Sir, - The recent data regarding the high correlation between attendance of fee-paying schools and third-level entry published in The Irish Times is only half the story. Add to this the learning support these children get in the home - help on tap with obair bhaile, foreign exchanges, grinds from Auntie Nora the maths teacher - and we get a greater insight into the secret of their success.
Contrast the upbringing of this education-immersed child with that of the child whose parents are less equipped to deal with simultaneous equations and the educational inequalities present themselves. If we slide further down the social scale to the neglected child of parents strung out on drugs, then all educational comparisons break down.
I suggest that instead of raising the fees of middle-class university students, Mr Noel Dempsey make use of their educational wealth and privilege by assigning each one a disadvantaged child to tutor through their primary and secondary school education. This type of scheme, which is already in operation on a voluntary basis in TCD, would give such children the support they need to have a shot at academic success.
Only by giving them long-term individual tutoring - the educational birthright of the middle classes - can we hope to increase the representation of the less privileged in our third-level institutions. - Is mise,
MÁIRE MULLARKEY, South Circular Road, Dublin 8.