an excellent first step. To take up my larger question, even if our report was implemented, it would not be a sufficient response to undoing sexism. The reason for that is that sexism is so engraved in our society in many different ways. It is appropriate that we discuss this motion at Christmas time. Parents will be going to the shops, as I have often done at Christmas time, buying presents for my own small children. The first helpful inquiry one receives is: "Is it a boy or a girl?" Be it from consumer behaviour through advertising towards the whole question of child practices, towards the question of what is emphasised, one can begin quite early on to see how naturally sexist society reproduces itself comprehensively through every aspect and through every form of human behaviour. Thus it is that late in December and early January little girls will be putting on nurses' uniforms and little boys will be putting stethoscopes around their necks, they will be playing with tanks and so on.

In these early forms of play, the suggestion of toys, the whole attitudes of the society, we begin instantly to reproduce a society that does not simply draw differences between men and women but which is carefully, unconsciously but with tremendous thoroughness reproducing a society that has divided sex roles, that has divided the social roles of women and children. The problem about sexism is that it confuses biological difference with social roles, and it is in this way in every facet of Irish society, the reproduction of sexist society finds itself being facilitated.

The report recognises at the beginning the attitudes of parents and the importance that attaches to these, because in many ways we are, all of us, damaged products in relation to a society of equals, a society of equality between the sexes. Parents in their attitudes towards their own children very often reflect basic views which they feel are natural. The giveaway on this is when you are at a seminar or discussion on equality, when late in the seminar someone will irritatedly say: "But I am only talking about what is natural". That is the giveaway, because what they mean by that is that they no longer question what it is they are doing. Thus it is accepted as perfectly natural that women will clutch boxes of soap powder to their bosom in a way that they have long ceased to clutch their lover and say, "I am glad I have my Ariel back" or equally there will be an appeal to a sense of guilt where it is suggested that the woman has so damaged her child that he is about to burst into tears because she is using the wrong product on the floor of "her" house. It is "her" child, "her"-detergent, "her" house, "her" floor. It is not, of course, "her" household income because, turning to another aspect from the media, which is so atrocious in this regard.

There are a number of assumptions made there in relation towards sexuality and advertising. It is assumed that it is perfectly natural for women to climb on to the bonnets of cars in great numbers and that it improves the attractiveness of the motor car in question. It is equally assumed that males can apply toiletries which drive women insane. People would suggest that this has grown up over a time. It is so, because sexist society is something that is a very complicated set of structural symbols. Attitudes have been translated into images which in turn have become quite symbolically central in the society. Equally in so far as it tacitly enters consciousness there is of course the patriarchial structure of Irish society. Irish political parties, for example, are ridden with patriarchial attitudes.

I am conscious, as I introduce this report, that in making its choice to concentrate on education the committee had available to it, as Professor Dooge has mentioned, a number of reports that had already been put into print. It equally had some responsibility to look forward. Looking back for the last 20 years one can see the beginning of movements towards equality, an equality that came initially to be defined in terms of economic equality. The grave danger that I see now is that those gains were made at times of economic growth. It is a real contextual factor in the contemporary discussion about equality that we are now in times of deep economic recession that has lasted for some time. Where people are discussing these issues all over Europe they are very conscious of the fact that any equality gains which have been made for women are under some pressure in times of economic recession. It is important that that also be placed on the record.

What is important in this regard, therefore, is that we look quite coldly at what has been achieved in Europe and in our own country and so on. I think there are lessons in it for us. I will tell the House of one lesson that has arisen in relation to countries in Europe which is very interesting. It is that in the general moves towards women's equality the gains have been made very much in the public sector. They have been made in companies in which there has been a high State involvement for the very simple reason that a greater accountability could be gained from once the parliamentary battle is won towards equality or one could lean on this sector more easily. Thus the private sector was a sector that ran behind in every European country. Different reports, including the reports of the Danish Parliament among others, have suggested that there should be less sanctions in bringing private sector into compliance with equality but that there should be a series of incentives, in other words, where companies submitted to a review programme and positive incentives were offered towards the achievement of equality and so forth. The lesson there is that changing attitudes towards equality even in the economic realm in good times of economic growth was difficult in more than half the economy. We are now in the position where we have an external environment that is not favourable, where a great deal of conservation is re-expressing itself. I believe it is not hysterical to speak of the emergence of a new Right in Europe and a new Right in Britain and so on. It is in that atmosphere that people are beginning to call into question a number of the gains that have been made even in the economic realm.

I want to turn this report specifically in relation to our choice of education. We have not said that one can through education alone undo the comprehensive sexist society that we have inherited, the comprehensive sexist society in which we participate in every institution. I could not emphasise that enough. I mentioned the world of consumerism, the world of advertising. I could and should mention of course the Church itself where women are excluded very comprehensively from full participation. It was a matter that was discussed in our committee. There are other areas also that I could mention. One great obstacle against which there have been almost no gains at all or very small ones is, if one accepts the concept of equality between the sexes, I detect in looking back at the literature that has been produced over the last 20 years, a subterranean emphasis that most of the work has to be accomplished within women's experience or by women. Where there has been very little progress made has been in the examination by men of their attitudes in relation to women.

There has been very little commitment towards the examination of patriarchy as a problem within institutions and within organisations. There has been very little emphasis on the idea that if one has, no more than one has in relation to undoing the effects of colonisation which is an appropriate model, to look at changes made at the level of the colonised one also has to look at changes that have to be made at the level of the coloniser's attitude and images that both had through an interactive system of oppression, suppression and repression.

It is my view, as we begin to look at this question of education, that the enormous emotional damage that has been done for example by the absence of co-education to males in Ireland is extensive, damaging and has emotionally stultified many people. It has created enormous problems of repression. It is work that is within the realm of sociology which, unfortunately, has not been completed as to how this stultification of the emotions in single sex education, the enormous difficulties that people have had later in relation to sexual attitudes and sexual behaviour and its translation into guilt; how much it has in fact translated itself into a vast health bill for the country. Talking to alcoholics in the ward, the studies that come out about the incredible burdens that they have carried with them, the orginal emotional difficulties which drove them to seek what is an Irish solution, unfortunately, to their problem, is something well worth bearing in mind. I am simply saying that it is in that realm, the examination critically of male attitudes, that I do not see very much achievement and in which I believe there must be a commitment in the decades to come.

This point is re-echoed in this report here when we are making the case for sex education within a comprehensive programme for human relationships because we are stressing that we are not falling into the trap of advising sex education so that girls can avoid schoolgirl pregnancies. We are making the point that sex education is as much — and very much more I would say — about male responsibility in sexual relationships than it is about vulnerable females — a point which unfortunately is not made very often.

I think Professor Dooge is right to speak about affirmation. It is my own hope that by the time the Women's Rights Committee finishes the next couple of reports we will have found some formula — this is a view I expressed on the committee — to try to make it a regular mechanism in the drafting of legislation that certain equality norms will be observed. I believe that it is not practical to expect an equality lobby — it would be wrong to regard it as that — would have to take every existing discrimination against women — and that is in our terms of reference — and systematically remove it and then take every piece of legislation after it had been drafted and correct it where there was some form of discrimination against women. It is a very much better position altogether if we accepted that equality was not the outcome of the pressure of a lobby but a principle from which one had departed and that the drafting of legislation would operate within a framework of preliminary equality provision.

I realise there are difficulties here but they should be overcome. What that would mean is that you at least had held the ground for the future and you would systematically examine the existing corpus of legislation, the existing structure of social experience and the whole structure in which institutions work at the present time and eliminate those, and you could make a quantum leap forward in relation to equality. I do not think that we can be satisfied to regard the movement towards equality as the working of a lobby group when we are talking about such a fundamental principle.

The question of education was I think chosen because education — and it was acknowledged here — was felt to be a major area of socialisation and that what happened in education would be crucial for the entire society. It was equally recognised that other agencies of socialisation existed, and the position of parents was recognised. In every aspect ever relating to culture we recognised the existence of a sexist dimension. In looking at education, we have to ask ourselves the question as to whether the educational experience at present has the capacity to have in it a sufficiently critical dimension so as to tackle sexism. Our report would give it great strength. We are in favour of the giving of such additional resources as are necessary to increase the contribution that changed educational strategy can bring to bear on undoing sexism.

I am rather dissatisfied with our report in one respect. I listened to Senator Dooge saying that 12 years earlier a great number of the best of our proposals had been made by previous agencies. In 1926, the best, most comprehensive contribution had been made on saving the Irish language by the Mulcahy Commission. Let us hope that the equality movement has not the same fate as the Irish language has had over the years: the number of Irish language speakers went down; the reports got more costly and they weighed a great deal more but we were not making progress. That is very important. I would like our report to be discussed in places very much wider than Seanad Éireann. It is important and to be welcomed that it be debated here. But it should be debated elsewhere because it is elsewhere that its recommendations will either rise or fall. We may correctly congratulate the Minister on the issuing of guidelines on school texts but I am unhappy at the progress made in some areas in relation to school texts.

I was assisting my daughter with her homework the other evening and, in a textbook for fourth class in the Irish language, we came across a chapter called "An tEaspog". There was a beautiful example of what is called the naturalness of sexism. The bishop was coming to the school and the little girl says: "I think I need a new dress". Her mammy says: "We will go shopping". The little boy says: "I think that my shirt and trousers will do". So, they all go shopping together. They admire a dress, a blouse and skirt and so on and the girl says she likes this one; the mother says the other is nice also. The little girl suggests — and the Irish is impeccable — that they are very dear. Mammy then says: "But Daddy has a lot of money — tá a lán airgid ag Daidí". Apart from the suggestions of that one, Daddy then arrives and the little boy says: "Nach bhfuil na mná anadhaor?""Are not the women very dear, Daddy?" Then it moves on to suggest that when he grows up he is going to buy something for somebody also. That whole complex for people in fourth class, trí ghaeilge, made me ask: after all these years what have I been talking about? — I am not one of the idealists any more in relation to what is happening in education. This is not a reflection on anybody who is involved. The Minister is looking at someone who is beginning to lose a great deal of idealism because my experience in relation to small children has very often been one of a repetition of these old rhythms of difference that are so dreadful and a repetition of a great deal of the tedium and absence of imagination, even the destruction of imagination. I wish everybody well in getting past that obstacle. I must record my own sense of frustration; I thought we would be much further on than we are now.

There were many fine contributions to this report and the report stresses a number of things that are very important. Many of these points have already been made by the proposer of this motion and there is no need for repetition, but there are some points I will take up. In relation to the question of education policy and the curriculum, we stress the need that exists for consultation. The report emphasises the necessity for co-operation. It recognises I think above all else that the undoing of sexism and the achievement of some equality in the area of education will not be an exercise on paper: it involves the positive commitment of everybody involved in the whole process of growing up, children, teachers, parents, people working in communities and so on. The recommendations as they begin to unfold through the report are not made on simply technical grounds. The case for co-education is made not because we have been talking about co-education for some years but for the reason stated in paragraph 1.1:

It is in co-education that a broader and more enriching education is to be found.

In that topic a point is taken up that is very important. It is one of the paradoxes, in many ways, one of the contradictions that has to be dealt with. It was pointed out by some commentators in recent years that some female students appeared to be achieving more in single-sex schools. Therefore, was this not an argument against co-education? The committee discussed this as it discussed many other points: I am using it as an example rather than taking up this point here: the committee looked at the difference between individual mobility, individual achievement in relation to academic performance and the desirability of a broad and enriching education for everybody within the school system. It suggested that the case for co-education could not be assessed in terms of narrow technical or academic performance by individual students but that the case for co-education should be judged entirely in terms of what its implications are for society and the changes it will bring about and the consequences of it or the absence of it.

I have spoken about the absence of co-education and the kind of psyche that it produces. This argument for co-education cannot be damned by pathetic attitudes when someone says: "I have been through this experience myself and it did no harm to me". When I hear that at a public meeting discussing education I have to resist the temptation to be grossly impolite and ask the person to look at themselves as a walking disaster or to listen to what they are saying or to read it and so on. It is because of the social impact of co-education that we came out in favour of it and because of the broad implications that it would have.

In discussing the section on educational policy there were a number of points made. I have touched on one of them already.

The whole notion of sex stereotyping is ingrained within the educational system for a very long time and talks with guidelines on sexism and sex stereotyping have been addressed by the Minister and are welcomed by the committee. I hope that this brings to bear a considerable change in school text books. It would be very unreasonable to expect that you would not have, given the overall nature of the society and the overall emphasis at every level, such sexism, but it is very appropriate, in so far as the State has responsibility, and the people through the State and through the elected process, have the right to undo sexism that we should undo sexism in the text-books. It was interesting that our proposals in this regard were welcomed by the Conference of Major Religious Superiors. It is important to say that at the press conference the point was made that these proposals would be welcome. We did examine the different existing provisions as to where within the school system there had been a differential response and a differential achievement in relation to co-education.

In relation to the curriculum, Professor Dooge was correct in emphasising the strength of the Hannan Report, drawing a distinction as to the different ways in which one looked at subject provision. The division between subject provision, access and take-up is a very important one. There is such a thing as the social order of the school. If you want to see it you only have to be there in the morning as people divide up into classrooms or at the break-up at the end of class times for lunch or afterwards and you will see it. You will see a scattering of the students in different directions. To say that you will make it possible on paper for girl students to take particular subjects is very far from it appearing on the board with a room number and time and teacher indicated. That is a very different thing. You have to look at the way in which the subject is genuinely accessible to female students in terms of its time slot. For example, the choices are unfortunate. Recently, I was speaking to some parents in County Wexford and they explained to me the choices that students have to make to take any of these new subjects which we have been emphasising, like honours mathematics for girls and so on. To choose it they would have to drop some other subject. It went on like this. If we say that we are in favour of the elimination of discrimination in terms of access to professions and access to the world of work and experience on the basis of sex we must positively remove all these objective impediments.

