Education, equal opportunities

[descartes]

I was watching Minister Hanafin on Q/A the other night!

Am I wrong to expect that Ministers should represent their Depts?

She made outlandish statements :

Public schools are as good as Private Schols!

To prove this she quoted the results of the leaving where some of the top achievers came from public schools!!!

Is she for real?????
It is little wonder she has introduced an emergency building program to provide schools rather then have the kids sitting on the side of the road. This only covers neglect by her over the years.

Her solution to funding of private schools is also a sign of weakness. We see the problems with private health care!!!!!! Why should education be any different?

Why should the state fund private education? Where is the benefit on any level?

[DaveM]

Your reference to equality of opportunity in the title of the thread is very important. Inequality has been institustionalised into our education system and education policy changes should be assessed against how they afford an equal opportunity to every student. Foremost amongst the bad decisions made in the past was the abolision of thrid level fees. This only served to benefit those who could afford to pay them in the first place and provided no real benefit to the most disadvantaged in society. In doing so the resources which were freed up in predominantly middle class families were diverted towards private primary and secondary education thereby making the inequality even greater.

The reintroduction of a fair mechanism of thrid level fees would mean those that can afford to pay do so and greater resources are made available to benefit those who cannot thus providing greater equality in accessing further education. It would also ease the underfunding crisis in our third level institutions whch threatens to see the qualifications they award devalued in the international marketplace.

Equality of opportunity in education would provide great social and economic benefits for the country. The present system perpetuates an underclass in our society where people are denied a fair chance on account of the circumstances into which they were born. This creates huge social problems in these areas and denies the economy the potential of an influx of skilled entrants to the workforce. Our attitude towards education, from pre-school to trade or third level qualifications, should be geared towards ensuring that children born into families in Moyross, Togher and Ballymun have the same access to education as those born into families in Ballsbridge. By doing these we will go a long way towards addressing the causes rather than the symptoms of inequality and move away from a culture of dependancy to one where everyone is given an equal chance in life.

[The Hard Left]

This is being discussded on a recent thread

http://www.politics.ie/viewtopic.php?t=27570

Totally agree with descartes