Madam, - Michael Kelly (September 20th), in response to Sr Stanislaus Kennedy's address to the National Council of Priests, argues that "a narrowly-focused 'one size fits all' State system is neither desirable nor practical".
Before concluding as such, has Mr Kelly bothered to evaluate the egalitarian and highly successful Nordic Education Model which is based on a "one size fits all" state system? According to the education policy here in Finland, children can simply go to their local school, irrespective of creed or colour. They are all educated according to the same curriculum and they get free healthy school meals at primary and secondary levels.
Schoolchildren here seem to do quite well by cosmopolitan mingling and by being fed in school; according to the OECD Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), which tests and compares schoolchildren's performance across the world, Finland has recently ranked in the top five for mathematics, literacy, science and problem-solving.
If such performance by virtue of a state education is to be called "narrowly-focused" and "one size fits all", then it can be declared a socio-political success story, at least in these parts, and something that could be emulated elsewhere.
- Yours, etc,
NIALL O'DONOGHUE, Vesilahti, Finland.