Related to the question of access is the making of such provision that the subject will be offered and the whole question of provision of teachers and so on. Much more than that is necessary because we could fall victims of our own model, and the same applies to Professor Damien Hannan even though he has made so many distinguished contributions in the whole area of access to education. We must put ourselves in the position of a young female student who is now in a school where the subject is available, has been allocated a time slot and a teacher made available. It comes out in the study that the influence of the peer group — at least it is by implication there — is very important. Will the high performer female student in mathematics, for example, have to become an exception socially so as to become a member of the honours maths class? There is the influence of the peer group; there is the influence of the parents; there are the assumptions that they hold in relation to subjects that are usual subjects for a girl to take. There are all sorts of influences. That is why we stress that, later on in guidance, but equally in relation to advice that is available in the choice of subjects, we have to look at the totality of influences which surround the decision by the individual female student to take a particular subject or not. We have to intervene in all of them if we are to find more girls taking the subjects that will be important to open up doors for them later in life in respect of the world of work.

In paragraph 3.3 of the report there is a suggestion made for a programme to teach basic skills on living, such as budgeting, taxation, insurance, mortgage repayments etc. There is no suggestion in this that this is so that a woman might run the tasks of a household more effectively. That would obviously be one of the outcomes of it, but it is more adequately so that the whole world of commerce and negotiating the world of finance would be understandable and accessible to women. Such a programme also embracing social and political science should be integrated into the existing educational structure of all schools.

The Minister knows my views in relation to the provision of social and political science. Under the existing provision for the subject of physics some things can be achieved but they are insufficient. Equally under home economics certain things have been achieved, and will continue to be achieved, that are very valuable. However, the idea that people can leave a school and have a vague idea that Dublin is on the east of the country and that Galway is on the west but have no map of the institutions of their country, of how decisions are taken, how power is exercised, what the great divisions are in philosophical thought as to how people have organised their lives, be it in terms of the meaning of words like fascism, socialism, democracy, liberalism, the meaning of laissez faire, the different choices in economics is very wrong. It is reasonable to accept that if you are to have citizen participation that should be available to everybody. It is such an atmosphere that, within such a subject, that you could teach such things as developmental studies, women's studies, equality and so forth.

I also believe that within the school system at present there are a great deal of under-utilised resources in this regard. Many people have taken my own subject, sociology and political science, in combination with a language or in combination with some other subject on the curriculum, and they say afterwards that they would have loved to have used this subject more positively within the curriculum. There is in existence a well of talent within the school system to apply that particular proposal, but the great benefit of such a proposal is what it would make possible in relation to personal development. All the proposals in the report in regard to the curriculum are addressed towards the question of personal and social development. May I give a practical example of what the absence of this does?

One of the most striking features of Irish political practice that has caught my attention over several years has been the high number of women who come as clients to political shrines at weekends, in search of the mediation of political saints of greater and lesser efficacy. What strikes me first, in the interaction that takes place, is the manner in which they have been excluded from information as to the mechanisms of the State, as to the way in which institutions work, be it in the provision of health services, housing services or whatever. There is, in a curious way, at its most gross the suggestion that in the same way as women are assumed in some bad novels to pray more, equally they are assumed to supplicate more in virtual ignorance of what their rights are or what provisions there are in different areas. It is regarded — and this has been studied — as not a very male activity to push the pram or go-car and drag the two other children off to the TD's clinic, that "herself" will do that on Saturday while "himself" will do something else.

Women are the clients of the State services very often. In this regard in relation to the structure of the State services there is great room for disquiet regarding the way in which women are treated. Many women have been excluded from work, and therefore from the experience of organisation. If they have been excluded from this I believe that this has not damaged or has not had the effect that many writers have been suggesting. They have been at the receiving end of absence in provisions in a number of ways, but I also think that there is a difference in the way that they are treated by public officials at the interface between their need and the State's provision. I can think of a woman arriving in a housing office in a local authority that I know of complete with pram, go-car and a couple of children and a very minor male official saying to her: "We have nothing for you".

This would not happen in the case of a male. I know from watching in different offices that there is a differential in treatment between men and women. That is one of the reasons why the nature of the State, the options in politics, the options in economics, the political choices and what their content is, is something that every citizen should have. The fact that women would have it would be a contribution to the breaking-down of a sexist society.

Regarding the section on curriculum, I have already read the reference to sex education in the broadest context of education for responsible relationships. I could not emphasise sufficiently the importance of sex education being available for both sexes. It is simply appalling that in the last few years, when there have been discussions on pregnancies of girls in second-level schools, people have concentrated on the carrier of the child. It is as bad as the publicity that was concentrated on cases, unfortunately, of women alone giving birth in incredibly appalling circumstances. They have suffered enormously and they have become the subject of public comment. Missing from the public discussion is the male partner in the sexual act. That point needs to be emphasised more and more because what we are speaking about is a cultural ambivalence that on the one hand emphasises from the male side, uncritically I feel, a certain amount of male braggadocio and macho values while on the other hand it is presented as being women who get into trouble. At one time the newspapers suggested that it was women who got men into trouble. I remember writing once about one of the great fears of the strongest landed classes of Ireland that women would get the sons of the family into trouble and disperse the property. In the old days when we were discussing the abolition of the status of illegitimacy some people thought that it was a sinister way of socialising the property of the State.

It is long past time that this single-sided notion of what the sexual act involves was abandoned and that we had some serious attempt to look at what takes place. In this report the suggestion has been that we have education for responsibility. I do not want to burden the report with my own views in that regard, but it also involves the adequate provision of the means of affecting that responsibility. We are hopeful that we will end the 20th century recognising that, though the signs are not always great.

In relation to teacher education, the members of the committee were very well aware of what needed to be done. We were aware of the good will of teachers in schools towards many of the purposes of the report, and of the very positive written contributions that were made by the teaching organisations and the oral contributions. Thus it was stressed that we should make such facilities available and that the Department should be encouraged to expand their efforts and to continue the efforts they have been making, and which we recognise, towards doing everything that can bring equality into the classroom. The effect of that in relation to training is that there should be such provision as is needed to enable teachers to be aware of undoing sexist status.

I will give a practical implication of what I mean by that. If you take the situation I mentioned earlier where a child in fourth class has, for example, a text book in Irish which is blatantly sexist in some of the examples it uses, because of the goodwill of the teacher — and I know that teachers do this — the text was rewritten. Some may say they will not deal with this because it is wrong in the examples that it gives, or they turn the page of the text into an educational illustration of how you can change attitudes by your teaching practice. That kind of training is important and it is important that facilities be available for it. It is equally important that adequate provision be made for in-service training. I have already spoken about the whole comprehensive setting in which the guidance counsellor will be working.

With regard to the guidance counsellors' functions, if I might add to Senator Dooge's point about the need for integrating the activities of the guidance counsellor in the total world of the school, there are two dimensions to the integration which is needed if guidance counselling is to be effective. One is integration within the world of the school, that is, that the guidance counsellor will have an influence in policymaking and timetabling and if the implications of such recommendations are made effective, they will affect every other subject and will be comprehensively involved within the world of the school.

The second dimension of integration is the other socialising agents that affect the world of the pupil — the guidance counsellor is involved in the world of the community and the world of the parents and so on. These are the two integrating necessary elements if the work of the guidance counsellor is to be effective. We make the point that we were not simply being cynical. We realise that the provision for guidance counselling and the provision of guidance counsellors is grossly inadequate. We suggest that there should be more particularly in the short-term, even in conditions of scarce resources, that there should be an urgent provision in the area of greatest need.

We took cognisance of the views of teachers expressed over the years through their organisations that the setting of the school itself in terms of basic provisions, be it in terms of the physical facilities that were made available or high pupil teacher ratios, in themselves could inhibit or assist the achievements of our proposals. That was the reason we suggested that where possible resources be made available, so as to create an appropriate setting for the achievement of our proposals.

Senator Dooge has spoken about the question of training courses and apprenticeships, and I can only say that here much has yet to be achieved. The people who enrolled originally for the first courses which took on women were very brave. I remember visiting training institutions that had the first women who enrolled as mechanics, painters and a whole series of other skills like them. The difficulties that they faced were ones not only of having got past all of the institutional impediments which we are anxious to remove, but they had difficulties among the peer groups and in the work setting.

This is why you cannot have a one-sided approach towards undoing sexism. If you leave male attitudes intact to be reproduced within the classic sexist model from one generation to another you will never have equality in the workplace, in institutions, education, in any aspect of life. That is where the work has yet to begin.

I wholeheartedly endorse the proposals in the report, and I endorse the repetition this afternoon by Senator Dooge for the elimination of minor difficulties in the way of women participating, for example, in enrolment for classes for single subjects in the leaving certificate. He is right when he suggests that women may often have wanted to enrol despite or with the active discouragement of their husbands at least. But equally in relation to working class areas where women have been trying to budget for provision for their children's needs from such means as the children's allowance and so on, asking somebody like that to pay a £30 enrolment fee is quite monstrous. That £30 could just simply be the straw that breaks the person's resolve in seeking to enrol and become involved. In all the circumstances when a person is making a heroic effort to achieve second chance education, it should be removed.

I feel that our proposals in relation to the provision of creches would almost warrant a separate document in itself on child care and the provision of creches. Indeed women have been imaginative in developing strategies that will allow them access to educational facilities. We need to put that in the context of the entire attitudes towards child care generally. The children are presumed to be the children of the women when they need care; they are very much the children of the father when they are transmitting property. They even take his name. We need to look at this question of child care in a very wide context. It has been the absence of provision in a comprehensive way for child care that has kept so many women out of participation in Irish society. The proposals that are made for imaginative giving of resources for the provision of creches in such a way as would be flexible is important both in terms of the educational setting and to the community.

I have spoken already of the media. One can easily speak about them. I spoke about the women transported to joy by soap powder, the guilt ridden woman who is not using the right product, women on the bonnets of cars. Equally there are women who are continually rubbing suds on their hands because it improves the quality of their skins. All of this fantasy world of images is within the media, and the reply made by companies when they are confronted with some of these notions is to kind of chuckle that this is really another one of those cranky objections to advertising. It is offensive and lessening and degrading and objectionable. It tells you a great deal of the insecure people who design and draft such advertisements and the false sheltered world to which they take refuge in answering the objections. I mean by that very much their inability to justify, other than market exploitation, what they are at — the idea that you can retire safely to a male dominated boardroom afterwards to have a quiet chuckle at the troubles that the advertisement has in fact created. That in its way is indicative of the secrecy, the sordidness and the lack of development of the male mind in Ireland. I could give you chapter and verse in relation to confronting this business about advertisements.

Generally the only reply that is made in relation to that is that it is the whole notion of the woman as object. As they say, twixt the fantasy and the experience there exists a great gap. In relation to the exploitation of sexual attitudes in advertisements there is a great deal of work now available that tells us what is happening in these advertisements.

I want to be placed on record as saying that I do not subscribe to the notion that the advertising standards body is sufficient or adequate or sufficiently aware of the importance of undoing this sexism as I would like. I simply think they are not. I refuse to draw a distinction between the world of legislation which would address problems like sexism and what is called the commercial world which are selling objects. The woman is being attached to the objects for sale as an additional incentive for Green Shield stamps or anything else. It is for that reason all very unsatisfactory. In political and social studies there should be a course in which people could read the media advertising and develop an adequate critique of it.

In relation to the position of women teachers I want simply to take up the point that Senator Dooge has stressed. It is on page 24 of the report, paragraph 10.2. Senator Dooge said that the situation is unlikely to change in the foreseeable future because of the imbalance at entry to the colleges of education where females now constitute over 70 per cent of the student population. However, the predominance of women teachers, 15,500, 75 per cent, to 5,100 males, 25 per cent, is not reflected in the figures for posts of responsibility with 53 per cent of principalships being held by men and 47 per cent by women. A system of which 25 per cent of the work force holds more than half of the principalships illustrates the extent to which inequality between the sexes is entrenched in the teaching profession.

This does not apply only at second level in the different spheres. For example, in that level, in the vocational area there are 1,131 men and 981 women teachers employed in the comprehensive and community schools, with 54 of the principalships held by men and three by women. The situation in the vocational area is 2,985 men and 1,928 women full-time, 11 women principals, 30 women vice-principals, 236 and 215 men respectively.

One sees the failure of women studies to emerge on the curricula of third level. In other university systems there are lectureships in women studies, even whole departments. I feel very disappointed in that. There are 29 statutory lecturers, and 2.3 per cent of female staff held senior teaching posts, four full professors, four assistant professors and 29 statutory lecturers.

One of the strongest proposals in the report is in relation to how all this comes about. The manner in which one goes before the interview board is itself a ritual in which the society re-produces itself. There is the question about who is a member of the interview board for a start. There are a number of people who have taken a vow of celibacy who are on boards all over the country. You have under representation of women on local authorities. You have an under representation of women on vocational education committees, a reflection of the low representation of women in local authorities. Because you have very few women on VECs you have predominantly male interview boards.

The composition of the interview board is only one aspect of its being to some extent a carrier of such values as are inhibiting the move towards the achievement of equality of recruitment and promotion. The actual procedures of the interview board, the content of the questions, are themselves real factors. For example, the Minister for Education has very wisely, and courageously in some circumstances, given directions as to the conduct of interview boards. The directions illustrate how putting questions which discriminate against women on the basis of sex are to be declared unacceptable. Since that directive was issued, there have been meetings by education groups and they have heard lectures on how to get the information, as Senator Dooge has pointed out, in a case on Northern Ireland. They actually got lecturers to come and speak on the topic of how one can get around this obstacle and find out the information one wants about the teacher before she is appointed to any position or before promotion is given. It would be coy of me to say how appalled I was by the whole discussion that surrounded the Eileen Flynn case and the manner in which that case was handled. Being a female was a key factor in not securing her normal rights.

I offer to the Minister every support in any measures she will bring forward to eliminate any discrimination in the interview setting. It arises in the composition of the board, in relation to the structure of the questions and in relation to strategies that are invented to frustrate the norms of equality. I know some people who have been applicants for promotion within the education system. I have asked them what type of questions are being asked usually. For example, they are being asked questions like "What provision are you making for your children?". We come again to the possessive pronoun "your". They are the children of two parents. The fact that the person who is the applicant for a post or for promotion is able to be the carrier of a child should not be the disadvantage within the educational system which it is at present.

