Sean Barrett (Independent) | Oireachtas source

Had I known that was the case I would not have raised the issue because what it presented, as written, was a total control from the centre which is the exact opposite of what the Minister has said. I am glad that appears to have been settled and no doubt will be dealt with in the IPA diary next year. Part of the problem as I interpreted it, listening on the monitor to the Minister and other Senators was that some history teachers are annoyed. The same point was made here when we discussed the views of the mathematics teachers on the leaving certificate. What I was saying in a long-winded introduction, having used the wrong source, is that we need to involve the teacher subject associations. They may feel they have been overlooked. If people form a history teachers association and come together at conference to discuss issues of history - or in mathematics and so on - they should be brought into the system.

As the Minister said, I am afraid that sometimes our education system is too bureaucratic and we do not listen to an múinteoir, the person in the classroom. There is a Bord Snip nua number - I hope this one is accurate - which points out that if everybody who is a teacher turned up at primary level the number of teachers should be, say, 16 but in fact there are 24 because many teachers have left the classroom and gone into other duties. The problem with Irish education is that it has become too bureaucratic. We are missing the point. We should all be in the classroom, in the subject areas. In that context what the Minister has said would be well received.

I support the Minister's views on autonomy for schools. That measure is badly needed instead of the centralised model as described in which everything happens homogeneously. We need a vastly scaled down Marlborough Street, particularly when we are short of money to get people into the classroom. Some of the personnel with posts of responsibility or administrative posts in schools and in universities - I do not want to leave them out - should be put back into the classroom.

I have concerns about comments made by industry representatives on education and I hope that has not influenced the decision on the place of history in the curriculum. The bodies representing industry have a lot of explaining to do to us and to the Minister about how they goofed on a massive scale in 2008 and should come out with their hands up instead of demanding changes in the curriculum of schoolchildren and those doing the junior certificate examination. It was adults who made those errors, who have visited the consequences on schoolchildren and on other aspects of Irish society. I tend to discount such remarks, because as the Minister knows, it tends to be part of the fashion cycle as to what subject should be in and what subject should not be taken.

We should look at teacher training again. I know the Minister proposes to extend the years of the H.Dip. The H.Dip did not traditionally have a great reputation as a course, which is an issue that must be addressed. I would like mathematics teachers to spend as much time in the mathematics department of a university and be as good as any other mathematics graduate because teaching is so important. We let some of the other professions such as banking and accountancy, whose members let the country down, rise in status, but now we must raise the importance of education.

I know the Minister proposes to set up regional clusters of professors of education but I hope they not only talk to other professors of education but that they get into the classroom and into the vital subjects such as history, mathematics and languages. Part of the previous fashion of curriculum overloading meant that we allowed the development of languages to lapse and fall behind in Ireland. We now find in the latest phase of industrial development that there is a shortage of people and we must import people with language skills. In recent times more language departments were shut down in Irish universities than actually opened. A view of what gave rise to economic growth was short term and as an economist I would advise against anybody from economics saying what causes economic growth and how the education system should be altered to suit those short-term needs. I agree fully with what the Minister said about Finland and the autonomy of schools there, which was the system we in Ireland had before it was so rigidly taken under control by the State. The emphasis on the student, on the subject and reducing the amount of bureaucracy as much as we can will get more scholar per dollar, which was a cliche.

History still has an important role in reducing the tensions and the difficulties on this island. I recall the Stormont Assembly debate, in the aftermath of 12 July, in which a man with a strong Unionist background said the Orange Order is as Irish as a pint of Guinness. That was not the version that came to us in schools. Redefining ourselves through the better knowledge of history is something on which our colleagues across the Chamber and the Minister are in agreement. I praise Senator Marie-Louise O'Donnell for a very spirited speech on these issues. We cannot discuss these topics enough. We should never waste a good recession. So much went wrong in 2008, we are now trying to design a different society, a post-crisis society and I hope a reformed and retained Seanad will assist the Minister in this task for many years in the future. The Seanad has a major role. What failed in 2008 and afterwards must be replaced. I commend the Minister as one of the reforming Ministers.