Kieran’s Our City, Our Town Article,

Cork Independent, 26 April 2012

Technical Memories (Part 14)

The Making of National Syllabuses

The eleventh annual congress of the Irish Technical Instruction Association opened at 10 o’clock yesterday morning in the Crawford Municipal Technical Instruction, Sharman Crawford Street. There was a large attendance of delegates from all parts of Ireland…the Right Hon., the Lord Mayor of Cork, Alderman O’Brien, attended in state and extending a welcome to the members said, my Lords and gentlemen-I esteem it a great honour and no ordinary pleasure to offer you on behalf of the municipality of Cork a cordial welcome to this most important gathering of the representatives and Technical Instruction in Ireland (Cork Examiner, 1912, 5 June 1912).

To mark the opening of the Crawford Technical Institute on Sharman Crawford Street four months later in June 1912, the annual congress of the Irish Technical Instruction Association held their meeting in the Institute. All of the speeches, questions and debates on education are published in their annual journals, some of which survive in the Cork Archives. The minutes of the 1912 Cork event are described in the Cork Examiner on the 5 and 6 June 1912. Interestingly amidst these issues are also minutes of the official inquiry of the sinking of the Titanic in London.

The Cork congress was opened by the President of the Association Bertram Windle who outlined the agenda. Dealing first with the deficit in Westminster funding, he noted; “In fact if the money be not forthcoming, instead of going forward we will go back, for in matters educational there is no such thing as standing still”. In particular he introduced two topics to be discussed. The first was on new examination schemes by Mr. Fletcher, the permanent secretary of the Department of Agriculture and Technical Instruction. The second paper was a paper on continuation schools by Mr. William Starkie, the Resident Commissioner of National Education, who was also the Chairman of the Intermediate Board. I dwell on these papers because of the ambition they exerted for the Irish educational system and debates, which still echo strongly in today’s system.

Mr. Fletcher explained the new examination of the Department of Technical and Agricultural Instruction. He said that it was about six years previously at a Congress meeting in Waterford that it was decided to revise the scheme for the administration of the science and arts grants. He felt that little action had happened since that time.  There was a grant scheme introduced in the early part of the 1911 season, which greatly benefited small technical instruction centres who wished to receive grant money for promoting single subjects.

The establishment of an Irish system of examinations had also been urged upon the Department since its initiation. Up to 1912, the Irish Department made use of the English Board of Education of the Society of Arts and other examining bodies. They deemed this important for students entering the jobs market in Ireland and Britain. At least the examinations were common to the Britain and Ireland. Moreover the examination schemes were largely paid for out of funds other than their own technical system. According to Fletcher, this system was to be reviewed. The English Board of Education had completely revised and reshaped its programme and it was time that the Department in Ireland arranged their own examination systems. Fletcher went on his paper to add that the Department had never used examinations as a means of accessing grants for educational purposes. Hence, to him one of the greatest dangers connected with examinations had been avoided. That according to Fletcher “there was the rut into which examinations had come to be regarded as an end in themselves, having no reference to what was to come afterwards”.

Presenting a number of further options, Fletcher noted that the examination system could be purely voluntary. If the school or individual didn’t want to take up the examination there would be nothing to push them to do so. However, he further argued that Ireland did need examinations just as every other country.  There were necessary as the basis for judging the progress of schools and to judge the “efficiency of the individual”. Fletcher debated that examinations should not control or dominate in any way the educational system. It was, according to Fletcher, “extremely difficult to frame a system of examinations that would not stereotype educational matters”. The first aim of the Department’s new scheme was to frame a scheme, which would allow the widest latitude of choice of subjects within reason. Many good schemes too had been ruined by endeavouring to do too much. It was not proposed in the contemporary scheme to meet the needs of every individual. They were proposing to break away from examinations in individual subjects. Fletcher believed that the Department was not called upon to give a diploma for every kind of work. The scheme would provide distinct courses of instruction – mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, applied chemistry, building trades, art, commerce and domestic economy.

In drawing up the schemes of syllabuses, the Department received aid from the principals of technical schools, and afterwards the members of the staff who were specialists in the various branches in the different technical schools. The examinations would be spread over a course of four years, and they proposed to restrict the examinations to two in each year. In the third and fourth years there were options or parallel courses. Thus in the case of mechanical engineering there were two courses, either of which could be followed after the first year. For example there was a course in office work- ‘machine origin’ and one in ‘workshop practice’. It was impossible to draft a course suitable to all types of electrical engineers. Hence they chose to draft three courses, (1) power production and lighting, (2) telegraphy and (3) telephony.

They proposed not to issue certificates except for the third and fourth courses, that in the third course being a full certificate. Out of all that they could make up the qualifications required for teachers, they were proposing to give an honours certificate. The teachers in their examination would be required to show some knowledge of the history, the aims, and the methods of examination. Similarly they suggested to allow similar options in art. There was also another way in which they hoped to avoid the danger of stereo typed teaching. By the advice of the examination body, they hoped to arrange a very wide choice of questions. At the same time it might be necessary to set one or more compulsory questions on matters of fundamental importance.

Caption:

638a. Discussion on a paper at the 1912 Technical Congress Cork (picture: Guy & Co.)