The Development of Irish State Education - Essay Example

? Running head: IRISH EDUCATION The Development of Irish Education: National Schools, 1831-1922 While it is interesting to follow the path of state education in Ireland through its various phases, perhaps the most revealing aspect of its development over time is found in the history of The Hedge Schools dating back to the late seventeenth century. Irish Catholics were under British Penal Laws forbidden to be taught or to seek education. With a fierce scholarly tradition dating back to Irish monks who, during the Dark Ages, kept alive western knowledge through the Codex, the Irish pursued the education of their children through clandestine Hedge or Pay Schools at the risk of severe punishment. Through years of suppression and political discrimination, politics, in the end, and the shear determination of the Irish to educate their children evolved through concession and necessity into the creation of the National School System--a system destined to provide the basis for public education. Historical Background Originally set up by sects other than the majority Roman Catholics, small schools evolved in the early nineteenth century to educate the poor, manned by teachers most often untrained. Administration of the schools was quickly taken over by the Protestant Church of Ireland as both a religious and political move to Anglicise young Irish students. The Roman Catholic Church, while the majority, and Presbyterians felt pressured by these circumstances and feared a good deal of proselytising was ongoing within in schools. Both the Roman Catholic Church, gaining influential ground in the early nineteenth century after years of social, political and religious suppression, and Presbyterians, viewed as a strong Scottish influence to the Irish brand of Protestantism, had sought as a counter educational measure state support for schools of their own religious tradition. With the Irish Church most influential politically, it was charged that in the small schools of the time children of other denominations were being proselytised by Church of Ireland teachers as part of the educational curriculum. As early as 1812, education commissioners had called for better supervision of proselytizing in schools attended by various denominations, and by 1827 pressure was mounting for the state to cease channeling state aid through ‘voluntary agencies’(Hyland, Milne, 1987, p. 98) most often connected with particular religious groups. The Stanley Letter In October 1831, E.G. Stanley, then Chief Secretary of Ireland, wrote a letter to the Duke of Leinster , a liberal Protestant (Coolahan, 1981, p. 13) outlining plans for proposed national schools guided and overseen by a new sectarian educational board. The letter, now known as the ‘Stanley Letter’, addressed how the government would distribute aid to the board and outlined the basis upon which the board would support the schools. As suggested by Hyland and Milne (1987), the letter is generally accepted as the legal basis for national schools in Ireland, forwarding the recommendation of the Commissioners of 1812 that would effectively ‘banished [banish] even the suspicion of proselytism…admitting children of all religious persuasions…[and] not interfere with the particular tenets of any’ (Stanley, 1831 in Hyland et al, p. 99). As suggested in the letter (Stanley, 1831 in Hyland et al, p. 99-103) the system was set up as multi-denominational, with the schools governed by a member board consisting of two Roman Catholics, two from the Church of Ireland, and two Presbyterians. The multi-denominational concept at the beginning stages was met with resistance and suspicion, particularly by the Catholics and Presbyterians. (Coolahan, 1981) To overcome suspicion and due to Ireland’s history of past religious strife, there were imposed strict limits on the educational component of the proposal. According to Hyland and Milne (1987), during the school day ‘the teacher had to declare that religious education was beginning, hang a sign on the wall indicating that religious education was in process, and remove all religious symbols and objects from sight when religious education finished’ (p.100). Parents could remove their children from any class segment that included particular religious instruction; any school continuing to include religious instruction in its curriculum without proper notification ran the risk of loosing state funding. At first opposed to the multi-denominational concept, and preferring state funding of religious schools, the Roman Catholic Church in particular finally agreed to the multi-denominational concept and so was born the National State School of today. The Powis Commission The system of national education grew rapidly from 1831 to 1860, with an increase in schools from 789 to 5,600, and student population from 107,000 to 800,000. (Hyland et al, 1987). By then the government, seeking to assess the value (Coolahan, 1981) and progress within the national education system which it was funding, set up a fact finding commission under Lord Powis in 1872. The report, a lengthy, detailed tome, is considered a landmark study in primary national education. Its one-hundred and twenty-nine recommendations are credited as the basis for future development of the system. The Powis Report’s most notable contribution [recommendation] included a controversial system of payment for teachers based on results (Hyland et al, 1987), which in its day was not only revolutionary, but also ‘added 100,000 pounds (Hyland, 1987, p. 133) to the state’s contribution, a fact that would later impact from an economic perspective the state’s support for the system. The practice of merit pay was later abandoned on the advice of the Belmore Commission (1898) as harmful in effect without taking account of differences in populations and other variables. As a practical conclusion, the pay for results was undoubtedly scrapped for economic reasons as well, given the large amount it added in the end to the state’s contribution. The report also placed more responsible for financial contribution of localities [one third], stressing financial accountability for districts. Extending the Stanley proposals, actions were firm in their commitment to equality education for the poor in their call for decent well kept facilities; first rate materials and qualified teachers; assessment examinations for proficiency; subsidies for teachers in religious schools [a move that would eventually include religious schools in the national system]; and smaller classes for better learning. (Hyland et al, 1987) However, the overhaul begun by the Powis Commission had had its most important and important educational effect in its insistence on an expansion of the current narrow curriculum to include more modern attitudes toward education and ‘ a broader curriculum that took more cognizance of children's aptitudes and introduced manual and practical subjects’ (Connelly, 1999, p, 384). In doing so, the national schools were moving away from the classical education promoted and kept alive by the Catholic schools. From 1872 to 1900 the report exerted a good deal of impact on national education. Although education was not made compulsory until passage of the Irish Education Act of 1892, numbers of students were growing in a country which had seriously lagged behind Great Britain and Scotland