Sir, - While Medb Ruane (Opinion, March 1st) states that "the British system of performance indicators is too rough and ready to tell us much of value about quality education", she also regrets that under the terms of the Education Act examination results may not be made available on a school-by-school basis in order to allow the construction of league tables. I would have thought that by now, and more particularly after the publication of the book Do Schools Differ? by Emer Smith of the ESRI, the anti-educational, corrosive effects of such league tables was clear to all.
The fundamental basis of education must be respect for the diverse and unique potential of each individual. All the partners in Irish education, including parents, accept that the selective and simplistic information contained in league tables of schools' results would tend to force schools towards easily measured criteria, with a consequent impoverishment of education.
The central purpose of information in education is to enhance the quality of the service. Therefore the focus should be on those factors which make schools more effective. Schools therefore must of course co-operate with the thrust in our society towards the greater provision of information in order to foster enhanced quality. Under the terms of the Education Act schools will be engaged in a process of school planning in consultation with all of the school community, including parents, and as part of this developmental process appropriate ways will be devised of giving information on all of a schools' activities.
In this context, schools will take account of Emer Smith's recommendations in her book that they should devise evaluation criteria including monitoring of such factors as attendance rates, drop-out rates, disciplinary climate, class organisation, pupil involvement and academic outcomes. This information will be used by schools to make informed choices about their curricular provision and whole school organisation with the aim of providing an enhanced service to the community they serve. - Yours, etc., Charlie Lennon,
General Secretary,
ASTI,
Winetavern Street,
Dublin 8.