Mattie McGrath (Tipperary South, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I too am pleased to be able to say a few words on the motion. I have listened to other speakers in this intelligent debate which is badly needed. I want to see the new junior certificate succeed, but I am concerned about the lack of detail in the Minister's plan. I am also concerned that it will take so long, eight years, before it is fully in place. I must make a disclosure in this respect. I have a cailín óg in junior certificate class and a cailín óg eile in national school. Both of them will be finished the junior certificate before these meaningful changes take place. It is simply too long to wait for reform.

I salute the educational practitioners, including the sisters, brothers and private schools. In my area, schools were established with humility and few funds. They provided education in leaner times, back in the 1960s and 1970s, when they did not have funding.

Then we entered the boom, when plenty of funding was secured for everything else. I salute the career guidance counsellors for the amount of work they do. I welcome one such person to the Gallery, a good friend and cara liom ó Chluain Meala, Mr. Gerry Flynn. I welcome him and thank him and all his colleagues nationwide for the vital work they have done.

While I do not wish to be political on this issue, I visited a national school last week in Annacarty, County Tipperary and refer to the cuts and austerity that have been imposed by the Department of Education and Skills, with the wiping away of an entire career guidance system and the undermining of extracurricular activities and other supports for the teachers themselves. Morale is very low and it will be necessary to bring the teachers with us in this regard, because they are vital partners, as are the career guidance counsellors and the whole school community from the board of management down to the pupils. Obviously, the pupil must come first but we must embrace them all. However, the cuts and knocks there are having a huge impact and I appeal to the Minister to listen on this issue. As previous speakers have noted, he already has been obliged to apologise over what happened regarding the DEIS cuts. He stated he was on a learning curve and was out of touch and one hopes he is now back in touch. He then allowed the VECs to be amalgamated and the grant awarding bodies and councils to be merged into SUSI. That has been another fine disaster and anyone with any commonsense should have known that the work of 66 or 67 awarding bodies could not have been done better by a single VEC here in Dublin. Consequently, awful trauma and anguish has been inflicted on students and families and it simply is unfair. Moreover, while the Minister has stated he is confident he has and will have the funds in place to deal with this, I do not believe this to be the case because money is awfully scarce. In this context, I note that young teachers now are being singled out as they start out and a kind of apartheid is being built into schools, whereby new entrants cannot get the same pay scales and this simply is wrong. Good morale is required in classrooms. I have been on boards of management for both primary and secondary schools and above all else, one needs morale. Consequently, I appeal to the Minister to reconsider this issue.

I certainly seek change to the curriculum and practical subjects must be dealt with. I see great scope for the entire area of mental health to be examined and dealt with and unless this is done, a crisis is approaching. I refer to the issue of self-esteem and reiterate that while pupils naturally could turn to their teachers, the only person in whom they could confide were their career guidance counsellors, such as Mr. Flynn and his colleagues throughout the country. Pupils could do so in the privacy of the counsellors' rooms while confident in the knowledge that it was completely private, genuine and respectful and that there was an interest in the holistic education and well-being of the students concerned. On the issue of cyberbullying, the trauma and sad tragedies are evident as they arise every so often. While they are too awful to describe, Members must deal with this issue. Having children of all ages, I am familiar with the media, the invasion of space and privacy and the damage that can be done with such texts, e-mails, Facebook entries and the other tools of modern technology.

In addition, Members also must embrace a wider curriculum that will deal with ár dúchas, our heritage, our culture and the arts of all kinds. Education must be changed to make it more interesting, more stimulating and more invigorating to allow the students to reach their full potential that Members know they possess and are entitled to achieve. If one takes the example of Irish dancing, I know of a dancing teacher who is trying to get into schools to teach dancing as a private extracurricular activity but she is unable to so do because there are all kinds of blockages and reasons pertaining to insurance or whatever. While change must be embraced, it cannot and must not take eight years because Members have waited for a long time and eight years is far too long.

I note the TUI, the INTO and other bodies expressed huge concern and surprise when the Minister announced this sea-change. They want to be involved and want to be partners in tandem with the Minister but it cannot simply be by diktat. There must be proper, meaningful consultation in the widest sense, in that it must extend back to the parents, families, communities, boards of management, parents' councils and everyone else involved.

Earlier, I mentioned VECs and the work they have done, as well as the brothers and sisters who taught in the different schools in which I was involved. If the Ceann Comhairle will allow me, I wish to correct something that may have been stated in another debate about a situation concerning VECs and the Department. It is a situation in which a company in my constituency has asked me to raise the issue here. The company is called the Institute of Professional Training, trading as Kadenza Consultancies Limited. It is a properly constituted, tax-compliant entity, professionally accredited and entitled to go about its business in a fair and competitive manner. Unfortunately, however, there has been and continues to be undue and disproportionate harassment of, attention to and hindrance of the company's legitimate business pursuits from different Departments and sub-Departments, most notably the Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government.

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