How can the State 'lose' several children between sixth class and start of secondary school, asks Kathy Sheridan.
If the story of the Limerick schools controversy had a lesson, it would be to mind the gaps. Even the figures are porous. Was it 16 boys who had been left with no second-level education in Limerick, or 17? On Wednesday, officials at the National Educational Welfare Board (NEWB) talked about 16 cases. Come Thursday, a Department press release suddenly came up with 20, with no explanation.
All of which supports the view of Limerick city councillor John Ryan, of Labour, that "there are a lot more children out there that the Department doesn't know about but who you hear of anecdotally".
While this has been presented as a case of Limerick disgracing itself again, amid allegations that certain schools are cherry-picking students ahead of those from disadvantaged areas, one of the most perplexing questions is how a State with a legally-binding school-leaving age of 16 can "lose" children in the gap between sixth class and secondary school.
Anthony Quinn's father, Andrew, says that he applied, in writing, to three secondary schools, six months before Anthony was due to leave primary school in 2003. CBS Sexton Street was their first choice so they went to the open night - held on the same date by all the city schools, presumably to prevent parents shopping around - and were delighted with what was on offer. What the Quinns didn't know was that by then they should have received letters of acceptance or refusal from the schools. They had received nothing.
"I didn't know you got a refusal," Andrew Quinn said this week, "and I didn't get one so I wouldn't have known to ask how Anthony came to be refused."
This year he applied again to the same three schools, noting on the bottom of an application to one of them - not CBS - that his son had been receiving remedial teaching for reading, writing and maths. He received a letter of refusal from CBS and no communication from the others.
He then concentrated on the other two, visiting one repeatedly, and asking the primary school principal as well as the family's social workers to intervene.
He claims that one senior school figure first told him that they had no remedial teachers (although schools may not refuse pupils on that basis) and later that the school was full.
While no Department or school employee would discuss individual cases for reasons of confidentiality - making it impossible to reconcile conflicting versions - general references are made to parents who "apply only to one school" or who seem unaware of correct admissions procedures and "just appear" with a child in September.
Andrew Quinn, a mild-mannered man obviously devoted to his seven children, insists that he "definitely" applied in writing to the three schools last year and this year. Either way, Anthony fell through the gap. In the eyes of the State, he did not exist. For more than a year, the boy who, according to his father, "never gave an ounce of trouble" at primary school and who "was mad to go to secondary school", filled the days by playing computer games, joining a boxing club and mowing lawns.
"I tried to do lessons with him; I'd give him a few sums from his sisters' books, but I know that's not the same . . . I don't understand how he was missing [from the school system\] for 15 months and no one noticed. I thought they'd have all the kids enrolled somewhere and someone would come looking for him."
Of the 20 cases referred to by the Department in its Thursday statement, eight are now said to have opted for alternative education provision, leaving 12 - including Anthony - who wish to remain in mainstream education. It is these 12 whose cases were under discussion when eight school principals and NEWB officials met on Thursday. Following this, Anthony was finally offered a place in his first-choice school, CBS Sexton Street, to his and his father's great joy.
We know all this only because the Quinns, for Anthony's sake, were prepared to expose themselves to the media. The principals and the NEWB took a vow of silence after Thursday's meeting. One Department source said at the meeting, "No school refused to offer a place. Not all the schools had applicants." The Department refused to say which schools had offered places at this crisis stage. It said this was "in order to protect the privacy of the families involved".
This, however, produces one of the widest gaps for anyone attempting to make sense of the debacle.
IS THERE SOMETHING about these 12 boys, who all come from disadvantaged areas, that renders them unacceptable to the system? If "cherry-picking" (illegal discrimination) by schools lies at the heart of it, as the Minister clearly believes, who is responsible and how is it possible? If some of those schools did not have applicants from among the 12, was this simply the fall of the dice or, as some believe, because their ethos does not encourage pupils from certain areas to apply?
Conversely, are the schools which attracted applicants from among the 12, being "ghettoised" as a result of accepting more than their "fair share" of disadvantaged children and by their sense of duty? Are they involuntarily facilitating the academically high-achieving schools just up the road? Paradoxically, it would not help matters for the dutiful schools to be named.
"If any school becomes characterised in that way, it's curtains for it. And in a strange way, it's the kind of advertising that the high-achieving one couldn't buy," said one source.
Figures already published in the Limerick Leader show that of those leaving Corpus Christi mixed primary school in Moyross (the largest local authority estate in Munster) for Limerick city secondary schools, last September, St Nessan's Community College took 33 (the majority of Corpus Christi students), while Ardscoil Rís took nine.
Bríd de Brún, principal of Ard Scoil Rís, has explained that priority is given to boys from the school's parish, and those whose brothers have attended the school are automatically admitted, along with sons of staff members. "Half of the 140 new boys were admitted this year on the selection criteria, the rest were among 200 whose names were put in a drum, that's the fairest way of doing it," she told the Irish Examiner.
Although the school has the largest enrolment of boys in the city, it is only in recent years that students from its own area have started applying in relatively large numbers. Some principals put this down to historical reasons - such as a tradition of extending the catchment into rural areas - and thus appearing to prefer rural pupils over children from disadvantaged urban areas.
But the upshot, according to community workers, is that many parents from disadvantaged areas will not even apply to certain schools because they feel they have no chance of being admitted.
ALTHOUGH MUCH HAS been made of the fall in Limerick secondary school numbers from 9,000 to 7,200, the schools generally claim to be over-subscribed. The closure of the Edmund Rice College this year was a loss on several levels. Set up to meet a population bulge in 1992, it was also designed to meet the needs of less academic pupils.
Ard Scoil Rís had 270 applicants for 140 places this year; Crescent Comprehensive had 400 looking for 150 places; CBS had 200 seeking 101 places, although this school had foreseen the "bulge" created by the merging of junior primary classes some years ago and created an extra 30 places.
Most agree that much of this demand, however, is attributable to students making multiple applications and there is no doubt that some schools can play around with figures when it suits their image and staffing arrangements. At the same time, the Association of Secondary Teachers in Ireland points out that a three-year-old independent report commissioned by the Department and which recommended the immediate creation of 1,200 second-level classroom teachers to bring down class sizes, has never been acted upon. The issue of resources cropsup repeatedly and is inextricably linked to the current situation.
"You cannot separate the issue of disadvantage from special needs," says Seamus Long, the Irish National Teachers' Organisation's central executive committee representative for counties Limerick and Kerry.
He quotes studies which suggest that up to 18 per cent of primary school children in urban disadvantaged areas have special needs and that learning and educational difficulties are more common in boys.
He also notes that only four out of the 11 targeted speech and language therapy positions in the area are filled. This has obvious implications for schools being forced to prioritise inner-city children for the first time, as the Minister is insisting.
"We would have a small number of children here who would be better served with much higher levels of resources and support," says Noel Earlie of CBS Sexton Street. Like many others this week (including Anthony Quinn's father), he points to the staffing levels of the National Educational Psychological Service (NEPS), which has only five positions filled out of 17, with clear ramifications for a child with suspected dyslexia or learning difficulties and in need of urgent assessment.
"The catch is that you can only get resourcing for children who have been assessed and there are a lot who haven't been assessed," says the principal of an inner-city school. Whether some of these children would be better off in a different kind of education system is an argument some touch upon - but lightly. Parental choice is paramount.
For a child such as Anthony Quinn, the remedial service he was able to avail of at primary school does not transfer to second level. For now, he sees no reason why he shouldn't be a lawyer - or a professional boxer maybe.