We were aware that, while we were discussing this for the future, there are at present and had been in the past experiences of unusually long delays in hearing of equality cases in the educational sphere. We have expressed our opinion on that. We welcomed, too, the appointment by one teaching trade union of its own equality officer. We made recommendations in the committee on the three dimensions in the interview process: the board's composition, the content of questions and the taking of positive action to eliminate discriminatory practices.

All of the 17 proposals that have been made constitute an immediate short term agenda for action. They should be supported and discussed outside this House. I would like to see the report debated in the teaching trade unions, in vocational education committees, at local authority level and by parent/teacher organisations so that we might achieve not simply their endorsement but that those of us who work in the committee and our fellow legislators might make their opinions an agenda for the kind of attitudinal change that is necessary if we are to make an ingress on sexist society.

The committee was quite correct in choosing education. It re-echoed a point made by a committee of inquiry of the European Parliament into the situation of women in Europe which was published in May 1984. The report before us, on page 36, states:

Any fundamental change in society can only be achieved through a change in the education system. If women are to be guaranteed liberation and equality of opportunities this must be based on equal opportunities from the very start of their education. From generation to generation parents and teachers pass on unchanged attitudes to their children and pupils, and this influence is significant as boys and girls see around them the role they are expected to play in society.

I repeat that we were under no illusions that we were changing society or undoing sexism by bringing forward this report. We felt that in addressing one of the central key elements in the reproduction of a sexist society in the educational system and in making recommendations on how to change that, we were making a small but a significant contribution towards equality.

Sitting suspended at 1 p.m. and resumed at 2 p.m.

Mr. Mullooly

As a member of the Joint Committee on Women's Rights I welcome the opportunity to make a brief contribution to the debate on this motion. The committee, under the very able chairmanship of Deputy Geoghegan-Quinn, worked extremely hard for almost a year to bring forward this first report. It is gratifying to note that its contents and its recommendations have met with general approval and have received a particularly warm welcome from the representatives of the various teaching interests in the country. I join with Senator Dooge in saying that the committee were greatly assisted in their work by the many individuals and groups who made written submissions and oral representations, all of which were carefully considered and examined.

At their initial meeting the Joint Committee had a wide-ranging discussion on various areas of discrimination against women, and issues affecting women's rights. It was agreed that many of the inequalities between the sexes are rooted in the education system as at present structured. Hence the decision that education should be a priority subject for consideration and that the committee should address themselves in particular to the questions of co-education, curriculum reform, educational facilities for female students, and the position of women in the teaching profession.

It is important to note that the report recognises and acknowledges the role of parents in relation to the education of their children, and to stress that the members of the committee are very aware that the goodwill of parents and teachers is a prerequisite for any change in existing educational structures.

The members of the committee were unanimous in the view that pupils at first and second level, benefit both educationally and socially, from co-education. This view was supported by the three main teaching organisations at those levels, the INTO, the TUI and the ASTI. The arguments in favour of co-education are so overwhelming that the committee would wish to see all single sex schools moving in the direction of co-education, with the positive support and encouragement of the Department of Education. While the problem of single sex schools is not as great at primary level as it is at secondary level, there is still a significant number of single sex primary schools throughout the country. In some areas boys and girls are in the same building but are taught in separate classes.

The segregation of young children into single sex schools or single sex classes reflects an attitude that they have different needs and should be taught to behave differently. Since the primary school curriculum is the same for all children, there is no logical reason why they should be segregated on the basis of sex. Sometimes pupils who are segregated at primary school level move into a co-educational school at second level. The transition can be difficult for such pupils and can, in some cases, give rise to behavioural problems. At second level single sex schools, by their very nature, reinforce traditional attitudes and promote sex stereotyping, since they tend to provide subjects which are traditionally male or female subjects.

Co-educational schools provide the best opportunity for the elimination of sex stereotyping, particularly in subject choice. They also provide the opportunity for pupils to mix with their peers of both sexes on a daily basis. This is vital for the development of a responsible attitude to the opposite sex. Since many of the single sex schools are under the control of the various religious orders, it is important to point out that the spokesperson for the Conference of Major Religious Superiors who addressed the committee stated that while the conference, as such, had no policy on co-education, the majority of the orders consulted favoured involvement in co-education where a new school was to be established or where there was the possibility of amalgamating two or more existing schools.

It is clear that there is now widespread support and goodwill for the principle of co-education. This support is forthcoming from the teaching interests and the community. A greater effort on the part of the Department of Education in implementing a policy of co-education would hasten the day when true co-education will be provided for all pupils at both primary and post-primary level.

The elimination of sex stereotyping in text books and the provision of the broadest possible curriculum for all pupils were also identified as being of considerable importance. The committee wish to see boys and girls given every encouragement to take up non-traditional subjects. The areas of subject choice and subject availability are very important, since the subjects a pupil studies play a major role in determining that pupil's employment prospects or access to further education. Therefore, it is vitally important that school timetables should not restrict subject choice.

Technology will have the effect of eliminating many of the jobs, in particular clerical jobs, which were performed predominantly by women in the past. Unless girls are given the opportunity to take up technical and science subjects, the employment opportunities available to them in the future will be very limited. In paragraph 3.1 the report states:

In the technological age in which we live it is only right that girls should be given the same opportunities at school as their brothers, to prepare them for the very difficult and challenging conditions of the present day.

I do not think there is anyone who could disagree with that statement. The report also outlines some of the curriculum changes and reforms that the committee wish to see and expresses the hope that the curriculum and examinations board will provide some enlightened recommendations in this area. Senator Dooge referred to the emphasis the committee placed on the need to introduce into the curriculum a programme for living skills and a sex education programme. A very strong case is put forward for each of the changes and reforms suggested in paragraph 3 of this report.

In the following paragraph the necessity for adequate and effective in-service training for teachers is highlighted. The report calls on the Department of Education to ensure that in-service training becomes an established feature of the educational system. If the Department set up the organisational and financial framework which will enable teachers to avail themselves of in-service training courses, the teaching profession will reciprocate by accepting that there is a responsibility on all teachers to participate fully in such courses.

Educational facilities for female students was another of the four priority areas identified for special consideration by the committee. The importance of guidance counselling is recognised in paragraph 5 of the report and there is a strong recommendation for an expansion of this service. An increase in the number of guidance counsellors and a lowering of the pupil-teacher ratio would greatly improve the quality of the education service, particularly as far as girls are concerned.

The lowering of the pupil-teacher ratio would enable a wider subject choice to be made available. It would help to rectify the situation identified in paragraph 6.2 of the report where it is stated:

Very few girls at leaving certificate level take subjects such as physics and higher mathematics and often when they are anxious to follow these subjects they cannot do so because the facilities and teachers are not available in their schools.

An expansion of the counselling service would help to redress the situation that obtains at present in the various training and apprenticeship schemes operated by the State-sponsored agencies. The appalling imbalance which obtains in these schemes is underlined by one statistic given in the report. That statistic is that, at the end of December 1983, there were 108 female apprentices out of a total of 18,779.

The report considers at length the position of women in the teaching service with particular reference to their appointment and promotion prospects. At every level there is evidence of discrimination against female teachers when it comes to appointments to senior posts and principalships. The position in primary education is that up to now a male teacher had a five times better chance than a female teacher of becoming a national school principal, despite the fact that the profession is approximately 75 per cent female. Many people would attribute this to the fact that interview boards in the past were very often comprised entirely of men.

Like Senator Dooge I welcome the recent revision of paragraph 23 of the Constitution of Boards of Management and Rules of Procedure. The paragraph deals with the appointment of teachers to national schools. It is now mandatory that there be at least one woman and one man on every selection board. Under the procedure outlined in the revised paragraph, the selection board must have due regard to the provisions of the Employment Equality Act and the code of practice of the Employment Equality Agency. Furthermore it is stated that no question should be asked or information sought which might be construed as being discriminatory on the grounds of sex or marital status. The implementation of these provisions should help to ensure that in the future there will be greater equality of opportunity in the appointments of principals, assistant teachers and to posts in national schools.

In community, comprehensive and vocational schools women are also seriously under-represented in promotional posts. The figures given in the report and which were supplied by the Department of Education bear this out. While the report states that the position regarding the promotion of teachers to posts of responsibility in secondary schools is operating to the satisfaction of the teachers' union and management, it must be pointed out that the post of principalship in the majority of secondary schools is not available to lay teachers.

In third level education the fact that only 2.3 per cent of the female staff hold senior posts speaks for itself. It is scarcely any wonder that the report describes that as disturbing. By drawing attention to the situation that prevails in relation to the promotion prospects of female teachers at present, the report has pointed the road to genuine equality of opportunity in the teaching service.

I will conclude by reiterating that this is an excellent report. I express the hope that the Government and, in particular, the Minister for Education, will implement the recommendations contained in the report.

Minister for Education (Mrs. G. Hussey)

I should like to start by joining in the general welcome the House is giving to this report. Most sincerely I congratulate the entire committee on their work. It was particularly pleasing to me that they chose education as the subject of their first report. I was fortunate enough to be able to hear a great deal of the debate today. I found it thoughtful and thought-provoking. A most interesting feature of the debate has been that with the exception of my own contribution, all of the contributions so far have been by male Members of the Seanad. This in itself surely must mark some kind of watershed in discussions of this nature. Perhaps the fact that men have started to debate this subject seriously will mean that something will begin to happen.

I should like to remark on something Senator Dooge said in his lengthy and extremely interesting contribution. He paid great tribute to the report of the Commission on the Status of Women which was issued in 1972. I should like once more, as I have done before elsewhere and as a Member of this House, to pay my tribute to the commission in their work. The commission's report might well be said to be the base for the awakening of interest in politics and public life on the part of many women including myself and, I suspect, other women Members of this House. That report was our Bible for some years. Indeed as Senator Dooge remarked, it could well remain as a Bible for all of us to go by whenever we want to discuss progress in equality for women.

However, it is sad to say that the commission's report was published in 1972. Despite the very fine section in the report on education, and despite the continual identification of education as a major area which needed to be tackled in order to put right the inequalities in our society, there were no special programmes, no progress, no initiatives. Nothing was done by successive Ministers for Education until I became Minister. No programme was initiated by the Department. I asked questions in the Dáil but not much attention was paid to them. No programme was undertaken.

It is my aim, and has been since being appointed Minister for Education, to make this area a priority in our work in the Department. Apparently I am the first Minister who took notice of this area, but also because I hope that when I am no longer Minister for Education, and when perhaps a non-feminist Minister for Education will be appointed, the whole matter will not be swept under the carpet again as it was up to now. I am sorry if I sound a little cross. I do not intend to sound cross. The point has not been made that nothing whatsoever was done, and that I am the first Minister who initiated a programme which was in operation long before the issue of this very valuable report which I am delighted to debate today.

The reason the committee chose the area of education as their first area for examination was the importance of the subject. They made quite sure that people would realise they did not consider it a peripheral matter, or that the question of equality of opportunity in education was some kind of educational nicety. It is of the most vital significance and it must be at the very heart of educational planning. Not only is it a question of ensuring basic human rights for young people of both sexes, but also it is of crucial economic importance in terms of employment opportunities.

It is often overlooked that, when we talk of equal opportunities for girls in having access to school subjects, we are talking of employment chances and life opportunities for half of our population. What issue could be more central than that? This is one of the reasons why I am so glad to welcome the Joint Committee's report.

I am very pleased to note the close alignment of the report with my own views and that we share a mutual ambition to eliminate sexism and sex stereotyping from education. I welcome the committee's support for my work on the elimination of sexism and sex stereotyping from school text books and towards achieving a greater awareness among teachers generally of how attitudes can influence children in their perception of the role of women in society.

Over the past two years I have taken unprecedented steps to establish a programme to promote the equality of women within education. Therefore, the Joint Committee's work is most timely. I can assure the Joint Committee that they will find in me an ally who takes their recommendations extremely seriously. I want to assure the committee that I will sustain my efforts by giving effect to as many of the recommendations as can be implemented and those which are not implemented already.

We all know that girls are significantly under-represented in courses in technical areas, metal-work, advanced maths and physics, subjects which lay the groundwork for further study in most engineering and technological disciplines. As we know, they are concentrated instead in the more general education streams that include languages, art, music and home economics. Their career aspirations, as a result of this, are both restricted and short term, reflecting an overall education they have received and the attitudes they have encountered both at school and in their homes. Those attitudes were very well set out by Senator Higgins in his very useful contribution which I found, as I always do with Senator Higgins's contributions, not only informative but entertaining as well, which is the best way to inform people.

I want to refer briefly to some of the remarks made by Senators. Senator Higgins said something most important, and I should like to stress it. He mentioned the importance of young people having a critical understanding of the society in which they live. The use of the word "critical" is most important. I would fully concur with it. That is why I took some care that in the curriculum and examinations board's terms of reference we specifically asked the board to seek ways to give young people a critical awareness and understanding of the society around them. That word "critical" was used for very definite reasons.

There is one small point which I might mention to Senator Higgins. He said that all over the country in late December and early January we would have little girls putting on nurses' uniforms and little boys donning stethoscopes. I hope it will come as cheering news to the Senator that the intake of students to our medical schools is now 50 per cent female and the total cohort is 45 per cent female. The drop out rate of doctors is a problem. Later on when it comes to specialisation and capability of pursuing specialisations there is a problem for women but, in terms of young women's aspirations, at least we know that whatever obstacles are put in their way in terms of having to have honours maths — and I do not understand why you have to have honours maths to study medicine — have been overcome and more and more women are going to medical schools.

He also shares with me the very strong belief that social and political studies should form an important part of the school curriculum. Again that features largely in the curriculum and examinations board's terms of reference. I have always felt a great sense of urgency in this area, and the Senator will be glad to hear that I have just been given to study the suggestions for a completely revised syllabus for the learning of civics in schools, a completely revised syllabus up to leaving certificate. This is part of my reading at the moment. I am studying that whole area. We are making progress there. It was too important to wait for further developments.

