Madam, - Joe Coy makes some valid points about the nature of our education system (Education Today, October 18th), but I am weary of listening to the same old rant whereby grind schools are used as the scapegoat for all that is wrong in Irish education.
I have been involved in this sector for several years and I wish to dispel the myth that grind schools merely offer a "leg-up" to over-privileged students who all want to do medicine.
Students walk in the doors of grind schools for many reasons. Not all are looking for high points in the Leaving Certificate, as is attested by the statistic quoted in Mr Coy's article that up to two-thirds of all Leaving Certificate students take grinds. This is why grind schools also offer classes in Ordinary Level subjects.
Why, then, are they here? Perhaps because they have a lousy and uninterested teacher; because their teacher is on leave and they've had a run of inadequate substitutes; because the overcrowding in Irish classrooms is appalling and many students do not flourish in a learning environment where the teacher-pupil ratio is 1:30; because their teacher, while dedicated and willing, cannot control behaviour in the classroom. . .The reasons why students come to grind schools are as varied as the young people themselves.
Some are from private schools, but many come from the public sector and from homes where money is tight but education is highly valued.
I am tired of ill-informed and reductive attitudes to this sector of education and I think it is time there was more respect given to young people's choices.
If grind schools have such a "cynical approach to learning" and "reduce everything to the bare essentials", how do so many students flourish in this environment? The reality is that grind schools have been shoring up a very faulty system and some very faulty teachers for a long time. - Yours, etc,
CATHY SWEENEY, Administrator and Teacher, Study4Success, Murrough Business Park, Wicklow.