MALCOLM BYRNE,
A chara, - Ciara Brennan (September 19th) argues that third level places cannot be bought - that it is purely through a student's hard work that he or she can gain a place at college.
She is correct in saying that it takes hard work and for any student the Leaving Certificate is a big challenge. But if the playing pitch is entirely level, why is she, coming from Killiney, four or five times more likely to go to college than someone of her own age from a disadvantaged area of Dublin? If a student and their family can afford extra classes outside school, including at Christmas and Easter, trips to improve Irish or European languages, and additional materials to assist with study, they will be at an advantage. If students can attend a fee-paying school that is subsidised by the State, with lower than average class sizes, they will also be in a stronger position than those in larger classes with fewer resources.
Prof Yvonne Scannell is right to say the universities should not be singled out in terms of addressing educational disadvantage. They have all set up various programmes to address the problem.
The groups that we have not heard from are the management and unions at second level. The ASTI, for example, is very vocal on pay and conditions affecting its members yet rarely pushes to the fore the reasons why so many of the students its members teach fail to complete second level or go on to third level. Does it accept any of the blame?
Would the State resources that subsidise fee-paying second-level schools not be better spent addressing the problems of early school leaving? - Is mise,
MALCOLM BYRNE, Ramsfort Avenue, Gorey, Co Wexford.
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Sir, - The details of student entry to Trinity and UCD published in your edition of September 17th raised more questions than they answered. Having a vested interest as principal of three of the schools listed in the TCD undergraduates list, I was very pleased to find that two students from the Convent of the Holy Faith, Skerries, seven from the Vocational School, Skerries, and nine from Skerries Community College had been accepted into TCD.
In fact there is only one secondary school in Skerries - Skerries Community College, the Convent of the Holy Faith and the Vocational School (along with De La Salle College) having amalgamated in 1982 and having become Skerries Community College in 1999, with myself as principal. Although I am naturally pleased that our new amalgamated total of undergraduates puts us up the TCD league table to joint 10th position, I must question the raw data as presented.
Some schools such as ours appear under two or three different names. No account is taken of the number of the number of candidates sitting the Leaving Certificate in each school. The table is very Dublin-biased as other excellent universities and third-level colleges in Galway, Cork, Limerick, etc. are the more natural destinations for schools closer to these institutions. Even within the Dublin bias, DCU, DIT and other smaller third-level colleges are excluded from the table. Why?
Finally I must question the relevance of the table to educational achievement in a broad, holistic sense where participation in extra-curricular activities, the promotion of self-confidence, the fostering of happiness, friendships and a love of learning are some of the criteria which measure how a student has been prepared for life in the community outside school.
I remain unconvinced that the publication of narrow, unqualified, improperly researched statistics such as these serve any purpose other than to underline the fact that inequality exists in the achievement of CAO points, a fact that few people in education ever doubted. - Yours, etc.,
KEVIN O'RIORDAN, Principal, Skerries Community College, Skerries, Co Dublin.
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Sir, - Even more galling than the shock-horror histrionics and the pious hand-wringing which accompanied your publication of school league tables was the self-serving analysis and simplistic prescriptions by John O'Keeffe of Portobello College (Opinion, September 18th).
What now for those students and parents unfortunate enough to have selected schools in working-class areas which now stand condemned by these statistics? It is a pity that so few of them take The Irish Times. Otherwise, they might almost be convinced that their needs would best be served in grind schools of their choice and that they would be welcomed in these establishments by the likes of Mr O'Keeffe and their "best teachers". - Yours etc.,
EAMON SHEPPARD, Foxes Grove, Shankill, Co Dublin.
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Sir, - Your original article concerning numbers entering UCD and TCD warned that no conclusions should be drawn about the performance of individual schools as, among other things, the statistics did not take account of the numbers sitting the Leaving Cert in each school.
John O'Keefe's article, published the next day, ignores this point to claim that "the Institute of Education. . .employs the best teachers and guarantees the best results".
Perhaps your readers should have been informed that Portobello College, where Mr O'Keefe is head of the law school, is part of the same organisation as the Institute of Education. - Yours, etc.,
Dr MICK BRADY, Principal, Dominican College, Sion Hill, Blackrock, Co Dublin.
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Sir, - One point omitted from the discussion so far has been the obvious one that students from fee-paying schools tend to come from homes where education is valued and encouraged, for whatever noble or ignoble reason.
The parents of such students are usually, though not of course invariably, middle-class people who are prepared if necessary to make considerable sacrifices to get their children to third level.
This view may not be politically correct, but I have experienced instances where quite promising students, living in deprived areas, were forced out of the system by an anti-education culture comprising peer pressure, parental indifference and the attractions of an immediate, if dead-end, job. That is where the need for remedial action lies.
Talk of grinds only confuses the issue. When I was a secondary teacher, parents of my pupils sometimes asked me to give grinds to their children. I always refused. Grinds were unnecessary as long as I did my job properly and the parents supported me.
My attitude was that failure in examinations was not the pupil's failure, but mine. - Yours, etc.
SEÁN MAC CÁRTHAIGH, Ballsbridge, Dublin 4.