Senator Dooge rightly brought up the question of parents and parents' involvement both in terms of what they need to do about their own attitudes and how they can help us by changing attitudes within schools and among young people. I could not agree more with him. We have one strong ray of hope in that we are very far on the road to the establishment of a national parents' council. At every level of our discussions on education we are now happily able to involve parents more and more. They have been present at some of our seminars discussing the question of sexism in schools. They are spreading the word among their own associations. It is an area we must pursue with great energy.

Last week as one of my duties as President of the EC Council of Ministers of Education, I met with the newly formed European Parents' Association in Brussels. I am glad to say that the first topic for discussion at our meeting was the whole question of equal opportunities for girls in education. It certainly is high on the agenda, and I intend to keep it there as far as I possibly can by encouragement at all levels.

As I said at the beginning of my contribution, one of the reasons for that is that it is becoming very clear now to parents, as it should, that there is another element to the whole question of equalising opportunity, which is not only the element of human rights and development of the full person, both boys and girls, but also the real economic opportunities that our young women will be foregoing if we do not change the system for them.

Senator Dooge was also concerned about the problem of examination fees as, indeed, was Senator Higgins. On the general question of having to have fees for examinations at all, I am sorry that I cannot help Senator Higgins more in this area. We have put a stop to the rise in fees this year. We have a new system. The fees can be paid in two moieties for the first time ever, and we have a hardship scheme for examination fees. These are new elements that were never there before.

On the question that Senator Dooge mentioned — and I think Senator Higgins, although unfortunately I had to be absent for that part of his contribution — we have now introduced a system whereby examination fees are paid separately per subject. The fee per subject is £10, so that a person doing anything less than three subjects will be paying less than the full examination fee, but a person doing more than three subjects will not pay more than the £30 examination fee. It is not going far enough, but it is a new scheme and one which we feel will go some way towards helping in the difficulties he mentioned.

I am, as Senator Dooge is, aware of the great work being done by women in the area of what you might call community education coming together and establishing creche facilities. This is a very exciting social movement. In the national plan the Government are setting aside an additional £1 million in the area of adult education specifically for literacy and community education. If the kind of thing Senator Dooge was talking about is not community education, I do not know what is. That will be very carefully steered in that direction. In terms of creche facilities, for example, the committee had a submission from the Kilbarrack women's group. I am happy to say that another State agency helps there also by providing from the Youth Employment Agency's side youth workers who are paid by the State to help to organise and run the creches for these groups. That is being done and that sort of activity must be encouraged and increased.

The social employment scheme which the Government announced also in the national plan should give great assistance in these areas also and be a valuable source of work for people who have been on the long term unemployed list.

May I briefly turn to co-education now? I have noted very carefully the committee's commitment to the promotion of co-education which it sees as a means of giving greater equality of opportunity to both girls and boys. I want to give an assurance that I will continue to promote co-education wherever possible, particularly where new schools are being established or where amalgamations are being negotiated. As Senators have said, we have had a tradition of single sex education for some time in many places. It obviously would not be feasible or make sense to close down existing schools and discard expensive school facilities. However, every opportunity for co-operation and bringing together boys and girls schools is being and will be encouraged.

At the same time, and this was touched on briefly by Senator Higgins, Senators are aware that there is quite a lively debate among educationalists regarding whether girls, in fact, do better academically in non-traditional subjects in single sex schools where those subjects are provided. I hasten to say that I believe this arises where schools officially labelled co-educational are in fact run with what might be called a single sex mentality and where true equality of opportunity does not exist.

The most valuable Hannan Report, which formed the basis of a great many of our initiatives in the Department of Education, pointed out the difficulty that even where the choices exist the take-up is the problem and that it is by no means assured that in a co-educational establishment girls will take up non traditional subjects. It is quite clear that it is not enough to provide girls with access to a wider range of subjects but that a positive intervention is necessary at all levels — from Government, school authorities, administrators, teachers and parents. Research and experience have demonstrated to us the need for intervention programmes that will take up many variables that influence the education and career choices of girls.

As I mentioned before I am current President of the EC Council of Ministers for Education and I have made, during my six months' term of office, equal opportunities for girls one of my three priority themes for discussion by the education committee of the EC during the Presidency. The education committee has been presented with a number of proposals for specific measures in the field of education at European level. I am very glad to hear that it has responded favourably to the Irish Presidency Paper on this issue.

Arising from our proposals to the education committee a high level European conference on equality of opportunity for girls, organised by the Commission of the European Communities and my Department, was held in Brussels on the 27 and 28 November.

For the first time it brought together representatives of the national educational authorities and equal opportunity agencies in the member states together with representatives of a wide variety of national and international agencies concerned with promoting equality of opportunity in the member states of the Community. I know from my attendance at the conference that many valuable and practical recommendations and guidelines came out of the work of the conference, and I look forward with great interest to receiving the report of the conference. I believe that the nature of the difficulties experienced by girls and young women in striving for equality are such that they can only be overcome by the joint efforts of parents, schools, labour agencies and the young people themselves. For this reason co-operative studies of these problems such as occurred at the Brussels conference are of particular importance and it is my intention to arrange for the organisation of a national conference with the same end in view early in the new year. This idea of national conferences on this topic was one of the recommendations emanating from that conference in Brussels last week. I am very glad to take that particular idea on board, because we must keep up with our initiatives in all the areas.

As a practical response to the outcome of that conference, and to ensure that the lessons of it are not forgotten in Europe, I am proposing a draft resolution on equality of opportunity within education to the education committee with a view to having it adopted by the Council of Ministers for Education at their meeting in June 1985. I firmly believe that we must make every effort to combine national and international action in our work to eliminate sexism and discrimination against girls from all aspects of educational provision.

I particularly welcome in the Joint Committee's report the acknowledgment of parents as the early and fundamental educators of the child, as I have always upheld their rights in influencing the type of education received by their children. This is why we have encouraged and facilitated the setting up of a National Parents' Council which, if discussions go as successfully as they are now going, will be established early next year. As I mentioned to you earlier, I met with the European Association of Parents in Brussels and just last week I attended the launching of the Vocational School Parents' Association, the national association. That is an association which I had the great pleasure of helping to initiate. We do expect in the future that through these associations and the national council we will have parent's views represented at all levels of decision making. As I have said to Senator Dooge already an important part of that will be to involve parents in striving towards improving the equality opportunities for girls.

Senators also mentioned the question of guidelines on sex education, and the committee came out very strongly on that point. I am on record already as giving my support to the efforts being made to give guidance to schools on introducing programmes of sex education. I have stressed particularly that it is essential for parents to be fully consulted and involved in the development of programmes. There is complete accord between us on the recommendation that sex education should be taught in the context of moral formation and personal relationships.

At this point I should say that I believe that there is a great deal of good work happening in schools quietly across the country in this area. I am happy to acknowledge that. One source of worry that I have, and which I have mentioned before in public, is that we do not find that the initiatives in this area, in boys' single sex schools, particularly those run by religious orders, are as advanced as the girls' schools. This was touched on by Senators and particularly Senator Higgins. It is something to be regretted, but now that it has been brought by Ministers, by speakers, to the attention of the Conference of Major Religious Superiors and others involved in the running of those schools I believe we will see a rapid move forward in that direction. It is extremely important that it should happen in parallel to developments in girls' schools.

On the question of rationalisation of facilities, that is obviously a very important part of giving girls the same opportunities as boys. At local level we must rationalise the use of school facilities and resources. Therefore, the committee's recommendations are fully in line with the current policy and the current practice which we outlined in the programme for action in education and in the national plan.

I take the points that were made by Senator Mullooly and others about the committee's recommendations in terms of pupil/teacher ratio. The Government obviously remain committed to achieving this as soon as our resources permit. We have pointed out quite clearly that in the short term additional posts will be created on a selective basis in the areas of greatest need. At a time of scarce resources I believe most strongly that we must point those resources to the areas of greatest disadvantage. This is what we intend to do also in the whole area of guidance counselling.

Professor Dooge

May I ask the Minister a question? The committee takes the view that one of the areas of greatest need for additional posts is in order to facilitate wider subject choice for girls. I take it that the Minister concurs completely in this as being a priority area?

Mrs. G. Hussey

Yes, I can assure Senator Dooge that that certainly is one of my priority areas. On the question of teacher education, the committee has recognised the need for in-service courses for teachers and the provision of additional guidance teachers in areas of special need. We are specifically allowing for these measures in the national plan. The plan also promises a review of initial teacher training. I assure the committee and the House that their concerns in this area will be taken fully into account. We have had the involvement of teachers in in-service training already in the whole question of equality opportunity for girls. One day seminars for primary level are being held before Christmas. These seminars are being held to create awareness of sexism in school practices. You might be interested to know that on the whole question of involving teachers by helping them in in-service training in this area, during 1984 part of our whole programme for eliminating sexism was that six regional seminars were held for school management, senior teachers and guidance counsellors at second level schools. The seminars had two objectives. The first was to highlight the concerns outlined in the Hannan Report and the second to offer practical help and support to those schools which do take positive action to provide equality in their schools. Seminars are also being organised for the principals of primary schools where time will be devoted to an examination of school policy, ethos, tradition and teaching materials with a view to eliminating sexism and sex stereotyping.

One of the problems facing any Minister for Education in carrying out such an extensive programme in this area is that sometimes the Minister's thinking seems to be far ahead of the practices of those people on the ground. As regards our second series of seminars on equality for principals, vice principals, guidance counsellors, the take up of places was disappointing. It is important that the House should know this. The Department have set out to facilitate and to help by organising these seminars regionally all around the country. For our second series the take up has been found to be disappointing. We had 90 participants between the three venues on the second series. We did hope for as many is 150. This shows how much work we have to do and how much work the Department and the Minister have to do to counteract a certain apathy in this respect.

I would like to draw the attention of the House to the comments of the Joint Committee on the position of women teachers at all levels of education and to express my complete agreement with the concerns expressed by the committee. I have been pressing very hard for action on this key area which can have such an influence on the role perceptions of young people not to mention the de-motivating effects on women teachers. The authorities of primary schools have agreed to ensure that there will be at least one woman and one man on the selection boards for principal and assistant teachers, and they have further agreed to have the constitution of boards of management and the rules of procedure amended so as to make this mandatory. Consultations are taking place with representatives of the school authorities and the teachers' union in regard to the revision of the procedures for the selection and appointment of teachers to ensure equality and so that the rules will incorporate the necessity to have due regard to the provisions of the Employment Equality Act, 1977 and the Employment Equality Agency's code of practice in 1983. It is expected that a formal agreement will be concluded shortly.

In many ways the position of women in third level education might be considered the worst of all. The House may be aware of a recent report on this problem prepared by Ailbhe Smyth of the French Department in UCD, called "Breaking The Circle". I was recently presented with the report. It highlights the thoroughly unsatisfactory state of affairs where women are greatly under-represented, particularly in senior positions. I am sure the Members of the Seanad who represent these institutions will join with me in wishing to have this situation remedied and will use their considerable influence as University Members in this House to open discussions with their own institutions about this difficulty. I intend to consider very carefully how, as Minister for Education, I could respond to it and how we might respond to it in conjunction with the Higher Education Authority.

One of the most difficult tasks for all of us is that of changing attitudes. Professor Hannan in his report, "Schooling and Sex Roles" states:

Sex differentiation in our educational system is very deeply institutionalised — in the ideological and cultural presumptions underlying the provision of subjects and the design of curricula, in the expectations of parents and teachers and in the self-definitions and educational attitudes and expectations of the students themselves.

For so long the kind of education received by girls was based on presumptions that, in today's world, are not only outdated but also unfounded. The social and economic changes that are taking place make it more urgent than ever that the attitudes an occupational horizons of girls must be widened. One way of trying to achieve this is through personal and vocational guidance. Guidance programmes not only need to assist girls in learning the basic skills necessary for optimum vocational decision-making, but also to expand the occupational horizons which currently exercise constraints on their decision-making and to counteract the psychological pressures that operate to inhibit the range of women's occupational choice and the stereotyping of occupations of sex to which girls are exposed. Guidance programmes must also cater for the interaction of the roles of marriage, motherhood and occupation so they are not seen as conflicting.

Needless to say guidance programmes for boys must also prepare them for the interaction of career, marriage and homemaking. That is something that we do not often hear said about the preparation and education of boys so I think I will repeat that needless to say guidance programmes for boys must prepare them for the interaction of career, marriage and homemaking.

I fully agree with the statement in a recent EC document — Girls and Transition — that "equality of opportunity in education, training or employment will be an uphill battle as long as girls are conditioned that their real fulfilment is to be found in marriage and motherhood, while boys are expected to find it in employment and successful careers." This widely held view of so many employers, educators, parents and young people alike must be challenged and changed if women are to become fully integrated into the economic and social life of our society.

I have mentioned the area of adult education. It is my hope that there will be another structure in the adult education boards which we will be setting up as a response to the adult education commission's report. I hope these new boards will give a priority to day time classes for men as envisaged by the committee under the terms of the provision for community education which we promised in the national plan. The recommendation that mature students taking the leaving certificate examination should pay a reduced fee on a per subject basis has been acted upon. From this year the fee for such students will be £10 per subject with a maximum payment of £30 per student.

Senators have noted that the report was favourably received by the principal educational interests. It is an extremely important report and one the implementation of which must receive a firm and generous response from everyone involved in education. For my part I pledge my own commitment and that of the Government to take all possible steps to ensure implementation of those recommendations which are directly within our control.

I offer my warmest congratulations to the members of the Joint Committee for having brought forward this challenging and welcome report. I look forward to working with them to make sure we offer the greatest possible equality of opportunity for all our young boys and girls.

Mr. Fitzsimons

I would like to begin by commending all the members of the committee for their hard work. At all the meetings we had during the year, attendances were very full. The one thing that was very noticeable was the commitment of all the members. They were all determined to play their part in doing whatever was possible to help the committee in this area. Possibly it might be better if we had somebody who was not committed or who had other ideas or perhaps could be a devil's advocate, but I realise that it would be very difficult to get any caring person to adopt that role. As Senator Dooge said, all our decisions were arrived at by a consensus and we never had a vote.

