Eamon Gilmore (Dún Laoghaire, Labour)

I join in supporting the motion tabled by my colleague, Deputy O'Sullivan. Every day, on the Order of Business, the Taoiseach tells Deputies to listen to the facts and examine the statistics. In no area do we have more statistics and facts available to us than in education. Many of them have been cited during the course of this debate. For example, Deputies heard how many classes have more than 30 pupils and how many children are in the various categories of class size. Pupil-teacher ratios were also discussed.

There seems to be a national fascination with statistics and facts in education. Every year, newspapers tell us how many points are required for every course in every third level college, how many leaving certificate students obtained various point scores and how many schools had children who scored above certain levels. We have even heard talk of the possibility of having league tables featuring school leaving certificate results.

The one area on which we do not appear to have statistics or facts is the number of 12 year olds who left primary school last year with a reading age of 11, ten, nine or eight years. I have been informed about this problem by people working in the system. Nobody in the education system can tell us how our children are being served or how many children are leaving the primary school because they have not been taught to read on time, are unable to catch up with their classmates or have linguistic and numerical difficulties. Primary schools are reluctant to place such information in the public domain because it will reflect on them. The second level schools which take in these pupils are also reluctant to comment in public because they fear it would in some way harm their ability to recruit in the future. For these reasons, we do not have this information. While I am aware that a standardised testing system is due to commence this year, I understand it will only apply in some areas and the information gleaned from it will not be centralised or made publicly available.

In this wonderful country we do not know the extent to which our children our being failed in the primary school system. This is hardly surprising given that one cannot teach every child in a class of 30 children. In a group of 30 four or five year olds each child will have its individual learning capacity and ability. They will all learn in different ways and will need various levels of individual attention. It is not surprising, therefore, that a significant number of the children leaving the system have been failed by the system.

The reason the Labour Party tabled a motion on class sizes and teachers, with the support of parents, embarked on a campaign to reduce class sizes is to secure for children the rights to read and learn and give them the start in life they deserve and their constitutional entitlement to a decent primary education, none of which is possible in large classes. Even if every child in a class of 30 was well behaved, it would be difficult for a teacher to give pupils the attention they require.

The purpose of the motion is to ensure teachers are brought into the system, school buildings are provided and the provision of schools is linked to our physical planning systems so that large housing developments are not built without schools having been planned and provided for from the outset. If the system can anticipate the sewerage capacity required in an area to satisfy building and residential development, it must be able to estimate educational requirements, including the number of school places and the date at which schools will be provided.

I am proud the Labour Party tabled the motion but disappointed at the selfish, self-serving, partisan and grudging speech made by Deputy Gogarty.

See this speech in context