Sir, – The Irish Times supplement on secondary school outcomes is given the reductive title “Feeder Schools”, with an unapologetic focus on the percentage of students gaining places at a range of third-level institutions.
While the back page of the supplement offers some balance in regard to the limitations of the metric being applied, the sense that the primary function of secondary education is that of a conveyor belt to third level is profoundly disappointing.
Surely secondary education should in the first instance be regarded as a stand-alone period of learning on the one hand and of social, psychological and emotional development on the other. Every society is reliant on its citizens carrying out a wide range of essential roles – butcher, baker, candlestick maker, etc – and these roles should be valued equally.
It is hard to avoid the impression from the supplement that a successful life is dependent upon gaining a place in a “high points” course at a traditional university. – Yours, etc,
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CON LYNCH,
Schull,
Co Cork.
Sir, – Yet another compendium of facts and figures that reduces second-level education to a clearing house for higher education. And it doesn’t stop there. Many primary schools now market themselves as feeder schools to the “right” secondary schools, and universities publish all sorts of information on rankings. Is our education system just to be a long (and expensive) way of stratifying young people? Imagine, instead, if we viewed education as a way for all our younger citizens to learn and grow.
In such a society, would there be a need for a supplement on feeder schools? – Yours, etc,
Dr SHANE BERGIN,
School of Education,
University College Dublin,
Dublin 4.
