Gearoid O Bradaigh: We need to cut out social apartheid in our schools [Independent.ie]
- Published: 11 January 2011
AFTER more than 40 years of free education, isn't it incredible that we are still playing out the game of education on a pitch skewed by discrimination, class consciousness, income and family background?
There is a belief in the minds of some that they do not have to deal with what they consider the unpleasant business of problem students, Travellers, students with special needs and, generally anyone who might impact on their self-constructed coziness.
Irish education is not played out on a level pitch and a detailed study of schools' admission policies reveals the common thread -- that many of them have devised imaginative ways of setting the slope on the pitch:
- By giving preference to the brothers or sisters of existing students or children of former pupils.
- By reserving places for certain feeder schools or parishes.
- By reserving places for the children of full-time members of staff.
- By taking applications only from students who are in third or fourth class in their primary feeder schools and who have an €800 non-refundable deposit.
- By requiring parents to have the resources to participate in an "induction weekend".
- By telling parents at the open evening that they want only "honours students".
This list is not exhaustive.
In some schools the restrictions are innocent and simply exist by custom and practice. In others, however, they are very carefully crafted to enable the school to "cherry pick" its intake. In many towns the length and breadth of the country, this covert form of social apartheid is in operation.
The Department of Education is well aware of this but, like so many problems, refuses to deal with it until, as with the banking crisis, it becomes unmanageable.
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