After reading the damning report on the Department of Education by retired civil servant Sean Cromien, one could be forgiven for thinking the State's education system is on autopilot.
The system is habitually described as the "envy of the world", but Mr Cromien's report contradicts this complacency and reveals a system lurching from crisis to crisis bereft of forward planning or strategic thinking.
No part of the system is immune from his relentless critique. From primary education to third level, inefficiency, petty bureaucracy, outmoded practices and a lack of common sense are identified.
While each component of the system appears to have its problems, one theme runs through the criticisms. In the words of one official: "The urgent drives out the important." Department of Education officials find their time dominated by "urgent" (read crisis) matters and have little or no time to step back and consider long-term and "important" policy, says the report.
Ludicrously, senior officials end up spending substantial time making sure someone fixes the windows in small rural schools rather than shaping national policy, it adds.
While officials are helping to fix broken windows other vital tasks are sitting on desks, he states. He says officials should be spending more time in the "school of the future" where there are vital lessons on "the nature of educational provision and in educational practice" for them to learn.
He says officials are so swamped by work they don't have time to consider "whether what they are doing is being done properly, or indeed whether it is worth doing at all". After several reports decrying the failures of our politicians, this report homes in on administrative malaise on a grand scale. However, the author does not criticise the Civil Service itself, but this particularly badly structured and badly run outpost. For the Minister, Dr Woods, and his closest officials this will not be happy reading.
"It cannot be emphasised enough that many of the practices being carried out are the result of an outdated approach of overcentralisation which is out of touch with modern thinking in the Civil Service."
While the weight of his criticism falls on officialdom, the clientalist nature of our political system is also identified as a serious factor behind the malaise.
TDs are pinpointed as serious sources of extra work for the civil servants. Even something as innocuous as the school transport system becomes an issue which TDs take up on behalf of their constituents with gusto.
But Mr Cromien says no wonder TDs are constantly firing angry letters into the Department in Marlborough Street - the Department has few local offices and most of the power is centralised among a few key officials in Dublin.
The corrective here is a network of local offices which can provide integrated services to the community. The report goes further: "Eventually in time it may be opportune for management to consider the possibility of devolving decision-making authority to local level."
This is needed because of the tidal wave of political pressure which faces officials every day, the report points out. "Unnecessary reliance on the political system to solve what are really administrative problems represents a failure on the part of the Department and should be remedied," the report states.
The constant shuffling of paper between sections dealing with TDs and their constituents is a serious impediment to real policy preparation, says the report. The paper trail normally leads back to a relatively solvable problem at a school, and Mr Cromien suggests the schools should tackle these themselves.
"A number of our proposals would, if implemented, lead to greater autonomy and responsibility for schools. This should provide schools with more responsibility, allow more effective decision-making at local level, free the Department to focus on policy and evaluation," it states.
At present the alarming lack of policy direction is obvious, the report finds. After discussions with senior officials, Mr Cromien concludes: "We were struck by the absence in certain line sections of any obvious thinking about policy formulation, and indeed, by their perception that they had no responsibility for such matters".
After letting a policy vacuum build up, officials let interest groups and sometimes the courts dictate the policy of our education system, says Mr Cromien.
AS Kathryn Sinnott, the mother of 23-year-old autistic Jamie Sinnot, found out recently, the vacuum at the heart of the system can also detrimentally affect the most fundamental rights of children.
The author specifically mentions special needs as an area where poor administration has left many disappointed and broken. With the Department operating so poorly, one would at least hope it could operate in a unified fashion: not so, according to Mr Cromien.
"We were struck by the volume of complaints from sections concerning the introduction of initiatives without adequate prior consultation," says the report. And worse: "In some cases, it appeared that sections sponsoring initiatives had been completely unaware of, or unmindful of, the implications for other sections."
The author softens these comments a little when he says the Department's political masters are also to blame by announcing initiatives which "come as a surprise to the relevant sections of the Department".
With such widespread and deep-seated shortcomings, one has to admire Mr Cromien's bravery in proposing such common-sense solutions. For example, the Department's managers should not only think strategically, but should tell their staff about outcomes.
Examinations - the bane of the Department in terms of devouring resources - could be run by a body outside the Department. Even simpler, why do officials need to travel between the Department's offices in Dublin, Tullamore and Athlone? What about video conferencing instead, asks Mr Cromien.
Mr Cromien recognises the huge stress the staff at Marlborough Street are under. "We have noted a strong sense of frustration among members of the staff and their union representatives at what they perceive to be a failure of management to respond adequately to their frequently expressed concerns," it says.
More staff to cut the workload will not be enough to deal with this, it says. What is needed is to move the workload elsewhere and the recommendations for local offices and a new arrangement for exams should help this.
eoliver@irish-times.ie