Sir, – There are real educational issues, and there are spurious educational issues. Talk to any primary school teacher who was around in the Celtic Tiger years and you will be told that the extra resources that were made available to schools, during that period, made a huge difference to children with learning difficulties. By the same token, withdrawal of these supports, and increased class sizes, the result of deliberate educational cutbacks by the present Government, will result in more children leaving school unable to read, write or do simple arithmetic. That is a real educational issue.
It is not the issue that is being debated in the media, however. I think that the Government is well aware of this media bias, and cynically uses it to distract attention from the awfulness of some of its educational policies.
Ruairí Quinn (routinely portrayed in the media as a “reforming” Minister for Education) had hardly settled into his job when he announced that he envisioned 50 per cent of schools being removed from Catholic control.
He received a lot of positive media coverage for this. He commissioned a survey of parents – not a random sample, but conducted in areas where demand for non-Catholic schooling was expected to be highest – and discovered that actual demand, for non-denominational schools in these areas, ranged from less than 1 per cent of parents up to a maximum of 8 per cent.
That is, a small number of non-Catholic schools are viable, and will be provided by the State. No one, and certainly not the Catholic Church, has a problem with this. I am sorry that some citizens, in areas where demand for non-denominational education is low, cannot be accommodated, but it seems a bit extreme to infer from this that we are somehow failing as a republic. If the demand is there, this State will provide the bulk of the funding for schools that are non-denominational, faith-based or language-based. Is that not how a liberal democracy should work? – Yours, etc,
JIM STACK,
Lismore,
Co Waterford.