Madam, – I can assure James McDermott (Opinion, April 27th)that I’m neither an elitist nor do I belong to an educational golden circle, merely an ordinary Joe (or Paddy in my case) with a very ordinary job who decided to continue driving my 1999 Honda Civic saloon, forgo the foreign holidays for the past 10 years and, instead, use my money to send my kids to a school of our own choosing. I find it richly ironic that a university lecturer and barrister accuses others of belonging to an “educational golden circle”.
A great many State schools operate an admissions policy of one kind or another. National newspapers have often published photos of upset and disappointed parents whose children have failed to secure places in local State schools, some of whose principals have openly admitted showing preference to families with children already at their schools.
As for the €100 million of hard-earned taxes going to support private schools, primarily, as he admits, to pay teachers’ salaries, why not close all the private schools down then let’s see how far that €100 million would stretch if the State had to fully fund and maintain the school buildings to house the 26,000 pupils currently in private schools (on top of paying for the teachers).
As well as being a parent who paid to send his kids to a private school, I’m also a taxpayer, whose hard-earned taxes have gone to help fund State school-building programmes and grant aid for hard-pressed third-level students, along with the 150,000 seeking the back-to-school allowance. So you could say I’ve paid on the double (more, if you consider the near 40 years I’ve been working and paying taxes).
We’re all aware of the Rainbow Coalition’s decision to abolish third-level fees, but it would have made little or no difference to the numbers attending private schools if they hadn’t been abolished. Perhaps Mr McDermott, like many teaching in, and managing, our universities, is upset because they feel that the money going to private schools should instead be going to the universities.
As for private school students having an advantage, perhaps they do, but the students still have to work and study and sit the same exams as everybody else. However, I believe Mr McDermott does a dis-service to the State schools sector by painting such a bleak picture of it.
Perhaps in Mr McDermott’s next article he might look at why so many State schools can maintain very high standards and yet others perform so poorly? Is it all to do with funding? I’m sure the students, parents and teachers of the State schools that maintain high standards will take the credit for this, and rightly so.
Why lay the blame for the not-so-good State schools on the private sector? Perhaps the inequality in education lies not just between State and private schools, as Mr McDermott believes, but within the State schools sector itself. – Yours, etc,