Sir, – Fintan O'Toole's article quotes Minister for Education Richard Bruton, whose aim is to make Ireland's education and training system "the best in Europe over the next decade" ("Between aspiration and reality we build a bridge of bullshit", Opinion & Analysis, September 20th).
While the Minister’s aims may be laudable, the task he faces is considerable and not helped by the cuts the sector has faced under the stewardship of this and previous governments.
Since 2000, the share of gross expenditure set aside for education has been reduced from 19 per cent to 16 per cent.
Our classes in the primary sector are now the most overcrowded in the euro zone, where the average is 21 pupils. At present, Irish primary teachers have to contend with 25 pupils on average, with 24 per cent of primary pupils being taught in super-size classes of 30 or more. That equates to 130,000 children being taught in overcrowded classrooms. Schools are also coping with a moratorium on filling posts of responsibility and insufficient release days for teaching principals, as well as the knock-on effects these problems have on effective school leadership.
If the Minister is sincere in his ambition, he should begin by committing to rectify these issues, and the only way to do so is through adequate funding. – Yours, etc,
EOIN FENTON,
Ballinasloe,
Co Galway.
Sir, – I share Fintan O’Toole’s frustration about the Government’s action plan on education.
The section on tackling educational disadvantage makes no mention of the almost 2,500 children recorded as homeless in July 2016 by the Peter McVerry Trust. Nor does it refer to the most educationally disadvantaged group in Irish society, Travellers, who had 85 per cent of their targeted educational supports removed in 2010 and for whom the risks of leaving school early are increasing.
An action plan worthy of its name needs to look at specific groups and challenges and to outline strategies. Ireland’s record in relation to the training and education of the most vulnerable children in society is among the worst in Europe. This action plan contains nothing to address that. – Yours, etc,
ANNE McCLUSKEY,
Tallaght,
Dublin 24.
Sir, – Fintan O’Toole writes, “There are currently about 7,500 apprentices in the system. Just 34 of these are women.”
Did I just wake up in the 16th century? We need to take a long hard look at what is going so very wrong.
As a way to contribute to the debate, please allow me to express my vision for Ireland: to become a country where it is normal for 50 per cent of the elected politicians to be women; a country where growth and corporate profit are not the main drivers and measures of our success; a country where state education is secular and religious belief, while respected, is an after-school activity; a country where the children at primary level are allocated places in the schools in their locality; a country with a progressive tax system, in particular one where corporate tax is not artificially low and indirect taxes artificially high; a country where afflictions such as gambling, alcoholism, depression and drug addiction become problems of the few as the majority adopt healthier options, such as the dignity of work, exercise, community spirit, life-long learning and philosophical thinking; a country that retains ownership of its water, airports, airlines, gas supplies, coastline, public parks and cultural heritage; a country that is not overly reliant on carbon energy sources; a country that understands the world has finite resources and the need to share them with our fellow human beings; and a country where the majority of citizens are actively engaged. A country with a vision for the future. – Yours, etc,
ALISON HACKETT,
Dún Laoghaire,
Co Dublin.
Sir, – Fintan O’Toole criticises the Government for its hypocrisy regarding education policy in Ireland. While claiming to aspire towards a world-class education system, “we’ve been falling way behind European levels of investment in the education of our children and young people”.
As evidence, your columnist uncritically repeats a headline from The Irish Times, "Irish education spending low by OECD standards" (September 16th). And O'Toole argues on the basis of the authoritative OECD 2016 Education at a Glance report, that we are now spending "just half of what the leading European countries spend". It would be reasonable for any reader of the column to infer that the State is starving the public education system of resources.
While it is true that the OECD did report that Ireland’s spending per student reduced by 7 per cent between 2008 and 2013, this is hardly surprising. Those five years represented the hardest fiscal crunch in the history of the State, and 2008 was a high point of Irish public spending in many domains.
What Fintan O'Toole does not select out as noteworthy to report from the OECD study – and it is generally positive about Ireland's education policy – can be found on the second page of the notes for Ireland on the OECD Education at a Glance webpage. "Public expenditure [in Ireland] on primary to tertiary education alone totals 5.2 per cent of GDP, which is higher than the OECD average of 4.8 per cent, and makes up 13.2 per cent of total public spending, which is again higher than the OECD average of 11.3 per cent ."
Fintan O’Toole accuses those in Government of building “a bridge of bullshit” about education policy, but in selecting only those elements of an important report that cohere to his own ideological prejudices, he seems quite adept at this kind of bridge-building himself. – Yours, etc,
Dr MICHAEL O’CONNELL,
Associate Professor,
School of Psychology,
UCD,
Dublin 4.