Starting school - Pressure is for minister, not pupils

YESTERDAY morning nearly 60,000 Irish children began their primary school education.

Some youngsters cried the tears of those facing the unknown, parents fretted needlessly and experienced teachers scanned newly filled classrooms with an eye sharper than any radar, alert for the challenges ahead.

Some children began friendships that will endure a lifetime, others were energised by the prospect of learning new things, more were stimulated and enlivened by the company of their peers.

Some less confident needed the reassurance all good teachers instinctively and generously offer.

All of them began a journey that will shape their lives and careers, and though education is one of life’s most important projects, it all needs to be kept in perspective.

The children began their formalised education in the first year that all seven and 11-year-olds will be examined on in English and maths using standardised tests.

Parents will have access to countrywide results from these tests allowing them to make a realistic assessment of their child’s progress. While this development is very welcome, it should not be used to impose even more demands on our children. Far too often today’s school pupils are stymied by the burden of expectation rather than any difficulty in comprehending the subject under examination. Anything that can be done to restore a perspective that will encourage fulfilment as much as academic point scoring should be encouraged.

The pupils are not the only ones facing the challenge brought by a new academic year. Education Minister Mary Hanafin has, as ever, a bulging “in” file.

As she already knows, too many children are in classes far too big; far too many children are being taught in substandard buildings.

She also knows that far too many small village schools are being swamped by the new communities developing in commuter belts, that far too many houses have been built in areas where the educational infrastructure cannot cope. This is not a problem of her making but the consequences most certainly are.

Ms Hanafin is also only too aware that the wonderful advances in special needs provision at primary level must soon be reflected at second level as the beneficiaries progress through the system.

Ms Hanafin must also accept that the conflicts over religious symbolism in the classroom that have divided societies all across Europe will have to be confronted here. It might be too much to expect that a clear policy would be outlined before what is now a hypothetical situation becomes a nasty confrontation. The language expectations of immigrants also raise complex issues.

These are, however, problems for the minister and the priorities of those who started school yesterday are much more intimate.

Let us hope that their school, wherever it may be, can help them realise their potential and that they have the wit to avail of the priceless opportunity.