Madam, - Your "Teacher's Pet" columnist was impressed by the presentation given recently at the British Embassy by the British education minister, Charles Clarke to an invited group of educationists (Education Today, September 16th).
We are told it was "like a wake-up call for the sleepy Irish education sector" and that league tables and other innovations introduced in Britain are "here to stay".
What is not mentioned is the disruption and instability in the British education system stemming from a veritable mania for reform in that country.
League tables have fostered an adversarial climate, pitting one school against another, and one product of the reforming zeal has been an aggressive inspections system that has tended to undermine teachers rather than support them.
Such measures contrast with the system in Finland, a country which has yet again topped the OECD combined literacy table. The Finns use neither "streaming" nor league tables and the inspection regime there is described as supportive (Guardian, September 16th). While we need to be aware of what is happening in Britain, there is plenty of evidence to suggest that we would be better off looking to Finland with its relatively homogeneous and similarly-sized population and its position on the rim of Europe.
Interestingly, according to the Guardian, Irish educationists have already been to Finland to discover what the recipe for success is; their British counterparts, apparently, have yet to make the trip. - Yours, etc.,
ANDREW CUSACK, Cromwellsfort Drive, Wexford.