Ulick Burke (Fine Gael)

In any event, the Minister has done nothing since. Although three reports have been produced in the period from 1995 to the present that have urged and demanded a proper review and assessment of the modern needs of teacher training, nothing was done by either the Department of Education of Science or successive predecessors of the Minister.

When one considers the report's foreword by the chief inspector, Mr. Stack, as well as the inspectors who were involved in its compilation, it can be stated clearly and truthfully that none of them has ever been obliged to teach the revised curriculum in today's overcrowded classes. None of them has ever been tasked with organising active learning with the numbers of children who attend today's classes. None of them has ever been asked to meet the special needs of children in today's large classes. None of them has ever been asked to teach the curriculum to large numbers of newcomer children who do not have English as a first language. Such inspectors assessed the final year student teachers who were in their final weeks before qualification against that background. It should be clear to the Minister that from the outset, there were difficulties in this regard that do not appear to have been recognised by the inspectors who compiled this report.

It is important to recognise such issues. This report should be withdrawn in the best interest of all partners involved in education. Moreover, an apology is due to some student teachers who were classified. The method of student selection was not carried out randomly or fairly, as most people might believe. However, the inspectorate, in consultation with the lecturers and assessors in the colleges of education, examined the students' results. Selections were then made in three bands, namely, excellent, good and fair. Thereafter, the students were assigned to schools that were selected on the basis of being single sex, coeducational, disadvantaged and so on, rather than at random. If one considers such factors, it can be see how unfair it was of these people, who are absolutely removed from the modern curriculum, to have made such assessments.

It was unfair and has inflicted severe damage on young teachers' morale. The Minister's statement noted that 800 new teachers would graduate shortly. Can she identify the percentage of the teachers graduating this year, who will qualify within a couple of months, who will be within the 5% she has mentioned and that this report highlights? I refer to those about whom scornful remarks were made in the national newspapers. This is not good enough. However, it is clear that had the Minister the interests of such teachers and the quality of education they deliver genuinely in mind, she would have made greater progress in reducing the pupil-teacher ratio and in providing adequate facilities for those who teach in such areas.

I fully agree with the Minister on the need for reform of the practices and assessment methods employed by the colleges of education. However, the Minister should consider another aspect of this matter to establish how unreal is this report. It can be seen that although the student teachers teach a revised modern curriculum, those who lecture them admit to being from an era whereby they are simply not acquainted with its delivery at the coalface. Similarly, teachers of 20 years' experience who were asked for a genuine and fair comment on this matter would point to great difficulties. Despite their experience, they would state that they have great difficulties in delivering this modern revised curriculum to their students. This is not simply because of large class sizes but is also due to its content.

A section of this report contains criticisms of the lack of individual tuition involved and notes the prevalence of whole class involvement. There is also criticism of teachers in respect of the quality of education delivered. A student teacher can enter a class of 30 to 35 pupils, whose capabilities may diverge enormously, and that may also contain children with special needs. How can the Minister expect a teacher to deliver individual tuition in that context? Moreover, this assessment was made by the inspectorate within a two session period. All indications are that this report was produced to be controversial and to remove the focus of attention from the reality of the current problems facing education, over which the Minister has presided in recent years.

Although I welcome some of the Minister's comments, the OECD has raised certain issues. The Minister has raised a parallel issue, namely, that primary teaching in Ireland continues to attract high calibre students, which is a source of national pride and international envy. However, teacher education must be continually reviewed to ensure it remains of high quality. While no one can quibble with that, the Minister now has three reports to hand within her Department. She now claims she intends do something, will review everything and will invest money. The Minister has mentioned money repeatedly as the be all and end all of this process. However, education is not about money. It is about allowing teachers the facilities to teach in an environment in which there can be absolute confidence in their work and in which teachers and pupils can benefit from such confidence without interruption.

It has taken a long time for the Department or the Minister to introduce an element of control of indiscipline within the class. This only came to pass last year. The inspectors made their assessments without any reference to special needs, disadvantage and the disruption and lack of discipline in certain, if not all schools. On that basis, how can Members be confident that this report has any worthwhile contribution to make? I again ask the Minister to withdraw it in the best interests of morale among teaching practitioners, who have received a terrible pasting in recent years from various sections of the media and internally, from several of the Minister's predecessors. I refer to teachers at all levels, and not simply to primary teachers. If the Minister is serious about this, I ask her to take urgent steps to provide immediate redress through consultation with the management of the colleges to influence the content and delivery of training. I also ask her to bury the report or withdraw it and replace it with something real and imaginative. The inspectorate's main function was to enter schools in an advisory capacity but, according to the report, its main function is to criticise. Reference was made to 63% of colleges being excellent and so on. Where problems have arisen, I ask the Minister to correct them as a matter of urgency before fatal damage is done.