Madam, – It may have escaped Louis O’Flaherty’s analysis (September 30th), but parents of children in fee-paying schools are already paying what he describes as “the real cost for . . . exclusivity”. It’s called income tax.
Is it not reasonable that some of the money such parents pay into the State’s educational pot can be used to educate their own children? On what basis should they be forced to forfeit their subsidy to the State? I speak particularly in the context of minority religious denominations outside of Dublin for whom access to education within a compatible ethos is often fraught with real economic and geographical difficulties that are not at all addressed by the State.
It is disappointing that a former president of ASTI should see education in such narrow, ideologically-driven terms. – Yours, etc,
Madam, – Louis O’Flaherty (September 30th) argues against Orlaith Carmody’s view on fee-paying schools. Like Ms Carmody, I too send my two sons to Clongowes and my daughters to Rathdown. I work like a demon to afford this.
As a result, I both create employment and pay a high amount of taxes. These taxes educate many children in Ireland, not just mine. To suggest that my children’s education should not be funded by my taxes to the same amount as other children’s is ridiculous.
I am fed up of the whingers, begrudgers and moaners tearing down the middle class of this country. I am a middle- to high-earning self-employed person, which means that in the last year I have taken pain from all sides: a reduction in earnings, an increase in taxes (and on a percentage basis the middle earners pay the highest taxes), and a reduction in benefits.
If you want to participate in educating tomorrow’s Irish leaders, then get on your bike and work harder and stop holding me back. – Yours, etc,
Madam, – As principal of a Church of Ireland co-educational boarding and day school, I must challenge the generalised nature of the criticism made by Louis O’Flaherty (September 30th), where he states that “Fee-paying schools by their nature do not accept their fair share of social responsibility.”
Midleton College was founded to provide, in the first instance, an education for the Church of Ireland community in the north and east Cork region. While the college has evolved over almost 300 years, that founding ethos has been preserved. The Protestant community has no monopoly over wisdom or disposable income and therefore this college welcomes all children from families for whom the college was established to serve, irrespective of ability or means. We provide a broad education which challenges the most able and supports those with particular needs, so that each pupil is afforded the opportunity for their God-given talents to develop to the greatest extent.
Midleton College has a high level of social mix among its pupil body and serves as an instrument of social redistribution through the financial support provided by 11 statutory and voluntary agencies. This support ensures the college can reduce or remove the cost of fees to those Protestant families of proven limited means while others continue to pay in support of the ethos they value.
Fees are charged not as a means of exclusion but to underpin our ability to be inclusive. Fee income, in addition to State support through the payment of salary to a defined number of teachers previously in parity with all other schools, has ensured this college can provide the necessary breadth of co-educational curriculum, boarding accommodation for male/female students, pastoral care and nursing needs for all pupils. It is for this reason that Protestant-ethos schools have over the past 40 years been categorised in the same manner as “free scheme” schools in terms of their funding relationship with the Department of Education and Science.
It is the unilateral withdrawal of this relationship by the department in the last budget which has caused such concern and anger among the Protestant community.
The consequence of the measures enacted in Budget 2009 has been to threaten the ability of such schools to maintain their community-based inclusive nature. Protestant schools are therefore campaigning vigorously to have State funding parity returned so that they and the families who support them may continue to educate all children equally. – Yours, etc,