Like the other Members, I would like to pay a particular tribute to our chairperson, Deputy Máire Geoghegan-Quinn and our vice-chairperson, Deputy Monica Barnes. Also, I feel we should be grateful to all those who submitted written reports and to all those who appeared before the committee. Particular thanks is due to the clerk of the committee, Mr. John Cullen, for his industry, kindness and help at all times and also, of course, to the researchers who submitted so much to us. I appreciate the fact that the Minister has been present with us throughout our debate today and also the fact that she is committed to implementing, in so far as is possible, the recommendations of the committee.

With reference to the Oireachtas all-party committees, Senator Dooge said that they can be really valuable and I agree with him. I am involved with two of the committees. This committee, who meet mostly on Tuesdays, did not interfere with any other part of my work, but with regard to the Joint Committee on Building Land which meets on a Wednesday I find a difficulty in being present in the House and attending the committee. The committee sits from 4 o'clock until 6 o'clock. Wherever possible an attempt should be made to have those meetings at times which do not clash with our attendance here in the House.

There has never been any doubt in my mind that there is great discrimination against women. This has been brought home to me very forcibly during my time on the committee. Attempts to redress this situation have not been in operation for very long but at national level it seems that we can only go back roughly less than ten years. In 1975 the Supreme Court decided that women were eligible for jury service. In 1976 the Home Protection Act came into force and it ensures that the home cannot be sold by a husband without the consent of his spouse. The Family Law (Maintenance of Spouses and Children) Act also came into force in 1976 and it imposes a legal obligation on a husband to support his wife. The Family Law (Protection of Spouses and Children) Act was passed in 1981 and it enables a wife to get a barring order preventing the husband from entering the family home where there is domestic violence. Then we had the Anti-Discrimination (Pay) Act, 1974 and the Employment Equality Act, 1977 as well as the setting up of the Employment Equality Agency. We also have quite a body of information from the European Economic Community and I tabulated some of this earlier in the year so I will not go back over it again. By and large what the EC has said is that progress in this area is much too slow.

I agree fully with what has already been said about education. It is an area in which I do not have any great expert knowledge except some in the area of adult education. It seems to me to be the correct foundation on which to start. I accept what has been said, which, pared down, means that educated people have not in the past behaved in a way that would be regarded as proper in this area. Of course, as Senator Higgins pointed out, were those people educated? That is the question.

An important point is that the elimination of this discrimination will mean a loss of position in male areas. In other words, it will be at the expense of men but this is accepted as right and proper. Women are not as united in this area as they might be and as they should be. For example, I remember on two different occasions I spoke at meetings advocating better conditions for unmarried mothers and on both occasions a young lady came to me and told me that she did not agree with what I had said and that people like me were encouraging that. I know she was wrong and I still believe she was wrong but she was an articulate girl. In that area women can be more to blame than men.

Also, in the area of housing I know of instances where women applicants for housing — deserted wives for example — have been interviewed by lady officials and have not been shown the kind of consideration which I feel they are entitled to. I would expect that a woman when dealing with the application of another woman would be very considerate but my experience is that in general men show better understanding and consideration.

I will comment now on a few of the areas which have been dealt with. Education policy is covered in paragraphs 2.1 and 2.3 of the report. The emphasis is on the importance of co-education. Paragraph 2.1 reads:

The Joint Committee is concerned to ensure that all new primary schools will be fully co-educational.

Paragraph 2.3 states:

The Joint Committee was however pleased to hear from the spokesperson for the Conference of Major Religious Superiors (Ireland) that while the Conference as such had no policy on co-education the majority of the Orders consulted favoured involvement in co-education where a new school was to be established or where there was a possibility of amalgamating two or more existing schools.

I would like to refer to a letter which appeared in The Irish Times on 6 November 1984. It began by stating:

A little committee of politicians (wise with a wisdom which we mere mortals without their gates could certainly never hope to aspire!) has decided (25 October) that the separate education of boys and girls is very undesirable and that "co-education" must, therefore, be now promoted.

How silly, then, of the Catholic Church (relying merely on Divine Revelation and on its own experience of 2,000 years and on that of all mankind in general from time immemorial!) to beg to differ from such self-evident wisdom.

The letter goes on to deal with the Encyclical of Pope Pius XI "Divini Illius Magistri" which declares that the co-education system is false and harmful to Christian education and goes into it in some detail. There is not a consensus in this area. However, the three major teaching associations were in favour of co-education.

In the preliminary report we received from the ASTI it stated that:

The ASTI has consistently supported the principle of co-education and this had been manifested in its positive approach to the development of co-educational secondary schools, amalgamations of single-sex institutions and the development of the Community/Comprehensive school sector.

The Conference of Major Religious Superiors (Ireland) also made quite a comprehensive submission to the committee. Sister Brid Carr, on behalf of the conference, stated in the document which she submitted:

The conference as such has no policy on co-education. It recognises the right of the individual Institutes and Orders which make up its membership to have their own policies on this as on other matters. All the main Orders/Institutes of teaching religious in Ireland were consulted in preparation for this submission.

Under the heading "Policies of the main Orders/Institutes of Teaching Religious in Ireland on Co-education" it states:

Of those consulted, the great majority favoured involvement in co-education where a new school was to be established, or where there existed the possibility of amalgamating two or more existing schools, subject to the approval of the local Bishop. A number were already involved in co-educational schools. These were initiatives taken mainly for practical reasons. However, the experience of those involved in co-education convinced them that there were sound educational reasons for it and solid educational and formative advantages to be derived from it.

It goes into the reasons for co-education. It is felt the natural group being experienced in families is proper where you have boys and girls. It favours development of relationships between the sexes. It is more conducive to participation in and preparation for life programmes than single-sex schools. It is felt to be more conducive to academic equality through the possibility of providing a wider curriculum. It helps break down narrow stereotyping of male and female. The presence of a fair balance of women and men teachers on a staff helps staff members in understanding their own sexuality. This is seen as important because of an element of human formation that is caught rather than taught. There was merit in co-education classes where these did not exceed 24 pupils, where there is a comprehensive pastoral programme and where recognition and help are given to pupils who do not want to be in school or for whom the curriculum has little appeal.

It stated that a minority of orders or institutes while not being entirely closed to involvement in co-educational practice were reserved on the desirability of it for what they would consider sound educational reasons and in the case of two institutes for reasons connected with the vision of their respective founders.

It also tabulates fears regarding co-education. I shall just mention these briefly: fears that a too-sudden, ill-prepared decision to make all schools co-educational would have serious negative effects; fears with regard to the pupil-teacher ratio which has led to the formation of classes of 36 to 40 in some subjects. It underlined the need for special care of adolescent girls. In an article which Minister of State, Deputy Nuala Fennell had in the Irish Independent of 6 February 1984 she stated that if one or two in single-sex schools become pregnant every year there are fears that these figures will increase dramatically in a too-hastily introduced co-education system without adequate pastoral care and staffing. There is a need to make provision for greatly improved pastoral care systems in existing schools before considering further co-educational situations at second level. Enlarged classes today result in teachers having to direct most of their energies into maintaining some form of discipline and it is feared that discipline difficulties will be intensified in co-education situations.

The difference in phases of adolescence between boys and girls of the same age would make it difficult for staff to relate to both at the same time in the same class. There are fears that co-educational schools are being proposed for economic considerations without giving priority to the good of pupils and that there may be educational changes too hastily forced without due planning or anticipation of their effects.

It states that some research in the UK suggests that co-education may not be as advantageous to girls in academic terms as some popular views would seem to indicate. There is a fear that a hastily-introduced and universal co-education system would not make that full allowance for the difference in sex that Vatican II has advocated.

It lists some of the difficulties. Staff members long accustomed to teaching only boys or only girls sometimes have an inadequate understanding of the psychological and other maturational differences between girls and boys in the adolescent phase. This causes difficulty both in adjusting to a changed learning situation and developing and implementing a common discipline policy. Some school members and principals experienced difficulty in making provision as regards staffing facilities and equipment for subjects and activities because the exact numbers of boys and girls who would be attending schools was never clear. Sometimes an imbalance between the numbers of boys and girls attending the same school was felt to create difficulties both in regard to the curriculum and to more intangible and unquantifiable matters of school identity, feelings of belonging, loyalty and so on.

It concludes with recommendations. The main point I want to make is that it was a very positive document and comes across without any real sense of objecting to co-educational schools. In that sense I feel that, as the Minister has said, there are many parents who would have reservations about this, and this is brought out very forcefully in the first part of the report where it states with regard to parents that the committee recognises the doubts expressed by some parents who do not favour co-education and who point to studies which show that girls may do better academically in single-sex schools. However, they would hope that these parents would come to accept the view also shared by the professionals that there is a much wider aspect to education apart from academic achievement and that it is in co-education that a broader and more enriching education is to be found that will, among other things, foster and respect the concept of equality between the sexes. That is important, and the Minister has expressed that view also.

The area of sex education is dealt with under 3.5. This has already been referred to by all the speakers. I would agree completely with Senator Michael Higgins that with regard to sex education there is far more to it than an attempt to make sure that single girls will not become pregnant. It is far more important than that. I think it is explained very well in the document. It states:

Pregnancy among school girls is no longer an isolated occurrence and the number of pregnancies is on the increase. This situation highlights the need for the introduction of a sex education programme in both primary and secondary schools, to be integrated into the existing curricula. When referring to the need for sex education, many are inclined to think in terms of girls schools only. It cannot be over emphasised that the need for sex education is as great for boys, and indeed if such education were available in all schools today, it is arguable that many pregnancies among school girls often with traumatic effects on the girls, their families and friends, might have been avoided. The introduction of a sex education programme should involve the teachers, school management, parents, Department of Education, the Health Education Bureau and the Health Boards.

It states further on:

The type of programme envisaged by the Joint Committee would not be concerned solely with sex per se but would also embrace the whole area of responsible personal relationships.

Further on it states that the Department are helping schools to plan sex education programmes. In this respect an officer has since been appointed by the Health Education Bureau to advise and assist the Department on the design and introduction of a sex education programme. We are all grateful for this. The committee acknowledge that gratitude.

I believe that there is a very great need for sex education programmes. In the area of illegitimate births, I think it is worth-while going back a few years to get a proper picture about a problem that is growing. In 1961 the illegitimate births amounted to 1.6 per cent of the total number of births. In 1970 the total number of births was 64,382. The number of illegitimate births was 1,709 which was 2.65 per cent. In 1971, out of a total of 67,551 births the number of illegitimate births was 1,842 or 2.72 per cent of the total number of births. In 1972, out of the total of 68,527, there were 2,005 illegitimate births, or 2.9 per cent of the total number of births. In 1973, the total number of births was 68,713 and the total number of illegitimate births was 2,167, or 3.15 per cent of the total number of births. In 1974, the total number of births was 68,907; the total number of illegitimate births was 2,309, or 3.35 per cent. In 1975, the total number of births was 67,178; the total number of illegitimate births was 2,515 which amounted to 3.74 per cent of the total number. In 1976, the total number of births was 67,718; the total number of illegitimate births was 2,545 which was 3.76 per cent of the total number of births. In 1977, the total number of births was 68,892; the total number of illegitimate births was 2,879 which was 4.18 per cent. In 1978 the total number of births was 70,299; the number of illegitimate births was 3,003 which was 4.27 per cent. In 1979, the total number of births was 72,539; the total number of illegitimate births was 3,337 which was 4.60 per cent. In 1980, the total number of births was 74,064; the total number of illegitimate births was 3,723 which was 5.03 per cent. In 1981 the total number of births was 72,158; the total number of illegitimate births was 3,914 which was 5.42 per cent. In 1982, the total number of births was 70,933; the total number of illegitimate births was 4,351 which amounted to 6.13 per cent. In 1983, the total number of births was 66,815; the total number of illegitimate births was 4,517 which was 6.76 per cent of the total number.

This is an increasing number but in comparison with other countries there is no great cause, I accept, for alarm. Nevertheless, it is something that has to be taken very seriously. Perhaps I could just briefly introduce some of the aspects of reports which dealt with this proposal of the committee to introduce sex education to schools. There are many people in favour and many people against. I have also read a letter in one of the daily papers from a doctor who objected to the introduction of sex education. From the religious point of view I would like to refer to a survey on a religious basis, mostly of certificate students which was carried out in Ringsend Technical Institute in 1983. It is a very interesting report.

The purpose of the survey was to gather information directly from the students who had completed a five-year programme of religious education at school with a view to suggesting weaknesses and stimulating discussion. The vast majority of the students surveyed, a total of 80, came from single sex, religious run secondary schools in the greater Dublin area. The average age was 18 to 18½ years. They were attending a one-year pre-university crash course at Ringsend Technical Institute. They were to sit for the leaving certificate for the second time in June of last year. Most of those students hoped to gain admittance to a university or third level college in that year. It can be assumed therefore that they were people of average intelligence and ambition. They were determined to succeed academically.

Admittedly, the survey was done on a very small scale. It is interesting. One particular questionnaire stated that sex outside marriage is always wrong for the Christian. Among male respondents 22 per cent agreed; 67 per cent disagreed and 11 per cent were not certain. Of the female respondents to the questionnaire, 44 per cent agreed, 48 per cent disagreed and 8 per cent were not certain. Those figures are quite alarming in the context of well-educated, Catholic children, in that 67 per cent of male respondents and 48 per cent of female respondents did not think sex outside marriage is always wrong for the Christian.

I do not want to make any great point out of it except to say that is not the religion I learned and neither is it the religion most people here learned. It is quite possible that it is not the religion that those children were taught. That is the situation as shown from the survey in that particular instance.

When we come to those who are in favour and those who are against sex education in schools, I just picked out a few of each. The ASTI in their submission recommended the introduction of formal sex education in the school curriculum. The Labour Women's Council included in their submission, and I quote:

Textbooks should present a modern view of women and men as partners in the home and should illustrate the increasing participation of married women in the workforce.

The following subjects are recommended for inclusion in the school curriculum: Civics, Political Science, Sex Education, Budgeting and Consumer Affairs.

