Sir, – Once again the paper of record struggles hard to find meaning in the profoundly meaningless feeder schools list.
So, this year’s figures “show fewer pupils from poor social-economic backgrounds attend university”. Stop the press! Figures suggest “gender mix of a school is largely irrelevant”. The ESRI established this many years ago.
What Brian Mooney terms “statistical aberrations at heart of feeder tables” would be better described as fundamental flaws that render the data useless.
It is a fool’s errand to try to establish the “top school” or “most improved school” when the class of 2016’s rate of progression to university is determined by reference to college entry in 2016 by a school’s former students going back as far as the 1980s. Hence the ludicrous 118 per cent progression rates.
"Schools with poor career guidance top feeder school lists" might make some sense. In justifying publication of this data Peter McGuire asserts that "information is power" but no matter what claims The Irish Times tries to make for these lists, misleading, meaningless data cannot empower or enlighten. The suggestion that parents consult the Department of Education's "increasingly robust" inspection reports is the one piece of genuinely useful advice. – Yours, etc,
NIALL HARE
Maynooth,
Co Kildare.