Too many of our children are going to university... all thanks to pride of the Irish Mammy

MY children’s education is making a hypocrite of me. As somebody who always believed in equal opportunity in our school system, I’ve found myself doing things of which I’m not particularly proud.

I’ve spent money on providing my children with an education that may give them benefits denied to people who cannot afford to do what I’m doing.

In addition, I have become someone who I once would have derided for my expectations and presumptions. I’m doing it to improve their chances of doing third-level courses that, hopefully, will enhance their career and employment options. For years, from an early stage, I’ve been making assumptions about their scholastic capabilities.

I was reminded of this forcibly yesterday by the publication of the annual secondary school ‘league tables’. As the father of five children – one at university, three in secondary school and one in primary – I cast an eye each year over the tables when they are published, to see how my children’s schools are performing.

I admit that once I find their schools I don’t just look at the overall percentage level that goes from there on to third level education, although that is an important consideration. I also look at the institutions to which they were admitted, an in-built bias towards universities prompting me. It seems reasonable to assume that what happens in this year is likely to be repeated in the future, unless something goes badly wrong.

Struggle

And, I admit, like many other parents I know, I’m keen for my children to gain admission to universities or colleges in Dublin, to allow them the opportunity to continue to live at home.

For all the arguments that it might be better for children to spend their college years away from home – to do their growing up without constant parental supervision – I want to make sure the costs of keeping them in third level education are at manageable levels. I’m spending enough on their second level education as it is.

This is the bit with which I struggle. I never thought I would send my children to fee-paying schools. I didn’t go to one. I’m now purchasing them the privilege and opportunity that I once envied. I realise that I’m tilting the pitch in their favour. The schools to which I send them have near 100% records in their students gaining admission to third level.

That’s not to say they wouldn’t succeed if they were in a non-fee paying school. Many of those schools are almost equally successful in getting their students to third level. But not all of them are. The reality is that fee-paying schools account for 17 of the top 20 schools that send the most students to college. As it happens, we applied to have our children attend various non-fee-paying schools in the area in which we live. But neither Aileen or I are from Dublin and we found ourselves way down the list when it came to gaining admission for our children.

There was another problem with some schools: a lack of subject choice. I have one daughter with a strong mathematical bent. Not all girls’ schools are good for providing the opportunity to study honours applied maths and physics, for example.

You may see those as excuses. I prefer to regard them as explanations, but I would, wouldn’t I? But as I try to do my best for my children I have to say there is something very wrong with a system that shows some shocking imbalances.

Affluent

For example, students from the postcodes that represent the most affluent parts of Dublin are up to 14 times more likely to progress to university than their counterparts from some schools in the city’s most disadvantaged areas. Not only are the schools in the State’s most privileged areas sending the highest number of students to university but these are taking high-points courses too.

Yesterday I also looked to see how my own childhood school performed in the league table. The result was almost shocking: it came sixth from bottom in the dozens upon dozens of schools in Cork city and county, with a progression rate of just 41%. That contrasted with an average of 76% in the county, well below the rate of 57% achieved in the Deis schools, designated as disadvantaged.

The North Monastery in Cork is a much smaller school than it was when I sat my Leaving Certificate in 1983. Yet even then it had its issues. There were 37 in my class and, if memory serves, six of us went to University College Cork, with about half of the rest going to what was then the Regional Technical College in Cork. There was an issue of expectation. None of our parents were in what would be called professional jobs. Indeed, in a year when Cork was being derailed by the closure of many major employers, a teacher conducted a survey and found that there was nobody working in 21 of the 37 homes of the boys. Those of us who went to UCC all got full Cork Corporation grants, covering fees and maintenance. My point is that many of those who didn’t go to college were equally bright (and in many cases more so). But they didn’t get the opportunity that I was lucky enough to get.

Unhappy

As it happens, my own father – a confectioner – spoke to me about leaving school at 14, after my Inter Cert, to do an apprenticeship. Fortunately, I dug my heels in and insisted I would be useless at almost anything like that, especially as I had not done metalwork or woodwork at school.

It wasn’t for me, but now I fear we may have many children doing academic courses to which they are not suited.

It is that knowledge that makes me wary of the enormous ‘success’ of some schools in helping children get sufficient Leaving Certificate points to enable their third level admission. Just as there are those who are very able but don’t go to third level – because they can’t afford it or their school didn’t offer the honours subjects that would have given them the points – it isn’t possible that all those who go to third level are suited to it.

Too many children get pushed by their parents into doing things they don’t want or are not capable of. And worse, they may be pushed away from what would suit them. Which is why one in six students drops out of college in their first year and why so many are unhappy even if they complete their courses.

There can be a snobbishness in the Irish Mammy (and Daddy) who pushes her beloved child or children towards thirdlevel education so she can boast to the neighbours that Johnny or Mary is doing a degree.

They might have been much happier if they had been given the chance to take an apprentice to follow a trade.

Instead, the Irish Mammy insisted that they had to not only do the Leaving Cert but get enough points to do some course, any course, at a college.

The numbers going to third level – about two-thirds of all Leaving Cert students – are too large and the numbers doing apprenticeships are way lower than international norms. This has economic consequences, and social ones too.

All of which, of course, poses another challenge to the hypocritical me.

What encouragement would I offer if any of my children wanted to take up an apprenticeship?