FREE EDUCATION MYTH

This week thousands of schoolchildren returned with most likely great reluctance to their places of learning at either primary or secondary level. Generally, kids have grave reservations and worries about going back to the classroom. After the summer we had in Ireland this year who could blame them.
However, their concerns are dwarfed by those of their parents who must fund the cost of them getting through the basic education process. In the week that was in it, when calls were made for third-level college fees to be re-introduced, a shiver of fear must have gone through those parents who are struggling just to get their children to the conclusion of second level education.
In 1967, the then Minister of Education, Donnacha O’Malley, introduced the most revolutionary and far-sighted piece of reform in providing free education up to and including Leaving Certificate Level. Later still, third level education fees were abolished. Ireland had, in theory a complete free education system. Tens of thousands of disadvantaged children were allowed the opportunity to avail of education that previously their circumstances prevented. There is no doubt that it changed the Irish society dramatically and beneficially.
Over four decades later, the bold initiative by Donnacha O’Malley has soured for many of the citizens it was designed to benefit.
Today primary and secondary education is free in name only. There are no entrance fees to be paid (unless you opt for the private school route) but there the free element ends.
Thanks to the politicians and mandarins in the Civil Service, Ireland has suffered a huge deficit in education investment in the past twenty years. No account appears to have been taken of the population demographics of the country in considering the need for more classrooms and lower teacher-pupil ratios.
Together with increased immigration during the Celtic Tiger years, the accommodation of primary and secondary pupils and teachers is chaotic. Prefabricated buildings more suited to construction sites are the norm for classrooms in many schools. Investment in education infrastructure seems way down on the priorities of government. If that was the case in the good times, what will it be like now that the economic downturn is upon us?
In order to keep schools running, Boards of Management and Parents Committees are forced to resort to fundraising from the parents of the pupils. Raffles, race nights, monster draws, and poker classics – you name it and they will do it in order to keep the school budget in order, something the funding from the Department of Education will not do.
In addition, parents will receive direct begging letters from the school asking for a “voluntary donation” which then suggests a figure to give. It is as about as voluntary as standing in front of a firing squad.
Add to this the cost of school books- up to €500 at secondary level- uniforms, transport etc., etc. and you soon realize that this is not free education by any means. Hard-pressed families struggle to meet the staggering costs that a large brood of children impose on them when it comes to educating them.
In these troubled times, free education in Ireland does not come cheap!