The Irish Council for Civil Liberties, Women's Group, in their submission stated under "Child Care" as follows:

The equal participation of both women and men in the day-to-day business of running a home and raising a family is fundamental to improving the situation of women, both within and outside the family. Action can be taken in a number of ways, and at various levels, to work towards the achievement of this radical change in the distribution of responsibilities and roles. We recommend:

(i) That home economics, sex education, instruction in child care ("Family life") and civics-type classes for girls and boys become elements for a care curriculum for girls and boys in second level schools.

The submission by CASE, the Campaign Against Sexual Exploitation, states on page 29:

We see the need for sex education in schools as a matter of urgency. (We are aware that Education Minister Gemma Hussey has charged the new Curriculum Board with responsibility for this area and we are confident that it will be dealt with promptly). (Otherwise, assuming that parents continue to avoid their responsibilities in this area) there is a danger that pornography could become the chief source of sex education for youngsters. Allowing our young people to learn about sex in this way would be to allow the distortions, fears and guilt filter through to yet another generation.

On the side of those who object to sex education in schools and who made submissions, the Irish Family League in their submission on page 13 stated as follows:

Sex education may have its place when young people are actually contemplating marriage and establishing a home and family. But to introduce children to a knowledge of sex many years before they can hope for marriage, and at a time in their lives when they are easily upset, by the physical reactions of adolescence, has always been regarded as a recipe for certain disaster. This has been abundantly proved by experience in countries which have allowed the criminal folly of sex education in schools.

Sex education in classrooms, does not prevent but rather encourages pre-marital sex. Pre-marital sex has resulted in the following illegitimate births and abortions in Ireland. Sex education taught in the classroom in Ireland in 1963, was nil; in 1982, it was not uncommon. Illegitimate births in 1963 were 1,157; in 1982, there were 4,351 illegitimate births; in 1963, the number of abortions was nil; in 1982, 3,650. The total extra-marital conceptions were 1,157 in 1963 and 8,001 in 1982.

It gives details with regard to the United Kingdom which I will omit as I do not feel these are relevant. It continues in a further paragraph as follows:

Dr. Louise Eickhoff, a consultant child psychiatrist kept records of all the delinquent girls aged 12 to 17, examined in one Birmingham remand home over the period 1952 to 1970. She reported that 84 per cent of those examined in 1970 had been subjected to sex education at school. The percentage of those with sex experience over that period, 1952-1970, rose from 29 per cent to 81 per cent.

Sex education was compulsory in schools in Sweden in 1954. In the five years from 1959-1964 the VD rate increased by 75 per cent and 52 per cent of these were among young people. By 1976, one in every three babies born was illegitimate, despite the abortion of half of all teenage pregnancies.

It is unthinkable that any Department of Education or any other civil authority should be allowed to impose a measure so deleterious to the physical and moral health of young people.

I shall read a brief extract from the submission by Parents Concern which states on page 5:

In Britain, the Daily Mail, 7 September 1981 published an article including the following:

More sex education in schools and advice on contraception have long been touted as the answer to teenage pregnancy and abortions. Now, many of the ‘experts' who campaigned so enthusiastically for both causes in the late 1960s and early 1970s are admitting that they may have made a great mistake. It is difficult not to agree with them.

1979 (the latest year for complete figures) shows live births to unmarried teenagers as 24,000 higher than at the start of the decade.

Abortions rose to nearly 30,000 (the highest figure ever) and the trend is upward.

In 1981 the Office of Population Censuses & Surveys, published the number of abortions for under 16s to 19s as 32,726.

1956 Sweden introduced contraceptive education in all schools—

Illegitimacy rate (after 19 years) is now 31 per cent of all births.

1970 Denmark introduced sex and contraceptive education as above.

VD in young people from 16 to 20 increased by 250 per cent, increased in children under 15 by 400 per cent. Abortions increased by 500 per cent, illegitimate births increased by 200 per cent and cases of assault and rape increased by 300 per cent.

A submission from Veritas Publications giving the Roman Catholic point of view states on page 11:

Parents have the right to ensure that their children are not compelled to attend classes which are not in agreement with their own moral and religious convictions. In particular sex education is a basic right of the parents and must always be carried out under their close supervision, whether at home or in educational centres chosen and controlled by them.

It is obvious from what I have said that there is a clash of views. With regard to the figures from the European countries I attempted to get further information. I was unsuccessful. I tried the Library here. I tried some of the bookshops in Dublin. I tried to get information from the EC office and the European Parliament office in Molesworth Street and they do not have any information. I tried to get information from the Council of Europe in Foreign Affairs and I was unable to get any further information with regard to those figures.

My approach is purely as a concerned parent. I attempted to get a suitable book for my two teenage daughters who are in first and third year respectively in secondary school. I went to a number of bookshops here. I could not get what I would regard as a suitable book. I got a book of sorts, but I must confess that the type of book I was looking for was one which had the Christian point of view, the Christian ethic, because I firmly believe that sex outside marriage is wrong.

I believe that this is an important area in life and that where two people make a contract the proper way to do that is through marriage: if a boy and a girl are prepared to devote their lives to each other it is important enough to have a contract and the proper contract is marriage, a lifelong commitment. I have said of unmarried mothers that far more help could be given. When the Leas-Chathaoirleach was speaking on that subject I said I did not believe the same stigma attached to this now as in the past. The Leas-Chathaoirleach felt otherwise, but I still believe that there is great sympathy and concern in this area. I have always felt that this stigma is society's way of protecting itself, of saying that the proper way to bring up children is when you have two parents, a father and mother, working together.

Generally, it is becoming increasingly more difficult for parents to help their children, particularly in the matter of giving sexual advice, help and teaching. In the past and possibly the present many teachers did not and do not give this advice. There are many reasons why it is important that children get this proper advice in a caring way. The pressures of television and the cinema, and advertising as has been observed here today, relax attitudes. Drink is a pressure with which teenagers are unable to cope. As I said before, drink is the curse of this country and has been and is becoming more so. Discos are distracting people. I believe that when youngsters go into these dances the lights, the music, the sound and the noise drive them almost crazy. They get into a state from which they do not recover for some time afterwards and they are not responsible. Unemployment is a very big factor in this.

This whole area of sexual education is important because so many people are involved in the possible consequences. For these reasons I believe sex education should be introduced into the schools. I am glad it will be introduced into the schools. I believe it will be introduced in a very meaningful way and with the accent on the Christian ethic. In the Programme for Action in Education 1984-1987 I was disappointed that there was nothing on this subject as in many of the other reports which Senator Dooge cited. There is one paragraph which really covers this area from my point of view, page 5, paragraph 1.10:

Our educational system will have failed if, at the end of the day, the young person leaving school or college has not been enabled to achieve his/her potential. There should be a development of all the individual's qualities — spiritual, moral, intellectual, aesthetic and physical. The young adult, on departing the full-time educational scene should have acquired a trained mind, an openness to change, a creative approach, and acceptable social skills. These should be accompanied by an openness to further and continuing education.

In that context I would see it as very important to include sex education. In some rather vague way sex education was incorporated in religious training and in religious teaching. I fail to understand the relevance here. How would children leaving school have developed these qualities, spiritual, moral, intellectual, aesthetic and physical? Take, for example, the moral aspect. How do they develop this if they do not get some help from teachers?

At paragraph 4.1 the report states:

The teachers should, at least on completion of their training, be fully aware of the unequal treatment of male and female pupils and be prepared in so far as their position will allow to do everything they can to bring equality into the classroom.

In the whole area of education if teachers are not aware of the problem there is a lot of ground to be made up.

Paragraph 4.2 refers also to the lack of adequate and effective in-service training. It states:

The Joint Committee would like to see the establishment of in-service training courses on a regular and systematic basis.

This is something I did not realise. I made the point that in any profession at present things were developing so rapidly that it was important to spend at least a half day per week keeping in touch with developments. This applies particularly to teacher education because so many young lives are involved. Guidance counselling is an area of utmost responsibility. The Joint Committee is of the opinion that the guidance counsellor may not be involved to a sufficient degree in policy making, time-tabling, planning and so on. My understanding of the guidance counsellor is that he or she is involved solely with the pupil and the pupil's parents and the teacher would not be a party to what would take place between them. Perhaps this is an aspect that should be looked at.

Amalgamation of schools is a very important matter. As the Minister pointed out, amalgamations are taking place but there are always problems. Large schools have a big disadvantage in this in so far as it is possible to teach more subjects. For example, in a school where there are a few hundred pupils, by dividing them into classes of, say, 20 it would be possible to have more teachers and in this way it would be possible to have more subjects.

The report regrets that very few girls at leaving certificate level take subjects such as physics and higher mathematics. I believe some improvements have been made in this area. The pupil/teacher ratio is a very serious impediment related, of course, to finances. The committee quite rightly has devoted a heading to the matter. As has been pointed out by previous speakers in relation to training courses, the National Manpower Service in Dublin in 1982 took on 92 out of a total of 2,530 applicants for apprenticeships; in 1983 they took on 116 out of a total of 3,965; in 1984, 211 out of a total of 4,782. The situation is similar on a countrywide basis.

In paragraph 8.2 it is stated that there appears to be a high level of sex discrimination in the selection procedures. This is borne out by the fact that while girls are holding their own reasonably well at the test stage of assessment, there is a substantial drop from a male/female ratio of 27:1 as assessed as technically suitable to a ratio of 95:1 as recruited after interview. That is regrettable, and, with Senator Michael Higgins, I would pay tribute to those girls who in the early days pioneered movement into these areas.

In regard to adult education I have a little experience as a teacher in my native Meath. Not nearly enough progress is being made. There is not enough finance available for adult education and women are very much discriminated against, particularly because there are no day classes and even classes that are held in the evenings are confined to subjects which are regarded as "leisure" subjects. I would like to see languages, mathematics, current affairs, personal development made available.

Northern Ireland is far more developed than here, as some reports have pointed out. For example, people on unemployment assistance can avail of adult education. I had the experience one time of meeting a councillor whose wife was a nurse. She was unable to get a position. She started a secretarial course. She was getting unemployment insurance. When it was found that she was doing a course, she lost her unemployment insurance. It is regrettable that a person who is trying to educate herself to get another job is deprived from doing so — in the long term the State would have gained by paying the unemployment insurance and allowing that girl to continue to qualify as a secretary. I pay tribute to the VECs and the adult education officers throughout the country who are doing wonderful work with limited finance.

The Joint Committee had a recommendation that primary schools which are not used to their full potential could be taken over for adult education classes. This is an area which comes back to the managers of the schools. I hope some progress will be made here. We also have the problem in primary schools that the furniture is unsuitable for adult education classes. The entrance fee has been pointed out as the big stumbling block and I am pleased that this is to be removed.

Irish radio and TV have been making slow progress. I saw a letter in today's newspapers on this subject by Professor Paul McNulty of UCD who recommends indigenous distance education programmes using television as a medium in association with RTE. He is campaigning for distance education courses in University College, Dublin and looking for support. As far as I and many other people are concerned he is pushing an open door. I hope that this will come to fruition. The position of women teachers is fairly well covered by the report which states at paragraph 10.2:

The predominance of women teachers, 15,500, 75 per cent, to 5,100, 25 per cent, is not reflected in the figures for posts of responsibility, with 53 per cent of principalships being held by men and 47 per cent by women.

This cannot be condoned and I hope progress will be made fairly rapidly. The number of women holding down senior posts in third level education is very small.

Regarding interview boards, I have spoken on this before and I think everybody would agree that this matter should be redressed, that we should recommend interview boards should be 50 per cent male and 50 per cent female. In all the submissions we have got on this subject it has been pointed out that in the Dáil and Seanad, on county councils and all local authorities, the membership is predominantly male. It is hard to know how this can be redressed. I am sure the only satisfactory solution would be 50 per cent men and 50 per cent women. I am told it would be unconstitutional to have an enforcement of this kind, that it would not be possible to have that position. I still believe it would be the right one even if a constitutional change is required.

Child-minding facilities are very important. Paragraph 12.2 states:

The Joint Committee wishes to reinforce the recommendation in the Report of the Commission on the Status of Women, 1972, a report which has been accepted by all Governments since then, concerning the provision of creches.

The report states, inter alia:

Where new housing schemes are being erected provision should be made for the building of creches or day nurseries in the schemes. We recommend that provision of facilities of this nature should be a condition for the granting of planning permission for such schemes where many women have of economic necessity to take up part time work. The Joint Committee feels strongly that the Government should insist that this recommendation will be implemented in full in all new housing schemes under the control of private and local authorities.

I cannot see why it cannot be implemented in any and every housing scheme. It would be possible and very practical to impose this condition on new and existing housing schemes, especially if money is available from the EC social fund. I asked before in this House if grants of some kind would be available to provide these facilities. I am sure it would qualify for funds from the EC.

Travelling women are not included, as far as I can see, in the report. It is an aspect that should be looked at in particular because travelling women in particular are under a terrible disadvantage. This should get special attention.

Finally, I want to refer very briefly to something which Senator Higgins spoke about. It is very difficult to understand how, for example, the Roman Catholic Church does not allow women ministers. In any other group or association, if the highest executive office is not open to women we would say there is discrimination. Though I am aware that there are women who agree with the embargo — there may be some historical reason why we have no women ministers in the Church — the Church is a living, growing institution and I feel those reasons no longer obtain. The position must come about when the highest offices, priests and bishops and the Pope, will be available to women.

I enjoyed being on the committee. It is a very worthwhile report. I am glad the Minister has been here all the time the debate has been in progress and I hope that all the recommendations will be implemented as soon as possible.

Mr. Burke

I am glad to have the opportunity very briefly to add my words of congratulations to the committee on their work, and to the Minister for Education who has been the first person to take upon herself to rectify a situation in which there is long standing grievance within the whole section of the brief for which she has responsibility.

The report the committee has brought out has chosen very aptly the subject of education as its first topic not alone because the holder of the office of Minister for Education is a woman but because if we are ever to have change within the system it will have to come through the education process, start at the very bottom and work its way through. I would like to see the Minister's initiative followed by all other Ministers. One of the very first steps the Minister for Education took when she was appointed was to set up a curriculum and examinations board to review the whole set-up of subject choice in education. To that board she appointed many prominent people in the educational sector, from primary, secondary and third level education, who were willing and justly entitled to recognition. Had it not been a female Minister who was making the appointments those people would have been ignored as was the case in the past. I would like to congratulate her on that count also. I hope that other Ministers will follow her example when members of other State boards are to be appointed.

