As the teachers' conferences open and speculation about a forthcoming general election increases, the future shape of Irish education has rarely looked more fluid. The reason for this is, of course, Niamh Bhreathnach's Education Bill. That Bill promised or threatened, depending on one's viewpoint - the most systematic overhaul of the education system since the foundation of the State. The ground for its introduction had been painstakingly prepared through unprecedented consultations around the Green Paper and in the National Education Convention. These consultations were a lesson in how a conservative society makes itself ready for radical change in that most sensitive of areas, the education of its children. Since the 1960s the centralised bureaucracy of the Department of Education had become increasingly overburdened as it tried to adapt to the new world of mass education, to the point where 85 per cent of late teenagers now take the Leaving Cert. There was an urgent need for more flexible and democratic structures.
Those structures were outlined in the 1995 White Paper. They were broadly accepted by the education partners, including the churches. However the drafters of the Education Bill seem to have ignored some of the lessons of that careful exercise in consensus building. When the Bill appeared in January, there was hardly a mention of the role of the owners or patrons of schools, the vast majority of them church linked bodies. Similarly, although the Minister's rhetoric was all about democracy and devolution of power to the new education boards and school boards of management, her powers to intervene in practically every area of education appeared to have been enhanced. These errors gave conservative elements in the churches, political parties and some teacher and management bodies the leverage they were looking for to attack the Bill as a whole. An unprecedented alliance of churches mounted a strong rearguard action in defence of denominational control.
The timing of the renewed debate on the future of education, as we face into the inevitable uncertainty of a general election and its aftermath, is unfortunate. It will inevitably be coloured by party political rhetoric such as Mary Harney's recent attack on the Education Bill as being part of a plot by Labour to bring education under some kind of draconian state control. The reality is rather different. The Education Bill, however flawed, is an attempt to make education on the eve of the 21st century more flexible and accountable to its users, Irish children and their parents. But we must hasten slowly. The teachers, in particular, are being asked to undertake a huge number of new tasks: implementing a rapidly widening curriculum - which some say is already close to overload; dealing with new management structures; coping with discipline problems and new appeals procedures arising from them.
We have some of the best and most motivated teachers in Europe. We only have to look at the rock bottom teacher morale in our nearest neighbour to see what curriculum overload and the political undermining of the profession can lead to. That must never happen here. And there are other considerations on the horizon. In the immediate future the emphasis is increasingly going to be on assisting the 15-20 per cent of school students for whom the education system has failed. This future `underclass' is causing big headaches in the EU's `think tanks'. Once again, and probably unfairly, it looks as though the politicians will be looking to the schools to help them resolve this troublesome Pandora's Box.