Information is rarely 'innocent'. Raw facts have little meaning outside a context, writes John White
We live in an age when access to information is a central feature of democratic societies. The briefest reflection on the dangers of unaccountable authoritarianism as exercised by either church or state throughout history is sufficient to banish any nostalgia for a return to the good old days when those in charge knew best.
Given, therefore, that we are going to be bombarded with information with regard to education, it is essential that we are aware that such information is rarely "innocent". By that I mean that brute, raw facts have little meaning outside a context and an interpretation. It follows that it is no accident that this age of information is also the age of the spin-doctor.
The publication by The Irish Times of tables listing the feeder schools to UCD, Trinity College Dublin, and NUI Maynooth contains the brute, raw facts of numbers attending schools who go to those particular universities. However, it is common for commentators to draw absurdly wrong conclusions from those figures.
For example, it is implied that sending a child to a school near the top of these tables increases greatly the chances of that child going to university. There is absolutely no evidence for this. Pupils of similar ability on entry to second-level school have approximately the same chance of attending university. Schools at the top of the table simply have a greater proportion of higher ability pupils entering these schools.
There is absolutely no evidence that these schools give any greater added-value than a school which may be lower on the league table. A similar misapprehension arises with regard to fee-paying schools. Again, there is no evidence that fee-paying schools add value greater than non-fee schools.
This statement is borne out when it is realised that fee-paying schools - except for the Protestant schools, a large city phenomenon - are in a minority in the 60 schools which send most pupils to university. All over the country parents send their children to the school of their choice in the locality without paying any fees and these children will go to a university if they have the academic ability and work consistently.
There is no real mystery in this; any teacher can tell you in the first year which pupils are likely to go to university, but the hype generated by the tables and the pages of advertising by grind schools misleads parents to think otherwise. Of course, parents want to do the best for their children and if they choose to spend their money on grind schools, in a free society that is their choice. But it is important to point out that the child who is sent by their parents to the school of their choice in their locality will have the same chance of going to university.
For policy-makers there are of course issues in education which are ultimately more important than the race for exam results. Irish schools, despite their faults and their failings, have tried to transmit humane values founded on respect for each individual - a respect which endeavours to value every aspect of human development including the intellectual, the physical, the spiritual and the artistic.
The vast majority of parents also desire this broad, humane education for their children. For example, in accordance with recent legislation, pupils with special needs now take their rightful place in mainstream schools. Will the care and attention given to these pupils by schools and their teachers be reflected in the brute facts of league tables? Of course not.
Do league tables factor in the gross disadvantages of pupils from backgrounds where books are non-existent and knowledge of education is lacking? Surely the work of teachers with these pupils demands levels of professional expertise which should be recognised and valued and not ignored as they are by these league tables.
Policy-makers have responsibility to the whole community and cannot be seen to foster a narrow exams-related education culture driven by the hype of league tables and related advertising and the false and damaging conclusions drawn from them.
It is, however, now the responsibility of teachers, parents, school managers and government to consider the information, to differentiate between what it is telling us and what it is not, and not to allow it to exacerbate social divisiveness. Above all, it is in the interest of the well-being of our whole society that all our schools are well resourced, so that we can continue to attain the high standards for all pupils needed by modern society.
• John White is deputy general secretary of the Association of Secondary Teachers in Ireland