Aodhán Ó Ríordáin (Labour) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister. It is incredibly apt that just before I rose to my feet students from a primary school arrived into the Gallery. I presume they are from a primary school so I wish them a very happy trip to the Houses of the Oireachtas and hope they learn loads. If they have any questions for the Minister they should be sure to pass them along to me and I will get them in before the end. The Minister is here to make sure the students get their homework done properly every night.

I appreciate the Minister's presence here. I want to be as constructive as possible. The Minister has published an action plan for education which is to be commended. We need to have a roadmap for where we want to be and what we want to achieve. Education is something that many people in Ireland feel very strongly about. When one travels around the world and visits other jurisdictions to see what they are doing in education, sometimes the statements they make or the ambition they have can strike a chord because perhaps such ambition is missing in Ireland. I spent some time in West Dunbartonshire in Glasgow visiting a very disadvantaged community. They speak of wanting the absolute eradication of illiteracy. The total eradication of illiteracy is their motivation and ambition. Would it not be wonderful if in Ireland the national obsession in our education system was the total eradication of illiteracy? One in three children leaving disadvantaged schools has basic reading problems and about 17.9% of our adult population is functionally illiterate. We have an issue with literacy. The previous Government did a huge amount to try to address that. The people of Finland will state that the thing which underpins their education philosophy is equality. It is not a principle of one party or another or of the left or the right, it is what they have collectively agreed. They have decided that equality in the education system is what is best for all children. They all accept it. The problem with Ireland is that we do not really have a word or phrase that underpins our education philosophy. I do not believe we do. In Ireland we have a publicly funded education system that is not a State education system because we outsource it to schools, boards of management and patron bodies. What inevitably happens is that competition gets into the mix and the system perpetuates inequality.We separate children on the basis of religion. We separate children on the basis of gender. Where else in society do we believe it is acceptable to separate children on the basis of gender at the age of four years? Is it any surprise that gender stereotypes evolve in society when children in so many schools are separated on the basis of gender? It is probably more of an urban than a rural phenomenon. The construct of our education system allows this to happen.

Only last week, the Ombudsman for Children asked for the relationship between the State and the education system to be re-evaluated. It is time for us to set out a roadmap, in conjunction with the Minister's Action Plan for Education, to lance the boil of the constitutional impediment to a genuine State education system. When we try to engage in issues relating to school books or transport or trying to bring about an education system like that of Northern Ireland, representatives of the Department of Education and Skills almost faint at the suggestion that we would have actual day-to-day engagement and a role in managing the day-to-day affairs of schools. They are horrified by the idea. The Action Plan for Education is unlike any other action plan for education in Europe because we have a constitutional impediment to a day-to-day involvement in the running of schools. This goes back to religious and baptism issues and all the rest of it. In the full light of day in a modern republic, this set-up appears to be absolutely crazy. I tried successfully to amend section 37 of the Employment Equality Act. What was that about? It was about trying to ensure that LGBT teachers, divorced teachers or unmarried and cohabiting teachers would not be discriminated against by their schools. I could only amend the legislation. I could not get it repealed completely because of the constitutional reality in terms of where we stand in the education system.

The 1995 Hart and Risley study proved how a three year old from a welfare-dependent family had one third of the oral language capacity of a three year old from a professional family. The Minister was in the north inner city recently. He quite rightly said that the relationship between the school and wider community is paramount and he is correct. We cannot achieve everything in the school system. Children do not live in schools. However, the reality is that we need far more certainty around the ABC programme. The Minister was in Darndale recently celebrating the programme. It was great to see him there. We have rolled out 13 such programmes throughout the State. They work with schools and the wider community to tackle acute areas of disadvantage. We need more certainty from the Minister in this regard. Obviously, he has a role in working with the Department of Children and Youth Affairs in that regard.

The issue of special needs assistants, SNAs, in the education system is central. A report was compiled by Senator Mary Moran last year relating to the role of SNAs. It highlighted the uncertainty they face, the nature of their career path and the fact they should be an essential part of the education system, rather than their role being chopped and changed from year to year as budgetary priorities go up and down.

The issue of teacher diversity must be addressed. A teacher is capable of being a powerful role model. How are we addressing the issue of getting more working class children into teaching roles? How are we addressing the issue of getting more Traveller children into teaching roles? How are we working on the issue of getting more children from ethnically diverse backgrounds into teaching roles? How powerful would it be for the average Irish primary school to have a teacher from the Traveller community, a disadvantaged background or an eastern European background? This does not happen often and there are many and varied reasons for this, but can we engage with the teacher training colleges to determine how we can improve the situation given that it is such a powerful role?

It is a question of the ambition we have for the society we are trying to construct. It is not simply about producing economic units. I realise the Minister has come from the Department of Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation. I appreciate the Minister's mindset has had to be recast over the summer months. The purpose is not simply to become an economic unit. That is not the point of education. The point of education is to believe and understand the beauty of poetry, language, music, dance, sport and the whole basis for why we are alive. That is what education is all about. These things are more profound than simply becoming an economic unit. I wish that type of ambition was written throughout the Action Plan for Education with a view towards the goal of empowering young people to be the best that they can possibly be. We need to focus more on equality as being fundamental to our educational vision and try harder to lance the boil within the Constitution. This is something we have to grasp. Why not say that we want to eradicate illiteracy totally in society? If the Minister does that, the Labour Party will support him in that regard.