The Minister for Education and Science, Mary Hanafin, has confirmed that school inspection reports will be published and made available to parents within months. The Minister hopes that the first series of reports will be on the department's website by April. Copies will be made available to parents' associations and to other members of the school community.
The Minister deserves some credit for her initiative. The education system in this State may have many merits, not least its high-calibre teaching corps, but it is low on accountability and openness. Both Ms Hanafin and her predecessor, Noel Dempsey, have spoken about the "information vacuum" at the heart of the education system. Yes, there are schools who will readily give information to parents but there are others, regrettably, who continue to view the parent body with suspicion. The Department of Education itself is in the process of divesting itself of much of its old secrecy and suspicion. Only four years ago, it refused to release school inspection reports to this newspaper under the Freedom of Information Act. Today, the department, the teacher unions and the other education partners accept the case for publication.
Ms Hanafin says the inspection reports will give parents a "rounded" picture of how a school is performing, taking into account its social context. It will tell parents about the general atmosphere and morale in a school and it will examine school management and planning. The Minister, and the teacher unions, insist this is a better alternative than "crude league tables" focused exclusively on exam performance. There is a good deal of information in the inspection reports which will be of use to parents. But the reports will not answer two questions regularly asked by parents about a school or a prospective school. Namely, how did the pupils perform in the State exams and what are the teachers like? These are perfectly legitimate questions for any parent who has entrusted their son or daughter to a school - but they will not be addressed in the reports.
There are other concerns. Fine Gael says it could be a decade and more before inspection reports for some of the 4,000 primary and second-level schools in the State are published. Concerns have been expressed that criticisms of a school could remain on the department's website long after any problems identified in the inspection reports are resolved. Clearly, there will be teething problems as the new system beds down but, for all its flaws, the new initiative represents a landmark moment in Irish education. It must be welcomed.