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THE ANNUAL publication of the secondary-school league tables is greeted with equal measures of cynicism, curiosity, smugness and anxiety. This week’s effort at producing percentages that purportedly measure educational quality is no different, writes KATE HOLMQUIST

It has been greeted critically by those who doubt that sending 100 per cent of students to a high-points university course is necessarily an indication of a school’s ability to produce well-rounded individuals. There has been the curiosity of educators, students and parents alike to see where their schools ranked. There has been a certain silent smugness not just among many of the parents who can afford a top-ranking fee-paying school, but also among those fortunate enough to live in a community where the local non-fee-paying school has the energy, parental involvement and grit to make it to the top, and among those who have chosen non-fee-paying Irish-language education for their children.