The management and planning capacity of the Department of Education has been severely criticised by Fine Gael, which believes that much of the Department's power should be devolved to local education partnerships.
In a detailed statement yesterday, Mr Richard Bruton, the party spokesman on education, labelled the Department as a "dinosaur" which has not adapted to the changing educational climate. The Department, he said, is constantly engaged in fire-fighting and has no proper planning capability.
Mr Bruton accuses the Department of being timid in its approach to accountability in the education sector, claiming that it has "failed to address issues of the quality of outcome in our education system. Its attempts not to push a quality agenda at national level is naturally meeting with suspicion and resistance," he says.
Mr Bruton says it is "long past time to establish local education partnerships to tackle problems in education in partnership in disadvantaged areas. In these areas he says:
Almost 20 per cent of pupils have severe reading difficulties, twice the national average.
About 12 per cent leave school without any qualifications, three times the national average.
Only 5 per cent progress to third-level, one-tenth of the national average.
Mr Bruton says that a range of local initiatives - including mediation and technical support services - are required to address these problems.
Education was continuing to suffer in these areas because of "the deadening centralisation exercised by the Department of Education . . . It is unable to tap into the local communities which can bring so much to education." Mr Bruton's criticisms reopen a political debate which started when the Rainbow Coalition was in office. The then minister for education, Ms Niamh Bhreathnach, proposed the establishment of 10 separate regional education boards in her education Bill. But this proposal, criticised as wasteful and expensive by Fianna Fail in opposition, was abandoned on its return to office.
Despite this, it is known that the former minister for education, Mr Micheal Martin, was anxious to devolve some powers now held by the Department to separate, independent agencies. Mr Martin played a central role in the establishment of the National Psychological Service last year. Preliminary discussions on the establishment of other agencies took place during Mr Martin's period in office. But the new Minister for Education, Dr Woods, has still to consider the issue.