Sean Barrett (Independent)

I welcome the Minister who has taken an interest in education throughout his political career. I note the number of vocational education committees is to be reduced from 33 to 16 and commend the Minister on going further than the recommendation by an bord snip that it be reduced to 22.

One of the challenges facing Irish education is to reduce bureaucracy and spend resources in the classroom. I note an bord snip noted that if one divides the number of pupils by the number of teachers at primary level, the average class size would be 16 and if all adults on the payroll are included - I presume this refers to special needs assistants - the average class size would be 12. One regularly hears complaints from people outside the Houses and elsewhere about classes of 40 children. How is this possible if the ratio of pupils to teachers in primary schools is sufficient to produce an average class size of 16?

Senator Jim D'Arcy cited an example of teachers being out of the classroom for 22 days in a school year. I suspect the bureaucratisation of Irish education has resulted in teachers being promoted out of the job for which they trained and want to do and into another where they earn more money by sitting in an office. Speaking as a person who is involved in education, this approach must be questioned. The part of our work for which we were trained and which gives us the most satisfaction is being with students and pupils. Sometimes the Department must take responsibility for excessive bureaucratisation. We should try to reduce paperwork and bureaucracy.

I was somewhat taken aback when career guidance teachers protested about measures the Minister has taken that will result in them returning to the classroom. It was as if returning to the classroom was a form of torture, rather than the most important aspect of a teacher's career.

I question the need for the Higher Education Authority given that we have only seven universities. Could we not write seven cheques and deploy all available resources to provide education? We must use the recession to emphasise what takes place in the classroom rather than in boardrooms or bureaucracies.

I support any measure that will tackle the use of unqualified teachers in the classroom. The particular aspect of the lack of qualifications the Minister and Minister of State, Deputy Sherlock, have tried to tackle is the lack of qualification in mathematics. I deplore the failure of a large number of schools to reply to a departmental questionnaire which asked whether their mathematics teachers were qualified to teach the subject. This appears to be a simple and straightforward question which should have been answered given that the Minister is the paymaster of schools. Some estimates from the Royal Irish Academy indicate that 80% of mathematics teaching at second level is done by people who do not have a qualification in the subject. As a member of a university board, I have tried to interest people in bringing together mathematics departments and departments teaching the higher diploma in education to try to tackle this problem. The solution of providing bonus points placed the onus on the student and did nothing to address the 80% of students who are being taught mathematics by an unqualified teacher. It gave a bonus to those who could afford grinds or were fortunate enough to attend a school with a qualified mathematics teacher.

The Royal Irish Academy has also noted a problem in respect of languages. Far too many language departments have been shut down in our universities in the surge towards being world leaders in science, technology and innovation. Speaking to people in foreign languages could do us more good. Addressing both the mathematics and foreign languages problem would not cost much money because both are low cost subjects compared with some of the other areas into which we have ventured. I will discuss these issues in greater detail on Committee Stage.

A series of reports which addressed the issue of education, including the Hunt report and various reports on the knowledge and innovation economy, was drawn up by groups which did not include a single person who works in the classroom. It is strange that those who do the work have been deemed by the bureaucrat class to be not worth talking to while everyone outside the education system is deemed to be an expert.

I welcome the Minister's long-term interest in education and look forward to further debate. We must address the deployment of teachers and the issue of unqualified teachers. Some of the gloss, as the Minister noted, has gone off Irish education. We persuaded ourselves that we had one of the most advanced systems in the world. Part of this recession is realising there is an awful lot of work to do. I will support the Minister in any reforms in that regard.