I move:
That Seanad Éireann:
conscious of the need to ensure that all schools have access to trained and qualified substitute teachers and aware that children may be at risk and schools unsafe through the casual employment of untrained personnel or the short-term employment of teachers without an appointments procedure;
demands that the supply panel scheme be extended on a nationwide basis to provide a comprehensive system of coverage for approved teachers' absences in primary schools; and
further demands that this be done through the provision of teachers additional to those currently in the service, who will be required for the reduction of class size and, consequently, that student numbers in colleges of education both the graduate or normal courses be increased.
This issue is of crucial importance to teachers at primary level in all parts of the country. It is one of those issues of which people are not aware. Schools are finding it difficult to get trained and qualified teachers at the moment. There is a shortage of qualified substitutes in the primary school area and this is raising serious questions about safety implications, etc. I was in contact with an INTO representative from a midland county who said that, in a cluster of schools in one catchment area which had five teachers on maternity leave, not one of them was being replaced by a qualified and trained teacher. The implications of that are extraordinary.
While I recognise that the Whip applies to my Government colleagues, they should recognise that this serious issue has been around for a long time. I know what I say will not only be shared by those on the Government benches but also by the officials and inspectors in the Department of Education and the Minister herself. I also know there will be financial constraints. I am trying to put forward a proposal that would make life easier all round and give the Minister a certain strength in dealing with the Government and the Department of Finance.
This matter has now reached crisis proportions. School principals and boards of management are unable to ensure the availability of an adequate number of teachers to cover for colleagues who are ill, on maternity leave or other approved absences. Schools — and this could apply to the board of management, the chairperson of the board, the school principal or whoever is in charge — have stark choices to make. Sometimes the class is divided among other classes, resulting in disruption throughout the school with every class being affected. Other times the remedial teacher, if there is one in the school area, is drafted in to take over the class, resulting in that service being unavailable. While nobody agrees with this, choices must be made. That class needs a teacher, the principal may be at his or her wits end and may take the remedial teacher away from their duties to take over and this creates its own problems.
Sometimes the class is taken over by an administrative principal, if there is one in the school, resulting in important administrative and curricular work being neglected and the school loses out. Sometimes unqualified and untrained personnel are employed to supervise the classes, giving rise to the most serious questions regarding safety and education. I stress the safety aspect. I will certainly shout "I told you so" if this arises again. Who would take responsibility if a child was abused or misused in any way by an untrained person given charge of pupils without any appointment or filtering procedure, which is what is happening at the moment?
I am not pointing the finger at the boards of management. Although I do not agree with their actions, I sympathise with them. They have run out of alternatives or options and they can only get an untrained person or responsible adult to supervise in these situations. Other times — regrettably this is a growing trend — pupils are staying at home because there is no teacher, which gives rise to a child's constitutional right to primary education being suppressed.
The teaching community and the INTO are fast reaching a stage where we believe the only way to draw public attention to this matter would be by taking some form of industrial action where, if there is no proper attempt to supply qualified substitute teachers, we will refuse to cover for absent colleagues. That is bound to happen sooner or later. Nobody wants to go down that avenue, particularly as we are trying to agree on a matter on which there is common consensus. The Primary Education Review Body in 1989 and every report since then have thoroughly supported such an arrangement. Every official I know in the Department of Education also supports some element of improving substitution and the Minister has also said it time and again. It is a matter of putting pressure on the Department of Finance.
The situation is critical. We ran into a problem last year — it was covered extensively by the media — when a teacher from Australia working in this country was discovered to have been guilty of offences relating to paedophilia there. This person, who was a qualified teacher, had passed through our system, which did not have a filtration process. This shows the need to be careful. This person was appointed for a short term but children were still at risk. That caused extraordinary difficulties and worries for parents, the teaching staff, the principals of the schools where this person taught and the boards of management of those schools. Thankfully, nothing happened to the children on that occasion but it will happen some time.
People talk about the Kilkenny report, the Kelly Fitzgerald case, where the system falls down and where we should put in support structures. This is one of those areas. While I do not want to sensationalise it, this is one aspect of safety that is becoming more worrying to us. It is unfair on pupils, parents teachers and school management, all of whom are struggling to provide an education service in Europe's most under funded primary education sector.
My proposal would involve no additional cost to the State. Last year the State spent more than £3 million employing untrained and unqualified personnel to supervise primary school classes. That money alone would employ enough full-time, qualified teachers to meet one-third of the needs of primary education. The Department of Education estimates that the average number of substitutes required in any one day for the 21,000 teachers around the country is 800. The £3 million a year which the Department is spending on untrained and unqualified personnel would allow for the employment of over 200 qualified teachers who could then be assigned to areas, regions or schools where they would be available for substitute work for a cluster of schools or if there was no need for a substitute on a certain day, they could do remedial or curricular work; it is not a matter of having people standing around doing nothing. This is a no cost beginning of a resolution to this problem and it should be implemented immediately.
It is only a matter of time before schools begin advising pupils to remain at home because of a lack of teachers. Schools will be faced with a clear alternative. Their legal advice will be that on the one hand children have a constitutional right to education, while on the other management have a legislative duty to ensure the safety of their pupils. If they cannot vouch for the safety of the pupils by having trust and total confidence in the person they put in to supervise, they must then make a choice: do they risk exposing the school board to a liability or risk depriving the child of his or her constitutional rights? That is an impossible choice for school boards to have to face and there is a clear responsibility and duty on the Department to deal with it.
There is a shortage of teachers at present too and the motion asks that the graduate course be continued and the number of students in the normal teacher course increased. People would say immediately that pupil numbers are dropping. This can be explained by a simple calculation. The Department reckons there will be more than 400,000 pupils at primary level in whatever number of years they are prognosticating at present. Let us say there will be 420,000 pupils. If one divides that figure by the 21,000 teachers — an easy calculation — in the system, it results in a pupil/teacher ratio of 21, which is still the highest in Europe. That means that with the fall in pupil numbers and using every teacher in the system continuously, Ireland will still not reach the European average class size. Neither does it provide the 400 or 500 additional teachers which the Department reckons would be needed to give nationwide remediation cover. Certainly, it does not make any teachers available for the education of children with special needs. I read a terrible story recently of a child with autism who has no recognition whatsoever within the system. I know the child and the child's family.
I do not want to stand here and say that the Department of Education is uncaring, unfeeling or whatever; it is not. The people in the Department would share the views I am putting forward. They are being stymied by the Department of Finance which will not give them the money to implement what I am proposing here. Therefore, I would ask the House to recognise that the motion does not propose that all this be done immediately. I am saying use the £3 million which is going to untrained personnel immediately to begin this process, extend the supply panel of teachers immediately to cover a third of the country and let us move on gradually after that.
I ask the Minister to seize the opportunity to resolve this problem. It is an issue which is becoming more and more problematic throughout the country. It is no more than our duty and the Minister's to address it, a duty which has the force of a constitutional imperative. I ask the Minister to give thorough thought to what we are proposing here, that the Government's amendment not be moved and that the Government concede the motion as proposed. I ask that it be recognised that the motion is progressive, responsible, budget neutral and in the best interest of pupils, teachers, parents and those running schools.
The views I am articulating are not just the narrow views of teachers. Parents would feel even more strongly than teachers do about many aspects of this matter. Put the two groups together and both parents and teachers are absolutely ad idem on the matter. Catholic management, Church of Ireland management, Gaelscoileanna and Educate Together have all been in contact with teachers asking us to make a move on this issue.
