MR. O'BRIENasked the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, Whether he is aware that widespread dissatisfaction prevails among the national teachers of Ireland with respect to the rule of the Commissioners, made in May 1879, requiring an average daily attendance of seventy pupils to qualify a school for the employment of an assistant teacher, as compared with the former average of fifty pupils in female or mixed national schools, or of sixty pupils in male schools in Ireland, and the average daily attendance of sixty 1711 prescribed by the new "Mundella Code" in England; whether the new rule was imposed and has been insisted upon in defiance of the declared wishes of the bishops and clergy of all denominations who are interested as managers of the schools; whether it is the fact that the rule works with peculiar hardship to the teachers and injury to the children in poor but populous districts, where the attendances rises to ninety or one hundred during a portion of the year, but declines during other periods, owing either to the prevalence of distress or to the children being engaged in agricultural labour, so as to diminish the yearly average attendances below the standard required for an assistant teacher; and, whether, in deference to the strongly-expressed wishes of managers and teachers, he can see his way to advise the abrogation of the rule referred to?
§ MR. TREVELYANI am aware, Sir, that the rule made in 1879 has not been received with favour by the national teachers of Ireland or by the Bishops and clergy. I have received a Report on the subject, which, however, does not fully satisfy my mind as to the rights of the case, especially as to the relative positions of Ireland and England. It is my intention to make further inquiries with a view to satisfy myself whether or not there is any just ground of complaint in the rule now enforced in Ireland, and whether the two systems cannot be made identical. There is a difficulty with regard to the monitors in one country and the pupil teachers in the other. With regard to the third paragraph of the Question, I may state that provision has been made to prevent the rule complained of from causing hardship in the manner described—the Commissioners of National Education in Ireland having made a rule allowing for the payment under such circumstances of temporary teachers.