in terms of educating its young populace. Despite future assessments of the programme recommendations as ‘rigid and inflexible’ (Hyland et al, 1987, p.128), the mandate that all children must attend school was a giant step forward in promoting literacy and the amelioration of ongoing poverty. In 1893 the state finally succumbed to its best educational interests and decided to give state aid, formerly withheld, to denominational trading colleges as important contributors to the welfare of the Irish state. A political more than an educational decision, it was an important one since many of the denominational schools were providing learning experiences in the vocational area not addressed by the national state schools up to then. The move, which included mandatory training of teachers, saw a rise in the number of qualified teachers from 4,369 to over 7,000 in one year. (Hyland et al, 1987). End of an Era—1900-1922 As stated, the recommendations as originally put forth by the Powis Commission report, later revised by the Belmore Commission of 1898 and presented in 1900 ‘had a profound and ‘far reaching effect’ (Hyland, 1987, p.143) on expanding primary education in Ireland. One advancement which seems relevant today was the decision to offer science in girl’s schools whenever practicable. The impact on education from a gender perspective was the beginning of the end for gender discrimination in education. The expansion of subjects away from the strict classical educational curriculum was complete, with students being offered subjects far beyond those restricted to the basic curriculum as described in Powis. Ireland, educationally, was on its way into the twentieth century and more modern and incorporative attitudes toward national education. As suggested in Hyland et al (1987), Irish ‘children should be taught to not merely take in knowledge...but to observe with intelligence the material world around them’ (p.146). Despite progressive changes, at the beginning of the twentieth century dissatisfaction with the ‘method, content and nature of Irish national education was being voiced from many quarters’ (Coolahan, 2981, p. 33). From 1900 to 1920 the mode of administration of national schools came into serious question, with issues mostly those of ‘finance and control’ (Coolahan, 1981, p. 36). The early twentieth century also brought movement toward educational attitudes more in line with other European nations, and on the economic side, certainly an attempt to reign in undo local control over expenditures. Everything from school construction to administrative salaries to teacher’s pay was scrutinized by central state authority. A push for the teaching of Gaelic in both primary and intermediate schools gaining steam among the populace, a move that could be seen as a highly politicized advance toward cultural purism encouraged by a growing resentment of British rule. With the Irish Counsel and Irish Party on the influential rise, charges of sequestering of educational funds to the detriment of national schools by the government became more prevalent and confrontational. The lack of funds are condemned. ‘...building has come to an end...the condition of schools in Ireland is a disgrace to the government’ (Hyland et al , 1987, qtg. Birrell, p. 173). By 1910 the state of affairs of national schools was quite desperate and had taken a clearly political-economic turn. (Hyland et al, 1987). Countercharges and recriminations were the order of the day, with teachers and the teacher’s organization, the I.N.T.O, complaining about conditions, salaries and pensions, with government officials insisting there was no money to be had for these “amenities.” The specific problems voiced by teachers were several: ‘defects existed in position, conditions of service, promotion and remuneration’ (Hyland et al, 1987, p. 185), to which was added the caveat that administrators were charging that teachers be better teachers, and put more effort into their jobs. The National Board, many said, was too distant from local realities to make an impact; local authorities were alternately interested or not; capable or not. The system was breaking down. Attendance and belief in the system was waning. By 1921 the problems had taken their toll. While in 1911 attendance totals were 513,000, by 1921 they had diminished to 365,000. (Hyland et al, 1987). This could have been attributable to the formation of Gaelic Schools in 1918, and to the Free Ireland political movement which was becoming more adamant and distrustful of British influence on the school system. Yet, despite the acrimony, Ireland was beginning to take responsibility on a local and national level for the education of its children. In 1918, the Killanin Committee proposed the levying of a local education rate to support the schools. It signaled the beginning of inclusion of the populace and their vested interest in the public education of all of their children. Conclusion Given the information on the era, and given all that occurred before and after, it could be said that the period under discussion may have been the most formative in Irish national education, particularly in terms of adequate curriculum and in bringing education in Ireland into the modern era. Removing education from religious influence was certainly a first and most impressive step forward. The expansion in curriculum of what was actually taught to include material and subjects in line with new knowledge and information was crucial to its further development—with the focus changing from an external idea of what students know, to the application of that knowledge as it applies to productive work. This above almost any other change is surely responsible for alleviation of poverty of the time. The idea of education as a right and entitlement is also confirmed by the secular state. For administrators and teachers, it was the beginning of a move toward better and more effective administration of resources, as well as ensuring quality instruction over local ideas often tainted by special groups with narrow interests more tied to religion and politics than the educational needs of a nation. In short, the era represents the formal progressive beginning point for a system, revised and perfected over the years, into one of the most successful pubic educational systems that in 2000 was ranked fifth in the world in literacy. (Muldoon, 2010) Although Muldoon qualifies the figure, saying the country has dropped in ratings, this is largely due to the influx of migrants, a condition with which other nations are currently grappling and, as with Ireland, will need time to overcome. Bibliography Coolahan, H. (1981). Irish education: Its history and structure. Dublin: Institute of Public Administration. Connolly, S. J. (1999). The Oxford companion to Irish history. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Hyland, A., Milne, K. (1987). ‘Irish educational documents, vol. 1’. Dublin: Church of Ireland College of Education. Muldoon, M. (2010) ‘The myth of Ireland’s high ranking educational system smashed’. Irish Central, December 10-2010. Retrieved January 6, 2010 from: http://www.irishcentral.com/news/The-myth-of-Irelands-high-ranking-education- system-smashed-111654754.html Stanley, E.G. (1831). ‘The Stanley Letter’. London: Irish Office, October 1831 published in Hyland A. and Milne K. (1987) ‘Irish educational documents, vol 1. Read More