OPINION:The rebirth of our society could start with a free admissions system for children regardless of means, writes AILISH CONNELLY
DIG DEEP mamas and papas, it’s that time of year. Chances are many of you will have already opened the cheque books merely to get your child on to lists for second-level schools of your choice.
By now you could be down several thousand euro and counting, and even those of you who wouldn’t or couldn’t dream of sending your child to a fee-paying school will be forking out substantial sums. Public schools are just as capable of using the application process as a money-making racket to boost their coffers.
It’s a bit of a hobby horse of mine, busy as I am writing cheques, hoping to sign the daughter up to a reasonable secondary school. She is in fourth class and won’t present her pretty self to any second-level school until September 2012, another 28 months away.
Yet we, her parents, have coughed up non-refundable sums to place applications with a number of schools because no school could tell us whether or not she would get a place. The schools call it an administration fee. In one private school, the administration fee jumped from €40 to €75 within a matter of weeks while in a public school from one year to the next it escalated five fold – from €10 to €50. Just to place her name on an application list.
Then to secure a place, after the application, in one particular establishment a non-refundable fee of €1,000 was requested. In a public school a non-refundable voluntary subscription of €450 was requested from prospective students. As one mother said to me: “Put your money where your mouth is.”
These are bountiful lists.
I’m in awe of the financial acumen of the boards of management of some of these schools. They’d leave the pointy-heads in the Department of Finance in the ha’penny place such are their imaginative scams to fundraise on the back of children who haven’t yet set foot across their thresholds. One hundred offers of places nets a private school in south Dublin €1,000 to be placed on deposit for more than two years before it is used for tuition of pupils.
I’m from DNS, de north side (of Dublin), and I could be wrong but as far as I’m aware none of this lark goes on there regarding schools. And if it does, it’s on a relatively minor scale. Across the Liffey, where there is a greater concentration of private schools, it’s a different matter.
God be with the days when everyone went along to the same secondary school. There was no greasing of palms and the sun shone regardless. Perhaps this is just a modern issue and an urban-centric one at that.
Part of the problem for some parents in urban Ireland is the lack of available school places in certain areas. Where I live, for example, there is no second-level school of any description. Mary Hanafin, then minister for education, was approached by a committee formed to campaign for a community school for the neighbourhood. Capacity in surrounding areas was more than enough to cater for the children.
“It’s just what you have to do, everyone does it,” one resigned mum chuckled, football pitch side, when I happened to voice aloud my perplexity. But why, (being difficult), I wanted to know. Why can’t each school in an area decide within the same time frame and publish the names of successful applicants together, eliminating the expense and parental anxieties in one go?
A common application system has been in place in Limerick for a few years with varying degrees of success. Could it work nationwide? If the third-level institutions managed to get a functioning central applications system up and running decades ago, what is preventing secondary schools from doing the same thing?
Absolutely nothing, except the will to cede power over policy decisions and that omnipotent spectre of education everywhere, dwindling resources. Then there is the elephant in the room of education – competition. The competitive streak that aided the plunge towards national bankruptcy has not gone away and one of the most competitive arenas among parents are school places for our offspring, be they not-so-free schools or private schools.
You don’t have to be a card-carrying leftie to realise that charging ridiculous amounts to place a child’s name on any list perpetuates an unfair advantage in favour of those who already have the most in our society. I can’t imagine how a lone parent squeezing a living from social welfare benefits could compete with the multiple application approach to the issue favoured by the well heeled.
The rebirth of our society, that so many commentators are calling for, could start in a small but significant way with a free fair and transparent admissions system for all children irrespective of their means.
But that would mean imaginative legislative interference. Let’s see if the new minister is up to it. Attention please, Ms Coughlan.
Ann Marie Hourihane is on leave