Aodhán Ó Ríordáin (Dublin North Central, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I thank the guests for being here. I have been working on this report for some time and we have heard presentations from the patron bodies, which were interesting as well. Submissions have been received from various bodies and they have been well received.

There are two issues. The first is the costs themselves but the second is the capacity of a parent to pay them. We need to consider both issues. Naturally, we need to consider the capacity of the parent to pay, but fundamentally we should ask why these costs are there in the first place.

We have always had the problem of the cost of sending a child to school being unnecessarily high. When we had money, we did not focus on this issue properly. During the boom times we made other political priorities. There is a cultural question at issue. As Mr. Finlay rightly noted, we should go back to the Constitution and the value of having a free education. We have lost the sense of that ideal. Perhaps we need to have a discussion among ourselves as a society about that cultural shift. The idea of holding a fund-raiser for a Garda station sounds ridiculous but we have no difficulty holding a fund-raiser for a school or a hospital. People in Scandinavian countries would find that rather bizarre.

Part of the problem is the nature of competition between schools. The value system that underpins our education system is one of choice, and that is fair enough. However, it leads to a level of competition between schools. My school must offer something the neighbouring school does not have, because I need a certain enrolment in my school to keep my staff complement as it is. I would not be keen to lose numbers to the neighbouring school and, therefore, I may prioritise a nicer jumper and the ability to offer X, Y and Z.

I do not understand why we stand over a system that puts pressures on parents to fund outings such as ski trips. When did the idea of a ski trip become an integral part of the educational journey that a person needs to travel during secondary school? These questions have to be asked but there are more fundamental things we need to discuss. I was quite taken by what Ms Lynch said about the fundamental relationship between the parent and the school being undermined, because it is increasingly becoming a financial relationship rather than one based on education and learning.

That is an incredibly powerful statement.

We have a problem of authority. As Mr. Finlay said, we do not have a State education system, rather we have a State funded education system. All the patron bodies came before the committee and were asked what they believed was their responsibility in terms of book and uniform policies. Each and every one said it was a localised issue and each independent board of management made an independent decision on uniform policy, and they had no overarching responsibility for it. That has to be challenged. One patron body, Educate Together, said its philosophy was to have no uniform and was able to ensure all its schools have that policy. I do not know whether that is a cost for parents, but if it can have a policy for its schools, I do not see why other patron bodies cannot do the same.

We have to be more inventive with school books. I agree with Ms Deane that this does not need to be something that happens next September. We could have a vision of something happening over ten years and gradually come to a situation where a book rental scheme is introduced in every school in the country. We could deal with core textbooks first and then move on to other areas of the curriculum. There has to be buy-in from all the different agencies involved in education.

I ask the delegates to give me a sense of the responsibility patron bodies have for individual boards of management and principals who play ball. It was suggested there are schools where principals and parents work together quite strongly to find solutions while others are not playing ball and are happy to communicate the exclusive nature of a school in a community, that the school is difficult to get into and has high standards, and therefore that there are costs to getting into such a school, such as a payment of €70 to enrol a child, which I have heard from parents, or the requirement to pay a voluntary contribution.

There may be a role for local authorities in terms of what the local library service can do about books. The policy regarding uniforms needs to be challenged. I ask the National Parents Council Post-Primary to refer to the digital revolution that is occurring at second level. If a principal decides every first year pupil has to have an iPad, what strain does that place on the parents with whom it deals? Is enough direction coming from the Department on what is happening independently of any strategy it has implemented? Does it ask for the educational evidence that an iPad is needed? I am led to believe that if one reads something in print, it stays with one longer than if one reads it on screen. These things are happening without any management, policy-wise, from the Department. How can we work with schools to ensure it is not just fashionable for every secondary school student to have an iPad?

Those are my basic thoughts. I look forward to trying to put as much of what the delegations said into the report as possible, and to having some fundamental demands in it which will achieve something. I do not want the report simply to say the situation is terrible and has to change without having a strategy for how it can be changed. We should not expect change to occur in September but rather over a period of time. Everybody, including the Department, patron bodies and the boards of management of primary and secondary schools, needs to take their responsibilities seriously.