Sir, – It has been interesting to see a host of academics venting spleen about the fee-paying primary and secondary education sectors in your letters pages over the last few weeks. This was made all the more interesting by the fact they were proceeded by a host of academics venting spleen in the wider media about the lack of fees in the university sector. It seems that what is bad for the goose is highly desired by the gander. – Yours, etc,
MAIT Ó FAOLAIN,
Foxrock, Dublin 18.
Sir, – I become incredibly frustrated when I read articles such as the one written by Ciaran O'Neill when he writes about low-income families subsidising education they cannot "hope to bestow" on their children ("Paying for privilege", Education Analysis, October 24th).
No-one disputes that every child has the right to a state-funded education. In fee-paying schools the parents subsidise additional facilities out of their own net income. The fees parents pay include costs such as light, heat, repairs, etc, costs normally incurred by the state in non-fee-paying schools. The vast majority of parents make considerable sacrifices to put their children through these schools. The upshot is that it costs the state less to educate a child through a fee-paying school than a non-fee-paying school. This is an undisputed fact and why the department will never “open its books” to the public.
I put it to Mr O’Neill that the parents of fee-paying schools are subsidising the taxpayer and not vice versa. If the money given to fee-paying schools were withdrawn, this could only lead to an increase in the school fees. An increase most parents simply could not afford because the vast majority of parents scrimp and save to put their children through these schools. There would also be a massive migration to non-fee-paying schools and the state plainly couldn’t cope. It is therefore ironic that the state is dependent on these schools to remain open as it could not afford for these schools to close. – Yours, etc,
PATRICK CASSIDY,
Terenure,
Dublin 6.
Sir, – I was thrilled to read Ciaran O’Neill’s fascinating analysis of private education in this country.
What I do not understand is why the 93 per cent of the people in this country who have not been and will never be educated privately are not up in arms about the annual subvention of €100 million that goes from our collective pockets into bastions of privilege that only serve to reinforce and strengthen the inequality in our society.
I recently told my sister – who has no children and pays her taxes – that thanks to her taxes the private schools in our catchment area are now in a position to resurface their tennis courts, restring the violins of their orchestras, and pay for a physiotherapist to be pitch-side when the elite children of Ireland line out for their school sport. At first she was astonished and then horrified. She had no idea that the system of education in Ireland is funded in this manner. How many other people out there, who are struggling to pay their mortgages, dreading property tax and marching against water charges, have considered the fact that their taxes are propping up a fundamentally unequal and unjust education system from which they will never benefit and which, by virtue of the very privilege bestowed upon its pupils, will only serve to disadvantage them further? – Yours, etc,
SHEILA MAHER,
Goatstown,
Dublin 14.