Sir, - If reports in The Irish Times are correct, the Minister for Education plans to introduce legislation to prevent publication of Leaving Certificate results which would give performance comparisons between schools and highthose schools with the best results.
As a parent with two secondary-level school children I am naturally keen to know how the schools my children attend are performing. Indeed, I would have liked that information before sending them there. No doubt parents of primary school children are equally interested.
Why this censorship?
No doubt the teachers' unions and other vested interests will bleat on about the need to take the broad view, that Leaving Cert results per se are not the full picture, that we need to take into account the development of the child in all areas, etc, etc.
The cold reality is that the measurement of a school's results (and more importantly its teachers' performance) is important. The Leaving Certificate results are probably the most important measurement there is as it is the most significant one in future career development. And yet we as parents are being denied this information.
What are the educational establishment afraid of? - Yours, etc. John McCann,
Corbawn Lane, Shankill, Co Dublin.