Sir, – The suggestion by Jacky Jones (“Educational caste system affects all aspects of life”, Second Opinion, Health + Family, September 2nd) that there might be a compulsory 40 per cent intake of disadvantaged children has much to commend it, but will it work?
I come from a working class background and was educated in England under the provisions of the 1944 Education Act and what was then the “11-plus” system. In effect, you got into an advanced secondary level education on the basis of educational achievement. That is not to say money was not a great help, particularly if your parents wished to bypass the public system.
But inevitably, being of Catholic Irish extraction meant that most boys in my year were working class too. It also meant that from primary school level upwards, we were as Catholics trained to believe that we were as good as anybody else. Under that 1944 Act, and because of other assistance promoted by the postwar British Labour Party, it became the norm that most boys that I knew went on to third level. I do not think my female contemporaries were any different.
In short, social mix meant nothing in the context of the educational achievement of my contemporaries. It might be more productive to examine the basis of the success evident in the performance of secondary level students in Northern Ireland as compared to the UK generally. – Yours, etc,
GERALD MURPHY,
Marley Avenue,
Marley Grange, Dublin 16.
A chara, – I’m curious as to how Dr Jacky Jones would carry out her proposal to force all schools to have a mix of “40 per cent of pupils from families with medical cards and 60 per cent from middle- and higher-income families”. Whatever about forcing schools to adopt changes to their admission policies – it’s already hard enough drawing up enrolment polices – drawing them up so as to reflect the socio-economic background of the students on top of everything else would be a nightmare. How would she force parents to comply? Parents do have constitutional rights in this area; drawing up legislation that didn’t infringe on these would probably be problematic (and please don’t suggest we have yet another referendum to deal with it – we can’t amend the Constitution every five minutes).
Even without these rights, does she seriously imagine parents would put up with allowing their children to be sent hither and yon for the sake of her theory? It’d be a brave TD who’d stand up in the Dáil and vote for that one, party whip or not.
Also, how are the children to be moved from one area to another? Our school transport system is already struggling to cope. And let’s not forget the students – how likely are they to want to spend extra hours out of their day in travel? Not to mention being forced to go to school outside of their own communities, away from their families and friends. Extra resources for the preschools, primary schools, and secondary schools attended by children whose background indicates they are less likely to go on to third level would seem simpler.
Simpler, that is, if the desired goal actually is to guide these children into higher education and provide them with the attendant health benefits that Dr Jones says comes from further education. If the agenda is about breaking down perceived class barriers, that’s a whole different conversation. – Is mise,
Rev PATRICK G BURKE,
Castlecomer,
Co Kilkenny.