Ruairi Quinn (Dublin South East, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I thank all Senators for the welcome they have given the proposal and for their generally supportive comments.

I will try to respond as comprehensively as possible to everything that has been said but if I fail to do so, I will communicate with Members later. Senator Power raised the issue of facilitating principals. We are recognising the leadership role of principals, to which Senator Healy Eames and others referred. In Finland, for example, the role of the principal is recognised in a way that previously was not the case in a formal sense and we are exploring how that can be implemented in consultation with the representative bodies, the IPPN and NAPD.

I will come back on another occasion to discuss the issue of fitness to teach and related matters because time does not allow for that now. Senator Power asked whether fitness to teach hearings will be held in public. This will be a matter for the Teaching Council to determine, as is the case with the Medical Council and other bodies. I will meet council members over the next few weeks and I will convey to them the concerns expressed. I will ensure all 37 members receive a hard copy of the transcript of this debate in order that they will have an up-to-date record of Members' concerns.

I welcome Senator Jim D'Arcy's comments about the new junior cycle. He said the council is an important body and I regret it has taken such a long time for it to get the point it has reached. We now have a clear system, which we did not have, given the primary education system officially goes back to 1831 and there is significant evidence there was a strong, albeit informal, structure of primary education throughout the country prior to that. Former Senator, Professor Joe Lee, reviewed a book written by the late Garret FitzGerald, which I had the honour to launch, in last Saturday's edition of The Irish Times. There is a great deal of statistical data that clearly indicate there was a commitment to obtaining an education and, consequently, a respect for the standing of the school teacher, to which Senator Moran alluded. That has stood us in great stead and continues to do so.

I would like the emergence of the Teaching Council to build on that tradition and respect. It should be a regulatory body for teachers and how they move forward. A total of 22 out of the 37 members of the council are teachers. One cannot say they are not represented in respect of the council and how it evolves. There are plenty of models worldwide that provide an example of how it should evolve. The council must respect the concerns of parents and those who use the education system.

I refer to the pertinent comments raised by Senator Barrett. Primary schoolteachers come through the initial teacher education training and, classically, they teach schoolchildren whereas secondary school teachers teach subjects. The Senator is correct that we have been haphazard in allowing the system to independently produce subject teachers such as for geography and science. Until two and a half years ago, there were 19 centres of initial teacher education, all of which were funded by the State but controlled by different institutions, reflecting the history of education in the country. They have been reconfigured into six centres and we will examine the issues to which the Senator referred and, hopefully, having regard to the esteemed institution in which he spends the remainder of his time, it will take a renewed interested in education. As he correctly said, it is not just the compartmentalised responsibility of one department; it is the responsibility of the entire university system to examine how it prepares graduates in whatever discipline to become teachers. I would welcome that very much.

Senator Moran referred to the scoileanna scairte, hedge schools. She also referred to the support for teachers in the context of her experience as the sole music teacher in a school. Support for teachers as their careers progress is important. What is happening informally at the moment is extraordinary. The Irish Times education supplement is one of the bibles of the profession and there is a website on which thousands of teachers write about their observations on teaching plans and their experience of what has or has not worked. It is a virtual chatroom in which teachers are not confined to the physical staffroom but can enter the staffroom in the cloud to share best practice and experience, including the significant amount of continuing professional development, CPD, work that they do. I would not like the impression to emerge from this debate that teachers are not engaged in self-development and CPD. The vast bulk of them are but they are not our problem. Our problem is those who do not do this. To renew a licence to practise as a doctor, solicitor or an architect, one must provide evidence of CPD and that will now apply to teachers. How that is produced and delivered is a matter for the council, as it is with every other regulated profession. This is a critically important step. This should not be perceived as a criticism of teachers. This will set a floor whereby all teachers will continue to do what the vast bulk of them currently do.

Senator Ó Dómhnaill referred to fees. I will point his comments out to the members of the council when I meet them but I am told that this money will be used as a war chest to fight legal disputes. We have learned from such disputes elsewhere that it is best to find another way to intervene with a teacher for whatever reason. We all slip on occasion. The last thing I want is teachers barred from practice. If they are struggling, I would like other teachers, as has happened informally in schools, metaphorically to put their arms around them and get them back to the point where they can continue. If teaching turns out not to be the career for them, they should be assisted to move successfully to another career. They should not have their livelihood taken from them. This is not about a punitive raid on somebody who does not meet somebody else's standard. Hopefully, the €11 million war chest could be used in a supportive way to reinforce and sustain teachers. We have all gone through periods, as Senator Power said, when other factors impact and intrude on our ability to do our day job. That is what this is about. It has been caricatured as being punitive but it is not. It is supportive. At the end of the day, the 37 members of the council will have the final say. The Department will liaise with them and we will offer our views and so on but the council will stand in its own right.

Senator Naughton asked a number of questions. The role of the board of management as the employer will remain untouched by this. If a teacher has performance difficulties, the principal, as would happen in any organisation, will have the primary responsibility as the manager to intervene and provide support. I acknowledge they need support in this area and this relates to leadership and so on. The current inspection system can draw attention to deficiencies or difficulties in the performance of some teachers in the most gentle and supportive way. We are trying to identify weaknesses that can be remedied rather than punishing people or hunting them out of the system.

The hiring of a teacher is a matter for the board of management. The Senator also referred to a code of conduct and complaints. This will evolve. If parents had a problem with a teacher but had no problem with the school, I would like to think they could convey that in a way that did not get them into a conflict with the school.

It is to be hoped the evolution of the Teaching Council will facilitate that.

I could not agree more with Senators on JobBridge and probation. There is a worldwide shortage of teachers and an even larger worldwide shortage of Irish-trained teachers. Some argue we should tighten the labour market to produce enough teachers to meet our demands. That is not the case. There are many people who want to be teachers but also want to see the world. Through postgraduate courses, Irish-trained teachers can teach as far away as in Australia and closer to home in the south of England where there is a chronic shortage of teachers. I would like the INTO to change its attitude to JobBridge. It is not a yellow pack substitute for teachers but is designed to enable qualified teachers to get the necessary 100 day probation period which will allow them apply for other positions.

We will be introducing a new leaving certificate subject called politics and society. The course has been written and is available online. A teacher will naturally be qualified to teach and can add it to other subjects. If the person has done politics in their primary degree, they would be a prime candidate for this subject. It is early days yet, however.

My cousin, Senator Feargal Quinn raised the issue of the leaving certificate applied. I commend the work done on it at the time but, sadly, the numbers on it are beginning to drop. While it was appropriate at the time it was introduced, changes in the junior cycle will pick up the points the Senator and his team identified at the time on non-academic subjects that need to be recognised and advanced.

I thank the House again for the positive input it gives to education debates whenever I attend here. I will make arrangements for the 37 members of the Teaching Council to get a full transcript of what has transpired here in order that they will be informed of the Senators’ concerns and can respond to them. I would like the miscellaneous education Bill to be introduced tomorrow but that sense of impatience does not necessarily produce the results. One cannot make a kettle boil faster than it will. There are several provisions, such as vetting, that we would like to add to it. I hope to initiate it in this House this side of Easter and have it enacted before the summer recess.