The publication of school inspection reports on the Department of Education and Science website this week represented a landmark moment in Irish education. It came five years after the department strongly opposed the release of these self-same reports to this newspaper.
At the time, the department argued that publication would damage schools and undermine staff morale. The message was that parents could not be trusted with this confidential information. There has been a dramatic policy shift.
Minister for Education Mary Hanafin spoke in glowing terms about the reports which, she said, gave a "balanced and fair assessment of the work of schools". The Minister deserves credit for her decision to publish these reports but she is also vulnerable to the charge of making a virtue of necessity.
The decision to publish has been driven by the desire among the department and the powerful teaching unions to fend off the growing public demand for school league tables. The appetite among parents for "hard" information on school results is reflected in the huge interest generated by the list of the main feeder schools to third-level colleges, first published in this newspaper four years ago. Since then, these feeder schools lists have become part of the education landscape. As school principals acknowledge, they are now widely used by parents when selecting schools for their son or daughter. According to a Department of Education survey, an overwhelming majority of parents want this kind of information.
The school inspection reports - published after lengthy discussions between the department and the teacher unions - give no information whatever on exam results or academic performance. In fairness, there is a good deal of useful material on many other aspects of school life, including school management and facilities. But it seems unlikely that the school inspection reports, with their softly-softly approach and polite language, will stop the clamour for information on exam results.
In all of this, it is much too easy for some in the education establishment to demonise those parents pushing for more information. For any conscientious parent, the choice of a school - especially at second-level - is one of the key decisions facing them. Yes, most sensible parents will want to know about sport, drama and extra-curricular activities in a school. But they will also want to know whether their son or daughter will realise their academic potential.
The school inspection reports are a useful step in helping to fill what both Ms Hanafin and her predecessor Noel Dempsey have labelled the "information vacuum" in Irish education. But they are not the full picture. As Information Commissioner Emily O'Reilly has noted, third-level colleges pay scant regard to anything other than Leaving Cert results when it comes to college entry. Why should parents be asked to be more high-minded?