Senator must learn from breastfeeding class failure

GREEN party senator and education spokeswoman Pauline O’Reilly isn’t the first politician to try to saddle responsibility for their particular hobby horse onto the school system.

Indeed, the Galway senator’s suggestion that teenage students receive lessons in breastfeeding during SPHE (Social Physical and Health Education ) classes can be placed on the growing pile of subjects from sex education to healthy eating, financial management and environmental awareness that, had the powersthat-be their way, would be foisted on our schools.

But putting aside issues about the creeping interference of schools into what traditionally was the parental domain, casting SPHE classes as the safety valve for an issue like low breastfeeding rates is both lazy and, coming from a Government party’s education spokeswoman, spectacularly ill-informed.

For if O’Reilly called the department, she would learn that 80% of students don’t take SPHE as a subject after Junior Cert as it’s not compulsory.

This means that even if every SPHE class was devoted 24/7 to breastfeeding lessons it would not bring the senator’s dream of improving the country’s breastfeeding rates any closer.

To coin the advice levelled by schools at mediocre students, O’Reilly ‘must try harder’ if she really wants to promote the ‘breast is best’ philosophy.