FG education spokesman refines position on exam league tables

"Crude" league tables of Leaving Certificate examination results should not be made public, the Fine Gael spokesman on education, Mr Richard Bruton, has said.

He was responding to news that the Department of Education was seeking legal advice on whether it should publish last year's results in league-table form.

It follows the ruling of the Information Commissioner, Mr Kevin Murphy, that three newspapers - the Sunday Tribune, the Sunday Times and the Kerryman - should have access to 1998 results

In an article in yesterday's Irish Independent, Mr Bruton called for the publication of last year's exam results.

Refining his position yesterday, Mr Bruton said journalists should use the information "responsibly". He said he would not like to see a "crude snapshot of results".

When asked whether he felt there should be publication of Leaving Certificate results, without reference to socio-economic problems issues or regional disadvantage, he said: "No, we rely on journalists to use information well. It would be awful to feel we could not give journalists information because they wouldn't use it responsibly . . . I would hope to see people looking at how like-schools perform in comparison with like-schools."

He said his argument in favour of the publication of examination results was not an "about-turn on Fine Gael party policy".

Fine Gael supported the Education Act, enacted last year, which bans the publication of the so-called league tables.

"Fine Gael supported aspects of the Act," said Mr Bruton. "We have always been in favour of making more information available to parents."

He said making exam information publicly available would "be a catalyst to debate" about why some schools were achieving higher results than others. It would "jolt" people out of their complacency about the problems faced by some schools.

Challenging the argument that parents with greater resources would use exam tables to avoid lower-achieving schools, Mr Bru ton said there was "already a thriving black market in this kind of information as we see with parents sending their children to grinds and special tutors".

He said there was no value in collating examination tables for the private use of the Department of Education. "Education is about partnership. Parents should have access to the debate about why students at some schools achieve lower grades than students at other schools."

Referring to the British experience of the publication of so-called league tables - which was widely regarded as damaging for some schools and teachers - Mr Bruton said he did not want to repeat that here.

"They [the British] did not contextualise the results. It was a snapshot there and it was all done with a penal, critical attitude. Here I would hope positive and creative thinking would result."