BRENDAN McCABE,
Madam, - Further to Senator Joanna Tuffy's article on the re-introduction of third-level fees (Education & Parenting, October 22nd), I would like to add the following.
I am a primary school principal of 28 years' experience. I have tracked with interest the career paths of many of my former pupils. Through the mid-1970s to late 1980s I was principal of a rural school. I repeatedly observed many of my past pupils, bright, capable students, going from secondary school straight into jobs, many of them menial, with poor long-term prospects.
Talking to their parents, particularly those whose own schooling did not go very far, it was apparent that they did not see college as an option, mainly on financial grounds. This was the case even among people whom I would have thought earned very good wages. There seemed to be a mindset that they simply could not afford it. The conventional wisdom of the time was that sending a child to College was exorbitantly expensive. (One parent put it to me that it would be cheaper to keep a race-horse!)
Working in a town school since the late eighties I again observed the same phenomenon. Parents, even from middle-income groups, needed convincing that, though undoubtedly expensive, third-level education for their children was not completely beyond their means.
The abolition of third-level fees was the much-needed catalyst that changed parents' attitudes. Since their abolition in the mid-1990s, I have seen a noticeable change in the previous trend. Children from middle-income families, but with parents who had no tradition of third-level education themselves, began for the first time to readily go to college. These students graduated and became part of the well-educated workforce upon which our economy depends.
It would be a most retrograde step to revert to the old position. Please, Minister, think again. - Yours, etc.,
BRENDAN McCABE, Headfort Park, Kells, Co Meath.
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Madam, - In the debate over the possible re-introduction of third-level education fees, the uninitiated could be forgiven for concluding that the only costs associated with third-level education are tuition fees.
Those who are fortunate enough to have children in college, living away from home for the duration of the course, know that the associated costs (accommodation, living, transport, registration fees, etc.) are about €8,000 to €10,000 a year per child. One doesn't need to be a mathematician to figure out that these costs are significant. If fees were reintroduced, they would be incurred by many families in addition to the tuition fees.
In this scenario, I have no doubt that many parents whose children do not have local access to a suitable third-level institution would not be in a position to finance their children's education or would do so by incurring considerable additional debts.
Third-level costs are unique, in that they are incurred over a relatively concentrated period of years, particularly where a number of children overlap in third level. For these reasons, some of the costs involved, namely fees, should continue to be funded by general taxation.
Mr Dempsey's proposal is a short-sighted measure which would place a disproportionate financial burden on many families in the name of helping the disadvantaged.
It should therefore be rejected. - Yours, etc.,
BRENDAN BOYD, Tully, Clogherevagh, Co Sligo.