Olwyn Enright (Laois-Offaly, Fine Gael)
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Question 70: To ask the Minister for Education and Science the proposals, legislative or otherwise, that she will bring forward to tackle the problem of discipline in schools; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [5875/06]

Mary Hanafin (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)
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The Deputy will be aware that last year I established a task force on student behaviour in second level schools. This task force produced a mid-year interim report and has recently completed its final report as scheduled. I am very grateful to the task force and its chairperson, Ms Maeve Martin, for the detailed consideration they gave to this broad area in a relatively short time.

The task force held 19 plenary sessions in 2005. All partners in education, including parents, students and teachers, were invited to make oral submissions to the task force. A plenary session with all the partners was held on 12 October 2005 and ten consultative fora were held throughout the country at a number of second level schools as well as at centres of alternative provision, such as Youthreach centres and youth encounter programmes. The task force invited, by public advertisement, submissions from interested individuals and groups and more than 150 submissions were received.

I received a copy of the task force's final report last month. I am considering it at present and will arrange for its publication shortly. I have indicated my clear intention of acting on this issue in a measured and effective manner. To this end, €2 million has been provided in this years Estimates to enable the implementation of the task force report to commence this year. I expect to be in a position to make further announcements on the detail of this implementation at the point of publication of the report.

Olwyn Enright (Laois-Offaly, Fine Gael)
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Given that the Minister had the report since last month, what is the reason for the delay in publication? Debate on the report by all the education partners should now be ongoing but that is not yet possible. We have forgiven the Minister in the past for not being in a position to provide much information because the report was not available but I want to ask some specific questions now that she has it.

What is the Minister's view on section 29 of the Education Act and does she accept that it can be used to undermine the authority of schools, especially in terms of dealing with seriously disruptive students? Does she anticipate changes to the Act?

Does the Minister intend to provide facilities to deal with students for whom standard classroom facilities are not working in terms of discipline? The sanctions available within the classroom or the confines of a school do not seem to work in respect of a minority of students. Will she put in place proper support units in schools?

Does the Minister accept that her Department has been remiss in formulating guidelines for schools on codes of behaviour? The last guidelines were issued in 1991 when I was still in school, and a sea-change in behaviour has taken place since then. A gap has been created in terms of behaviour, although I am sure that the issue will be considered in the task force's report. I accept that only a minority of students misbehave but the disruption of a minority can have significant consequences on the majority.

Mary Hanafin (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)
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I will not be drawn into a discussion of the content of the report but will try to reply in a more general sense. Section 29 of the Education Act has been discussed in the House and it has been proven that where proper procedures are in place, the section favours schools. This can be demonstrated by the results of appeals over recent years. For example, of the 87 appeals made in 2003 and 2004 against expulsion in the post-primary school sector, schools won twice as many cases as they lost. That represents a significant increase on initial years when schools did not have proper procedures in place. I will be happy to facilitate any changes recommended by the report.

One of the first matters raised with me by the ASTI and TUI after my appointment was that they wanted an immediate answer to the question of whether to publish. The speed in which the task force produced its report reveals a commitment in this area. I am unaware of any other situation where money would be provided to implement recommendations of a report before it is even published. However, a coherent response from a number of different groups is needed because schools cannot solve this problem on their own and need the co-operation of boards of management, parents and my Department. The counselling issues raised by the Deputy will require a co-ordinated response from agencies including the National Educational Psychological Service and the National Educational Welfare Board.

The Deputy asked about other units and in that context, we have Youthreach, Youth Encounter and we may need to examine what other provisions should be put in place. I have always said that I am open to examining what is needed. Equally, curricular change can make an enormous difference to students in a school, that is, making sure that the type of curriculum that suits their needs is available in their schools, be that the junior certificate support programme, the leaving certificate applied programme or the leaving certificate vocational programme. There are a number of ways in which this can be changed and adopted. I am studying the report carefully at the moment because its publication will not start a debate. When I publish it, I will be asked what I intend to do about it. At the time of publication I want to be able to set out, immediately, how I intend to start spending the €2 million allocation and not to delay matters with discussing whatever recommendations I accept.

Olwyn Enright (Laois-Offaly, Fine Gael)
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Is the Minister in negotiations with the education partners at present on the implementation of the report's recommendations? Does she envisage changing the guidelines issued by the Department to schools, in light of the report? In terms of teacher training, is the Minister satisfied that the training within the education colleges, which would be the most up-to-date, and the training for existing teachers is sufficient? Has there been enough in-service training for all teachers to assist them in dealing with the changing dynamics of the school environment?

Mary Hanafin (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)
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I am not in discussions because the report has now been presented to me, as Minister, and it is up to me to make a decision on its contents. The debate has taken place and the education partners have all been given an opportunity to contribute. They want to see what my input will be and that is the next step.

I made a very wide-ranging speech last year where I questioned a number of issues relating to teacher training. Much more time should be spent preparing student teachers to deal with disadvantage, special needs, behavioural issues, multicultural issues and parental demands. In that context, there are issues which I have already raised that need to be examined. Student teachers, for example, are spending a considerable amount of time doing degree programme subjects, for instance, French, which may not need to take up so much time, particularly in light of the other issues that must be dealt with by the training colleges. The higher diploma in education, being a shorter course, needs to be more focused, but there is an enormous number of issues that need to be dealt with in a training context. There was a third question from the Deputy——

Olwyn Enright (Laois-Offaly, Fine Gael)
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I asked whether the Minister intends to change the departmental guidelines for schools.

Mary Hanafin (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)
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The guidelines are composite and cover the management of schools and other areas. The type of discipline problems and bullying may have changed but the basic issue of how to deal with them has not. The best way to deal with these issues is to make sure there are agreed policies at school level between the management, the principal, staff, students and parents. Therefore, it is not so much a question of what is happening in the school, but how it is being dealt with and that has not changed. However, if the guidelines need to be updated in light of new information, I am open to doing that.