When the subject of women's rights has been in public debate to date the question of the membership of State-sponsored bodies and the lack of women's representation on their boards has arisen. Most recently the most noticeable example in the private sector of blatant refusal to appoint a woman was by members of the governors of the Bank of Ireland when one lady went forward for election or selection to that board and caused great controversy. It goes right through the whole banking business. For example, there are very few female bank managers throughout the country. It is an example of a very definite bias against women in that circle. When we compare women with responsibility within that circle with women in the education area, it is appropriate that women are becoming increasingly aware of their rights to equal opportunity. It is hard to know who to blame. It certainly is not Government policy in certain instances.

A great national organisation, the GAA, said they feared the decline of one of our national games because at present fewer and fewer male principals are being appointed to national schools. It is regrettable that that statement should have been made in the context in which it can be interpreted. If we look at the structure of the GAA we find very few women officers at local level or at national level. Perhaps it is a reflection of the hierarchy opinion within that organisation coming down to ground level. They complain that a cause of the decline in hurling or football is a direct result of the non-appointment of male principals to national schools. It can be said also that the appointments are being made by management boards. Within those management boards there is a fair degree of equal representation between male and female. It cannot be said blandly that it is Government policy to allow that situation to continue.

I am delighted that the Minister for Education has said time and time again that in the education sector she intends to see that equal rights will be established. What I said is true not only in the GAA but also in many other sporting organisations such as the IRFU. Certain tennis clubs in Dublin are all male preserves. Even the right to enter the club is reserved. As a result of this report I hope there will be a far greater awareness among such organisations and groups that women have rights and that they will get those rights established clearly. I do not think that as a result of this report we will have a rush to open the gates or to break down the barriers and give equal representation across the board. We must change the attitudes that exist at the moment so that women can take their rightful place in society in general.

Senator Fitzsimons referred to the interview boards. The vocational education boards have an input to make. Very often the selection boards or interview boards of privately-owned schools do not include women. The Minister has directed that in future where possible women should be co-opted on to these boards and that they should avoid being in any way sexist in their questioning of applicants for jobs. It is time that small but very definite point was put across to male dominated boards throughout the country.

Reference was made to co-education. Throughout rural Ireland — perhaps not so much in the urban areas and the bigger urban centres — there has been a tradition of co-education in the small national schools. The segregation was not in the education of the pupils but the female teachers were in junior sector and, by and large, the male teachers were in the senior sectors. That was probably because the local management committee or the local clerical manager made the appointments. Naturally enough in the past they showed a preference for the male teachers. The belief was that a man would do the job better. That died hard, but changes are slowly but surely coming about in that sector.

I should like to mention the question of subject choice in schools. There is a very slow but definite breakdown of the barriers against subject choice. It was most unusual for pupils at second level to take domestic science as a subject for their leaving or intermediate examinations, but that has changed especially in co-educational schools. At one time girls went one way and boys went the other. More barriers have been broken down in third level than in any other level with regard to subject choice. We have more and more women entering into what were classified up until now as male dominated professions such as engineering, architecture, and so on. More and more women are entering medical schools and qualifying as doctors. We hope that will be the case right across the board.

Much has been said about sex education. This is very important. A great deal must be done by the parents themselves. Parents cannot give the responsibility for educating their children wholly and completely to the State. Parents seem to have opted out of taking responsibility for some aspects of their children's education. On the subject of sex education they have opted out to the greatest extent of all. That is regrettable. While we welcome the Minister's stated intention to rectify the situation and bring sex education within the curriculum, no matter how well it is phrased or what the content is, whether it is agreed to or not agreed to by parents groups, teachers, management and so on, it will not make much difference if parents do not accept their own responsibility within the home.

I congratulate the committee on their work in assessing the various submissions made to them. Listening to the debate I regret that we have not got at our disposal the various submissions of the interested groups. I have the utmost confidence in the committee and their report. I wish the Minister well in accepting it. I hope our education system in the future will benefit from the report.

Mrs. Rogers

I welcome the report of the Joint Committee. It is important that this problem should be looked at by a Joint Committee of the Oireachtas and dealt with in that way. I also welcome the commitment of the Minister for Education to the problem of dealing with inequality of opportunity. Basically, it is a problem that has to be dealt with in the sphere of education. We are lucky that we have a woman Minister for Education who is committed to equality of opportunity for women and to eradicating the injustices in society which militate against women.

The report shows an awareness of the imbalance in society and particularly in education. I should like to pay tribute to the voluntary organisations which have done so much work in bringing the anomalies to the attention of the public, particularly the AIM group and the teaching organisations who have highlighted imbalance of opportunity for women on both sides of the educational field, in other words, the girls who are being educated, the girls and the women who are the educators. There is an imbalance in both these areas.

Education is very important in the area of changing the attitudes which have militated against women. The emphasis on the curriculum both in the Minister's own action plan and from the point of view of the Joint Committee is welcome. We are entering into an age of high technology. The fact that in the past girls were not given the opportunity to participate in subjects geared to technology, science subjects, and so on, left them at a distinct disadvantage in later life in their careers. I am pleased that the Joint Committee said that, in this technological age in which we live, it is only right that girls should be given the same opportunities at school as their brothers. I suggest this is essential, not just right, because if it is not done girls will be at a clear disadvantage.

We are no longer living in an age where girls are expected to grow up, get married and settle down, and be protected by their husbands and depend on them for the rest of their lives. Because of that attitude women were greatly disadvantaged whether as widows or because they needed to supplement the family income. At present the old careers which were acceptable for girls are no longer there and therefore they need the same educational opportunities as their male counterparts.

I agree entirely with the great need for sex education, not sex instruction but sex education. Today it is more important than ever because of the effect of the media on young people, and the presentation of sex in the media. I am thinking in particular of programmes like "Dallas" and "Dynasty". Many young people are beginning to get bored with these programmes. Many programmes portray sex in a way that needs to be balanced by a proper educative process in the schools in co-operation with the parents, the school management, teachers and the Department. That is essential in view of the need to balance the wrong impression that comes across in the media.

The position of women teachers is highlighted on page 24 of the report. The figures would be quite shocking if it were not for the fact that most of us are well aware of them already. The fact that 25 per cent of the workforce holds more than half of the principalships may have a historical background, but something must be done about it. I am pleased that the Minister has agreed new selection procedures with the INTO which will help in some way to eradicate the discrimination which has been practised against women teachers in the past.

Part of the agreement with the INTO states that the selection boards must have female as well as male representatives and that questions of a discriminatory nature about the marital status of a woman may not be asked. In relation to the precedures in Northern Ireland this is an advance. In Northern Ireland there are no criteria for application forms. The criteria are laid down by the school managements themselves. We have the State schools and the maintained schools, and there are no agreed criteria. Some application forms ask the question, "Are you married? How many children have you?", the inference being that that may well militate against women teachers.

On the other hand, last year in Northern Ireland we had the Collins case where a woman who was a vice-principal in a school for 20 years took an action against the management committee because she failed to be promoted when the job of principal teacher was advertised. She won the case. She was not appointed because the management committee felt — it was a primary school — that a man might be better able to take charge of the situation. There was no reason why the lady should not have got the appointment.

We have a considerable amount of discrimination in Northern Ireland for other than sex reasons. If a person is not appointed and takes the case to the appropriate authority, the problem is that the contract may already have been signed with the person who was appointed. The post is approved and the contract is signed. Therefore, it is not possible to ensure that justice is done to the aggrieved person. In the Collins case, for instance, I think there was an award of something like £5,000, but the problem is that the person still did not get the job and that the discrimination worked in that case.

Perhaps there is a case, even with the improvements that have been made, for looking at some way of having a delaying mechanism whereby the contract would not be signed for a period of, say, a week or ten days, which would allow an aggrieved person to make representations. I recognise that there are difficulties because there is the problem of filling other vacancies which arise when one post is filled. Nevertheless it is an area whereby you can win a type of a pyrrhic victory in that the woman who is discriminated against can prove that she has been discriminated against but, at the end of the day, she is no further on towards getting justice. She has missed the opportunity of obtaining promotion and nothing can be done about that.

Basically the prejudices and attitudes in our society have militated against equality of opportunity for women and, if those prejudices and attitudes are to be changed, and the prejudices are to be eliminated, we have to start with the educational system. An educational system which tackles the root of the problem will eventually percolate through into the whole system and hopefully we will end up, not with 14 women in Dáil Éireann and five in the Seanad, but with a much wider representation which, in turn, will take care of the legislative anomalies. Part of our problem, perhaps, is that in any society if you have a heavy representation of one section making the laws, it is quite natural that the laws will reflect the interests of that section.

Someone mentioned the GAA and the problems related to it. A film was recently produced, which of course the GAA were not responsible for I hasten to add, about the GAA. It was a two hour film and I noted how it represented the attitudes of this society. In a film about the GAA lasting two hours, women appeared only twice. A woman appeared at the beginning of the film hanging out washing. She appeared at the end also hanging out washing. That was by way of introduction. It had nothing to do with the general content of the film. There was a half a minute clip of women playing camogie in a two hour film about the GAA. Although someone mentioned the fact that there were complaints because there were no male principals, and therefore football and hurling were not played, camogie is also played by the GAA. There are women in the GAA but nevertheless clearly camogie was not recognised as being important enough to mention.

Finally, it is nice to see lady civil servants in the House with the Ministers. Most of the time we see Ministers coming in generally with two male civil servants. Of course we are now dealing with education, and we have a lady Minister for Education. If there were more women in politics, we might get the imbalance redressed right down the line.

Mrs. Robinson

I welcome the opportunity to participate in this debate and also the fact that the House has spent the entire day considering the first Interim Report from the Joint Committee on Women's Rights. Indeed the Seanad has had a number of debates on the area of equality recently. It debated a Report of the Joint Committee on the Secondary Legislation of the European Communities on proposals at Community level for making progress in this area of equality. Yesterday we debated the draft motion proposing to remove discrimination in the area of mining. This is a welcome contribution to a broader debate but, at the same time, we should not kid ourselves. We should not delude ourselves or try to pretend that, because there is agreement on the proposals in this report in the rarified atmosphere of this House, there will suddenly be a significant and immediate change in attitudes and approach by parents, teachers, schools and even by students. We still have a very long way to go.

One of the most welcome features of this report is that it is clear and concise and puts forward quite modest proposals for change. It does not require any legislative changes, so we do not come up against the problem of bottlenecks in the system and the length of time it may take to actually bring a Bill before the two Houses and then the time taken up with discussion at parliamentary level. The actual recommendations are for practical changes, for more thought to be given in certain areas. Not many of the proposals for change require the actual spending of money. So there is, in fact, very little reason not to see a very broad and comprehensive implementation of the proposals in this report. Yet I wait to see, following the very warm endorsement for the proposals in this report which has been evident in the debate in the House today, just how significantly, on the ground where it matters, the recommendations will be adopted and further processed and incorporated.

The Joint Committee on Women's Rights pointed to one problem which our society faces in seeking to make progress in this area of equality. The committee point out that, because of the absence of any programme for affirmative action, progress in establishing equality between the sexes has been very slow. If we date the equality legislation to the mid-seventies, the Anti-Discrimination (Pay) Act, 1974, which came into effect at the end of December 1975 and the Employment Equality Act, 1977, we see very little substantial impact of that legislation other than as affecting the position of the white collar woman worker, or the woman worker higher up the scale, who is in a position to compare herself with a man doing similar work, and who is probably in secure employment where she can assert her right and has the necessary support if it is disputed to bring her claim through the machinery of the equality officer and the Labour Court.

It has really been in quite a narrow spectrum that the equality legislation has made a significant difference to women workers. The equality legislation has not significantly affected or improved the position of a large number of women workers who are in segregated part-time employment at the lower end of the scale. The gap has not significantly narrowed in wages as between men and women workers. This report acknowledges that until we have, from the top level of central Government down to and permeating our whole Government administration, a clear and unequivocal commitment to, and the adoption of a positive action programme on equality, we will not see the significant changes in legislation, attitudes and approaches which will achieve the full goal of equality between the sexes in every aspect of our life. That is a democratic goal. It is an achievement which we aspire to, but we need to realise just how far-reaching it would be.

One of the merits of this report is that it shows in a significant area, the area of education, some of the steps that would have to be taken, some of the changes which would require to be effected. If a similar focus were pointed to every other walk of life we would begin to understand what is meant by a positive action programme in a real sense, what is meant by a commitment to equality of opportunity which is going to have a significant effect.

In chapter 2 the report deals with education policy generally and with the sex stereotyping in school textbooks. This is something that has been analysed and reported on by a number of different bodies recently, not least in a report of the ESRI, Schooling and Sex Roles, commissioned by the Employment Equality Agency, and it is also something that has been studied by the teachers unions themselves and it is something which I, and I am sure other parents who have spoken in this House today, are acutely aware of. There is a blatant sex stereotyping in primary school textbooks. It appears to be something which did not emerge as a conscious decision of the publishers of primary school textbooks because, as the Minister for Education has said publicly, they had never been required to consider the issue until she raised the question and has now set down guidelines in this area.

That is how deep and entrenched the problem is. It does not surface as a problem unless a question is raised, and the question is raised by challenging the assumptions. These assumptions must be challenged, particularly in the areas where power of that kind is being exercised, the power to determine what the content of educational school-books will be and is, in fact, a very real power to condition a whole generation or generations of children. Therefore, it is important that we have now noted and taken stock of the problem. It is important that there is the commitment in the programme for action published by the Minister for Education and that we see the beginning of standards being set which will eliminate this type of sexism in the school textbooks. What is required as a follow-through on that will be a close monitoring, not only of the textbooks which emerge, but also of the way that the material is handled by teachers in the classroom, because that is an essential aspect of addressing that particular problem.

