Pat Carey (Dublin North West, Fianna Fail)

Anyone with any association with teaching will remember the famous rules and regulations in primary schools comprising circular letters each September as they came in from the Department. There was no consultation or advanced planning. Nothing was being done at the time.

I do not want to go back over everything the Minister said but it is important to remember the investment that has been made in schools. The vast majority of schools in the Dublin area that required upgrading have been upgraded. Some three weeks ago, I visited a school with an enrolment of approximately 110 infants. I counted 27 people working with that group of children, including ancillary staff, classroom teachers and resource staff. There are challenges of course and that is as it should be. We need to examine how teaching is currently delivered and the Minister adverted to this in her speech. This brings me back to what I said earlier. It is a great pity that some valuable resources were taken out of the teacher training sector at that time. I hope that this Government, along with others who might be associated with planning future education policy, will examine innovative ways of ensuring we have the best possible teaching practices available.

Some time ago, we saw a report by inspectors who found that a substantial number of trainee teachers were not effectively delivering the lessons they were being asked to teach in the classroom. There is no doubt that hard questions need to be addressed by the teaching unions and those who operate teacher training colleges as to how we can improve the pedagogy which is a fundamental requirement of any good educational system. From time to time, it is no harm to compare ourselves with other countries through OECD reports. We should not be afraid to look at the blind spots we may have in our system. A number of years ago, who would have envisaged that we would require so many specialist teachers of English in our schools? That probably could not have been anticipated but the matter now needs to be addressed. Language instruction has not always been the strongest point in Irish education, whether it concerns the teaching of Irish, English or foreign languages. That area needs to be addressed and we have an opportunity to do so now. While much has been achieved, some school classes are still too large but the numbers are decreasing all the time. I have no doubt that, given the investment in a further 800 teachers this year and another 800 or more in the coming academic year, class sizes will be reduced.

We need to examine teaching methodologies. In 1974, when I moved into the school to which I referred earlier, the building had shared areas. Unfortunately, however, such areas became unfashionable later and within five years we were broken down into standard classrooms again. In retrospect that was not a good move. With the current availability of resources, there are now opportunities we did not have heretofore, which will allow us to examine better teaching methods. It is not always about information technology, although sometimes that is essential. I do not wish to disparage the importance of IT, but a lot of teaching involves standing in front of a class and making a serious effort to impart knowledge to students. I am not suggesting that it should be done by rote, but teaching does involve some old-fashioned reinforcement of information that children cannot otherwise acquire easily.

Recently, I saw a report on the Cherry Orchard model whereby the progression of preschool, primary and secondary education is provided almost seamlessly on the same campus. I firmly believe the day is fast approaching when that model will be adopted everywhere, although I accept it is not always possible.

School principals can work together under the aegis of the home-school liaison scheme. In Ballymun, for example, 16 principals meet regularly to plan, develop and implement an agreed syllabus for that area, in co-operation with parents and the Department's inspectors and other specialist staff. That is the way forward. I am grateful for the opportunity to contribute to this debate and I look forward to hearing the visionary statements from the Opposition.

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