Kerry is better off with all its non fee-paying schools

This week's column in The Kerryman newspaper.

Michael Commane

The schools are back, most are now into the third week of learning and teaching; the summer holidays are done and dusted, mornings getting darker as are the evenings. 

The mid-term break is only a few weeks away. No doubt Michael O’Leary has his eye on that week when all fares for that week have jumped many notches.

I remember when I moved from teaching to journalism a colleague at The Kerryman  was surprised I had changed jobs; he pointed out the three great reasons for being a teacher are June, July and August.

But now I’m back teaching and with two full weeks of teaching behind me it’s all positive so far and great to be back in the classroom

I’m teaching in an Educate Together school and in my short time there I’ve been greatly impressed with what I have seen. There’s a friendly and professional atmosphere about the place. Before I went there I was told it was Educate Together policy that students call teachers by their first names. 

When I heard that I thought it was odd but now that I am living it, it seems perfectly normal. I’m delighted to be called by the name my parents gave me. I always found being called Sir in school a weird practice.

Because I’m back in the classroom I’ve been thinking about education in Ireland. The school, where I am working, is a non fee-paying school. And I like that, it’s where I feel comfortable.

It so happens last week we celebrated the 60th anniversary of September 10, 1966 when the then Minister for Education, Donogh O’Malley announced the introduction of free second-level education. It came into operation the following year, September 1967. 

It is generally recognised as a pivotal moment in Irish history, and rightly so.

It has changed the face of the country.

But nothing is ever simple, is anything ever binary? Doubt it.

There are no private, fee-paying second level schools in County Kerry. Coláiste Íde in Dingle is a boarding school, which obviously has to have some sort of payment arrangements.

The majority of the fee-paying schools are in the Dublin area and in Leinster.

The Catholic Church played a positive and important role in education in Ireland. The Christian Brothers Schools catered for children right across the socio economic spectrum.

I keep asking myself what benefit does fee-paying, so-called private education have. Does it not add to the divide there is already between the haves and the have-nots? Does the old-boy/girl network not create a them versus us society?

Does it make sense that church denominations run fee-paying schools? But the catch there is that if the churches closed their doors no doubt major money corporations would fill the breach and we would end up with an even more elite system.

When you think of the situation across Kerry, one has every right to ask the pertinent question why pay thousands of euro to have your child educated at a fee-paying school.

Really, has it all to do with that silly snobbery that is so alive and well in Ireland right now?

Good luck to all who are back in the classroom.

‘Instruction does much, but encouragement everything. - JW von Goethe