The next chapter of the report deals with the whole area of the curriculum, which is obviously fundamental to this particular subject. It calls for the curriculum and examinations board to place a high priority on ensuring that the choices and the opportunities to make those choices of girls should be broadened considerably, and also that the choices and opportunities to make those choices of boys be broadened so that the present stereotyping and the present streaming that exists will be eliminated. It is very depressing to talk now, particularly in single sex schools, to girls or boys of a comparable age and to see the very different perceptions of themselves which the sexes still have. There is still a great deal of role conditioning. Boys still have a much broader range of possible choices of what they might do and girls are still very inclined towards the clerical or the service sector. This is really what matters. In our society we are still perpetuating these conditions which have an effect of this kind on our young children and on our boys and girls as they are growing up. Therefore, it will be a major task and a very important task of the curriculum and examinations board to put forward a very structured approach which will ensure that the options are not only potentially available but are really there as realistic options for the boys and girls concerned.

I am glad the report has spelt out so clearly the need for an emphasis on education for living and a programme of education which provides children in the school with the skills for coping with the society in which they are going to find themselves as young adults. I am glad the report is not equivocal on this, that it lays proper emphasis on the serious problems which can relate either to the environmental conditions, to problems of drug taking, to problems of lack of parental control, even problems of social alienation in our society where youngsters are alienated from the whole system, from their parents, from all authority in their area and the combination of difficulties that can emerge from that.

In paragraph 3.5 the report highlights the importance of an emphasis on sex education. This is something to which most Senators who contributed to this debate have referred. Again I am very pleased to see the report affirming so positively that sex education is not something which must be introduced or further elaborated on for girls or in girls' schools, which still is too largely a public perception of the area. I am glad that the committee have made it as clear as they have in the wording of this paragraph that it is of equal importance that a sex education programme be introduced into boy's schools where there is still single sex schooling and that its importance be emphasised for boys in a co-educational context.

I would go further than is stated in the report though it is implied in this section of the report. I believe it is of great importance not only to provide the sex education which is focused on the importance of developing personal relationships but also which emphasises for boys the whole parental role of fathers. There is a parental role which a father has in relation to his children as well as the relationship which one partner will have with another partner in life. I believe that boys are not at all encouraged to understand and to prepare themselves for that parenting role, although happily the reality in many circumstances is that fathers now are becoming much more actively involved in the parenting and sharing in all the responsibilities of parenting their young children. Sometimes this is through active choice and because the particular father values the relationship and wants to spend time with his child or children and wants to be actively joining in every aspect of the parenting. Equally it is part of the changing wider social picture in which we find ourselves.

There is a great deal of unemployment or under-employment of people. The working life or the type of occupation which our young adult population will have is very different from the expectations a decade ago. There will be more need for flexibility, and all of this has potentially very positive aspects to it. It is much more likely that young male adults in the foreseeable future will have more time in any case for the parenting role and if given confidence and a sense of their own relevance are more likely to see and to accept the values which are obvious to any fathers who do enjoy the society of and parenting their young child.

I was very impressed quite recently in the course of a legal action in a case involving the issue of adoption to hear a child psychiatrist giving evidence on the qualities of a perspective adoptive father, state that where a young child is in the process of forming bonds with the primary givers of care to that child, be it the natural parents or the parents with whom a child has been placed, a third of all children bond primarily with their father. That is a much higher percentage than I had thought prior to that. Apparently studies particularly in the United States have emphasised the unique significance of the parenting role of fathers and that the choice of the father as the object of the primary bond, where the child does so select, is a choice that is made by the child and is not necessarily determined by the amount of time which the father will be spending with the child, in the company of the child or in the home during the child's waking hours. Nonetheless it is an extremely important psychological bond, and if the father reinforces it by having a loving and caring parenting relationship, this is extremely good for the development of that child as it is for the development of any children who have the benefit of the strong parenting role of a father.

I believe that in our society we simply do not encourage, we barely acknowledge, in our educational system and in our attitudes, the importance of the parenting role of fathers, and it is certainly not something which boys coming through the educational system, whether they are in single sex schools or in co-educational schools, are likely to have brought home to them and reinforced and as I say encouraged. It is as important to encourage in a positive sense as it is to instill a sense of responsibility. I believe that more can be done by a very positive approach in that particular area, because if boys feel confident in their responses and understand the basis on which they can establish good relationships, they are much more likely to want to do this.

I come now to the chapters on teachers and teacher education. I agree with the report in placing emphasis on the need for in-service training of teachers. This again is part of the whole infrastructure necessary if we are going to have positive action. It is not just teachers who need in-service training in this area. It is any organisation or Department of State or State-sponsored body or private company which is genuinely interested in moving to a positive action. An affirmative approach in this area will require in-service training. It will require that the values be furthered and the way to do it will be made available, understood and accepted by the staff and by those who are going to be carrying it out.

On the training courses and apprenticeships referred to in chapter 8 of the report, there are brought together the kind of chilling statistics which remind us of how unequal and how stereotyped the roles of boys and girls still are in relation to applying for apprenticeship training. The figures there of the female applications for apprenticeship training, on page 18 of the report, to the National Manpower Service in the Dublin area show a very gloomy picture of Ireland in the 1980s. In 1982, 92 out of a total of 2,350 of the applicants for apprenticeships were female. That is 3.6 per cent. In 1983 it was 116 out of a total of 3,965 or 2.9 per cent, and in 1984 it was 211 out of a total of 4,782 or 4.4 per cent. The number of female apprentices at the end of December 1983, a year ago, was 108 out of a total of 18,779. I am sure the figure for this December, if we had it before us, would be very comparable.

This is something that brings home the real difficulties in the situation. It is a situation which perpetuates itself, because when you have so few girls applying for apprenticeships particularly in certain areas where there either has only been one or perhaps there is no girl apprentice in that particular sector already, then the girl is up against a number of difficulties at an age when there is quite a lot of pressure to conform and to be the same as everybody else. That girl has to stand out and be different. Certainly I know from my own limited association with AnCO, when I, for a number of years, chaired the textile training advisory committee, I know from people working in AnCO that for the single girl or perhaps two in a whole sector who came forward in that way, it was, in fact, extremely difficult. It is not necessarily that anybody abused them verbally or necessarily overtly discriminated against them. It is just that they were, by virtue of their sex different at an age when there is all the pressure to conform and not encouraged by the job prospects, even if they did go through with the full apprenticeship under AnCO.

Therefore, there was a depressing rate of drop-out by the few girls who had applied for and been accepted as apprentices in some of these areas. This proves at least part of a broader thesis. It is not going to be an adequate or satisfactory approach to have one or two singling themselves out and through their own personal determination applying and being the odd apprentices because they are girls among all their male peers and male counterparts.

We are going to have again, a positive action approach so that we are talking about tens and dozens and twenties. Then you have the makings of a changing system. If you have 20 girls entering in one year in a particular type of apprenticeship where there were not girls before then that matters. If you have only one the likelihood is that either she is so exceptional that she does not fit into a norm or she drops out because she does not want to have to go through the difficulties of being necessarily non-conforming at an age that she may well wish to be just like everybody else and not have to stand out in that sort of way. We really require to take much more affirmative action in redressing the numbers situation in relation to access to apprenticeships. An increase of one or two in any given year is not of that kind.

I now want to turn to the chapter on the position of women teachers, chapter 10. It is helpful to have from the report the figures which we are now aware of from work done by the teacher unions themselves, by the INTO recently. They show that there is a very marked lack of proper relationship between the number of women teachers as a whole and the number in principalships and posts of responsibility. Those figures are set out not only for the primary schools but also, and the report is right to be critical, in the community schools where again, there is an acceptable imbalance and, in a less visible way, in the secondary schools because of the role of religious professions and the difficulty of ascertaining what the position would be in an open situation.

I agree very much with some of the difficulties which Senator Rogers highlighted in pointing to the problems encountered by an individual female teacher in establishing that she has been the victim of sex discrimination. Legally, it is an extremely difficult issue to adduce adequate evidence of to the Labour Court. It is one thing to establish that you have been paid a different and unequal amount to an equivalent male worker, that you are not receiving equal pay for like work. That can either be straightforward or it can require a job evaluation under the Anti-Discrimination (Pay) Act, but at least it is an objective situation on which evidence can be adduced. It is much more difficult to adduce evidence in relation to sex discrimination.

Basically, one is talking about attitudes. One is talking about prejudices and preconceptions. The only way these can be established is what people say or what can be inferred from their conduct in perhaps passing over a very highly qualified and experienced teacher for a notably much less qualified and less experienced teacher who happens to be of a different sex, that is, male. It is very difficult. I know from having advised on some cases the difficulties involved.

As Senator Rogers said, there is the further difficulty that if the teacher who is convinced that there has been discrimination in her case wishes to bring a claim, a complaint, before the Labour Court, she is in some difficulty because the post will probably have already been filled. This is not always the case. There have been circumstances where a request by the union, if it is done quickly enough, or by the individual, not to sanction the post has stopped the sanctioning of the post until the complaint can be determined. It is a very real problem.

The absence of a capacity in the Employment Equality Agency to support, through being able to provide a woman in those circumstances with the resources necessary to enable her to be represented, whether it be before the Labour Court or in particular if the matter requires to go on an appeal on a point of law, the absence of the capacity on the Employment Equality Agency to be able to do this is very serious in the sex discrimination cases, because very often almost always one or perhaps two or three people are involved, one in relation to a particular appointment, perhaps two or three teachers who came for promotion within that school at a particular time. You do not have a large number.

Therefore, it may very well be that the one female teacher — because we are using the example but it may also apply in other areas — may very well be seeking to pursue her claim without union support. The union may not wish to become involved because obviously the other teacher is also a member of the union and, therefore, the woman who is alleging the discrimination may not only have the particular difficulties I have described of adducing adequate objective evidence of that discrimination but also of having the resources and the capacity to bring her case and have it argued for her if she so wishes and have it brought further if necessary to clarify the points of law that are involved. This is an area which does need to be examined.

The report also deals with a number of other areas which are extremely important in ensuring equality in the whole area of education but may, at a first look, seem to go beyond the strict terms of reference of the committee. It is highly relevant that these matters have been included in the report. I am speaking, in particular, of the chapter on child-minding facilities.

This is one of the most neglected areas notwithstanding that we have had the report on child care facilities and that there have been many urgent representations from the trade union movement and from women's organisations. Recently I chaired the annual general meeting of Cherish and a public meeting following that annual general meeting on the urgent necessity for the provision of child care facilities. This is a major area where action is needed if we are going to make progress in the area of equality in a more general sense and also, as this report brings out, it is fundamental to the achievement of equality in the area of education.

The other broader subject which is dealt with in this report and which also is of great relevance is the reference in chapter 9 to adult and continuing education. The report rightly brings out the importance of access to continuing education for women and the lack of adequate thought and provision for this whether it be in the types of classes that are available either in the VEC or in the community schools which are prepared to put on adult education courses or any other facilities that are available or whether it be the lack of media attention to the audience for more education-orientated programmes at hours when women would be disposed to avail of this.

The underdevelopment and lack of encouragement to women to further develop their potential in this area is a loss to the whole community. It is a loss not only to the individual women concerned, but it is a collective loss, because this is an untapped area of development and skill which, as a society, we have not been prepared to cater for.

The recommendations which are listed in chapter 13 of the report are very practical.

Acting Chairman (Mr. A. FitzGerald)

Would the Senator like to move the adjournment of the debate?

Professor Dooge

I do not know how much longer Senator Robinson wishes to speak and I do not think anyone else is offering, but if Senator Robinson is not speaking for long, I might have two or three minutes to conclude on the debate.

Mrs. Robinson

I am coming to the end.

Professor Dooge

As long as the Senator comes to an end soon enough for me to catch the Galway train.

Mrs. Robinson

The recommendations contained in this report are practical and feasible. A number of them have already been put — at least partially — in train and it is a question of monitoring and seeing how they are to be further carried through. A significant number of them require co-operation from individual schools and from school administrations and from teachers' organisations. It is to be hoped that the Report of this Joint Committee and the debate we have had on it in the House and the broad support for the principles in it will continue and further develop a public debate and a public awareness of the need for positive action and the positive endorsement of equal opportunity which this report reflects in the education area and which I therefore very warmly welcome.

Professor Dooge

I would like to say a few words in conclusion in regard to this motion. First, I would like to thank— both in my capacity as Leader of the House and in my capacity as a member of the Women's Rights Committee — those Senators who have taken part in this debate, which has, as Senator Robinson said, occupied the whole of the sitting day. I have absolutely no intention of going over the debate or attempting to summarise. The question of rebuttal does not arise, because the convergence of thought between those who have taken part in the debate has been remarkable, to the extent that possibly, as Senator Fitzsimons said earlier, in questions like this and in the Joint Committee itself we would perhaps be better off for a disagreement. Maybe, if we find ourselves agreeing so much like this we will have to appoint the Senator as advocatus diaboli in order to bring a little contention and real debate. Of course, it is quite obvious that convergence of opinion among Members of this House, while a very desirable first step towards the remedying of the many great disorders in society in regard to this matter, is only very much a first step along a very long road, but it is one that we must travel. We must travel down it as fast as we can with as much enthusiasm as we can muster.

I thank the Minister for attending for a large part of this debate and for her own intervention. I thank her for the areas in which she indicated her agreement, promised her support in regard to things which are in the report of the Joint Committee but which, of course, were a concern of hers before they were ever written down in the Joint Committee report.

There is only one other point I would like to make. I am not sure whether it was Senator Burke or Senator Rogers who expressed the opinion that it was a pity that the submissions available to the Joint Committee were not available to all Members of the House. I would like to report that this question has been discussed in the Joint Committee. The suggestion has been made that the various joint committees should come together and should adopt a procedure whereby the documents which they have are made available to all Members of the House. At the very least, there should be lists in the Library indicating these various reports and these various submissions. From a procedural point of view it should be possible to make these files even if they are not physically in the Library although that would be desirable in itself — even if they are maintained in the archives of the Joint Committee, they should be technically part of the deposit of the Oireachtas Library, so that anybody who goes to the Library and reads them there can quote them fully in this House. This is a point already taken up by this particular committee. It is a point on which a procedure should be developed and which would be of benefit to us in regard to the work of all the committees.

It has been a long day's debate. I hope we will see the fruits of this report and of the support it has received today.

Question put and agreed to.