Sean Barrett (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister. As Easter approaches and the Minister must run the gauntlet at various teacher conferences, are two teachers out of 21 members enough? I put that forward as a proposition because there is a level of alienation. By the way, I have admired Ministers from all parties who have run that gauntlet each Easter. I do not know if I would volunteer to do it. Teachers might not even have a representative on a board. They still have a vital role, although I can see there is a view that they were too dominant in the past and they listened to nobody. However, does the Minister have any views on running them down so much that they may only have one representative or none on a board? To organise a sector without reference to the people on whom one relies for service delivery in the classroom might provoke more of the kind of alienation we have been describing.

This morning I met the enthusiastic Chairman of the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Education and Social Protection, Deputy Tuffy, who has just come back from Finland where, as we know, there is a strong emphasis on the importance of teacher training and on the role of teachers. Are teachers being left out too much? We need to make all the improvements the Minister is striving for in regard to teacher training. The highest standards should apply to teacher training in university, as happens in Finland. For example, one learns mathematics in the best mathematics department. Perhaps teacher training has shut itself off too much from the main body of the university. As Senator Jim D'Arcy and others have said, it is vital we put this profession back on top.

I was glad the Minister listed the statutory instruments to be repealed in the Schedule. It has been a difficulty in other legislation and I commend the Minister and his officials for explicitly stating this. When one repeals an Act, is the statutory instrument arising from it also repealed? Listing the statutory instruments, as the Minister has done, removes doubt and his Department is to be commended.

The Minister mentioned school management and leadership. There is a certain amount of alienation in that some people manage but never go into the classroom. I tend to look somewhat askance at the development of too much managerialism, too much attention to the strategy and at those terms adopted from a capitalist system which collapsed causing us all the difficulties with which we have had to cope in some many areas of public life. We must put education, pupils and pupil-teacher relationships at the heart of this, which I know is the Minister's intention as we have spoken about it so many times. This is an administrative Bill but it does not detract from the main functions we are trying to exercise and to restore that important relationship.

I was surprised there was a bar on bringing cases to the Employment Appeals Tribunal.