Joe Conway (Independent)

Is údar aoibhnis é dom fáilte a chur roimh an Aire. Gabhaim buíochas léi as teacht chuig an Teach inniu agus as an ráiteas a thug sí ag tús na díospóireachta seo.

Some years ago, when I was a student teacher in St. Patrick College in Drumcondra, out of complete serendipity I came across a journal article. I cannot remember the headline, but it was something like "Defeating the subculture of poverty". I read through it and, of all the articles I read in my time in the college, it made the most impression on me. It talked about this snarling, capturing, vicious circle of poverty that entraps a lot of children, especially those from lower socioeconomic backgrounds. It was generated by their parents being in the same amount of entrapment, and probably their grandparents too. Towards the end, the article asked what the cure for this was. It was blindingly obvious. It said the only way to defeat the subculture of poverty is through education. As a society, with Breaking the Cycle and all the initiatives we have made in schools over the past generation or two, we have gone a long way down the road of breaking the cycle of poverty, but there is a lot more that can be done.

The Minister spoke initially about attendance at schools and the worrying figures for the year 2022-2023. If the Cathaoirleach will allow me to digress, I will tell a little story that underscores the difficulties with school attendance. The late bishop of Waterford, Michael Russell, was doing one of his pastoral visits to a school in Waterford city. He used to drive a black Ford Orion.He parked up and was locking it up in the car park and heading into the school to coincide with the teachers' 11 o'clock break. As he walked up the avenue, the window of the principal's office, which was at the front of school, flew open and this ten-year-old child emerged out of the window in a rather dishevelled state and began to run down the avenue in the direction of the bishop, making his bolt for freedom. The pupil, I mean, not the bishop. As the pupil was going towards the school gate, he stopped to give a word of advice of the bishop and said, "Do not go in there, Father, they are all mad in there." That story sort of illustrates how many children consider what goes on in school as completely foreign and irrelevant to them. That is the job of us teachers, namely, to make school relevant to children who are so disaffected by what goes on in schools.

I left the classroom 20 years ago this year. In the intervening time before I was elected to the House on 31 January, I spent nearly 20 years working with the colleges of education invigilating students on their teacher practice. It also gave me, gach ár lá, the chance to go into schools, see classrooms in operation and assess not just the students, but the whole system, in a very informal way. What I can say about what has happened since 2005, when I left the classroom, is that it is a completely changed game, be it in terms of technology, the curriculum or the level of inclusivity that makes demands of teachers. The fundamental difference I see in classrooms when I go into them is the level of inclusion of many new nationalities. If there is one thing the current cohort of teachers can be really proud of, it is the work they have done in the past generation to include people from Africa, the Middle East, eastern Europe and all over. One of the greatest sources of joy for me is to see a student teacher engaging with these children and to see a child from Africa, or whose parents are from Africa, belting out some Gaeilge as well as one of the children whose parents and grandparents were born here. That is a wonderful achievement of inclusivity, not just in the curriculum, but in the level of acceptance and warmth the children show to one another as a result of the inclusive nature of schools and the inclusive work teachers mirror and model for these students.

To be oblique, I mentioned Gaeilge. Just across the way is Senator Curley, who is a Gaeilge teacher as well. There is a worrying thing about Gaeilge in primary schools. If we look at language teaching in France, Italy, Germany or wherever, they have some teaching of foreign languages in primary schools. We take in children in junior infants who are aged four or five and they are in the primary school system for eight years. The teachers are belting out the Gaeilge for four or four and a half hours per week, although there is talk about cutting this down at the moment. The fact of the matter is, if you do that for eight years and the cigire - the inspector - comes in during the last week of the child's career in the school and asks the pupil in the front seat, "Conas atá tú inniu?", that child will look at the inspector as if he or she had been shot. One is left wondering. We invest so much time in teaching Gaeilge, and have done since the beginning of the State, and it is just not cutting it.