Seán Sherlock (Cork East, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I welcome this debate and the enthusiasm of the Minister, who clearly knows his brief. It is opportune that we are discussing Science Week. I am a former Minister of State with responsibility for research and innovation. I am particularly proud of the fact that I was there at the inception of APC, Insight, IPIC, Lero and MaREI in particular, given the importance of potential offshore wind energy. I also pay tribute to the people who you do not see in public. They are the people behind the scenes of Science Week, in the Discover science programmes, in Science Foundation Ireland, the people who helped to create the tools for the week, and the people who developed the continuous professional development programmes. They are the unseen people who are the real heroes of science week. They disseminate the science or assist in its dissemination, either as teachers or in the various shows and events that take place. They are the real heroes because they facilitate the capturing of imaginations and inculcating in young minds the idea that scientific endeavour is worthy of pursuit.

We owe them a debt of gratitude for the hidden work that is too often underappreciated. I express my appreciation of their work.

I welcome that there is to be decoupling of the role of chief scientific adviser from that of director general of SFI. It is long overdue and was never intended to last ten years when the Minister and I were part of the Government of the day. It was a function of a rationalisation and cost programme. I have often wondered how many times the chief scientific adviser advised the Government on issues of scientific exploration or public concern in the intervening period. It would be interesting to know that. Science Foundation Ireland and its board as a funder have always sought to be as rigorous as possible when it came to funding decisions. However, one must never allow the perception to develop that there could be a conflict of interest between the two.

I will speak on initial teacher education because if we do not have science teachers, we do not have Science Week. There is a serious issue in respect of the professional master of education, PME, and the pressures trainee or candidate teachers are under in the master's programmes. They are working quite well but it will take time for the throughput to be such that we have a ready supply. The Minister is aware of that.

An interesting study conducted by Dr. Mark Prendergast, Dr. Melanie Ní Dhuinn and Professor Andrew Loxley of University College Cork and Trinity College Dublin is titled: "'I worry about money every day': The financial stress of second-level initial teacher education in Ireland". If the Minister and his officials take a moment to read that report, they will see how stressful it is to be a candidate on the PME as we speak. The research, which was conducted on a cohort of 391 people, sought respondents' views on how they were getting on through their course of study. It recorded "costs, ... financial and emotional, of entering the teaching profession in the Republic of Ireland."

When the authors looked at Finland, Ontario and Singapore, the lesson arising from those comparative studies was that, as a policy intervention, this country overlooks the idea of paying prospective teachers in initial teacher education some funds to allow them to allay the financial and other difficulties in which they find themselves. That can be done either through the cost of the course, which is relatively high, or through facilitating by means of subsidisation the ability of initial teacher education candidates, particularly in STEM fields, to be utterly focused on the task at hand, thus guaranteeing a supply and throughput of teachers and allaying the current issues around teacher shortages. The study found that:

... perhaps one lesson which has been overlooked is that all three countries [Finland, Ontario, Singapore] subsidise the preparation of teachers. For example, becoming a teacher in Singapore and Finland is completely paid for, and candidates earn money whilst training. In Ontario, there is a quota of 4500 free places.

I am not trying to be unrealistic but if we are serious about the shortage of teachers, particularly in areas such as STEM, this study clearly shows there are major pressures on teachers and trainee teachers. An example I encountered today concerned a trainee teacher doing a placement in a post-primary school who was asked to do a substitution role. That is arguably unethical. It may be understandable from the principal's point of view but the candidate will not be paid for it. That has an impact on the trainee teacher's ability to study. If we talk about Science Week and STEM graduates, we need to go back to how the teacher education system works to have a qualitative look at those candidates' experience and whether more can be done from a policy point of view.

See this speech in context