League tables: will we heed top English schools’ call?

THE recent call by the heads of two of England’s leading independent schools — Eton and St Paul’s — for an end to the “tyranny” of league tables is timely.

Why would these schools, which stand to benefit most from league tables and which originally welcomed them as a breath of fresh air, now think so differently?

Because, in their words, the system is, inter alia, placing huge pressure on teachers to teach exclusively to produce exam results and that instead of throwing a lifebelt to struggling schools, these tables are holding them under water. They are also harming the teaching of sport, music and drama and giving nervous breakdowns to top-performing schools lest they lose their status.

I wonder just how far down this road we will blindly travel before we too begin to realise the damage caused to a generation of our children.

League tables tell us nothing about those gone to apprenticeships, further education, agricultural, art, dance and other colleges, those happily gone to employment, those who cannot afford to go to university, those travelling the globe and those who have chosen to defer or terminate, for now at least, further academic progression?

When people talk about the best teacher they ever had, beyond results, they will tell you about things that cannot be measured, never mind included in a league table.

League tables are useful for football teams, where, in theory at least, there is a level playing pitch. This does not apply to Irish education with the immoral manipulation of admissions policies (they might be better called exclusions policies) by some schools and the unequal resourcing of schools through private fees to top up the State’s contribution.

In this context alone league tables are meaningless. It doesn’t have to be like this. Finland, which funds all schools and children equally within its state system and where all children attend their local schools, consistently outperforms all other countries in educational performance. If the real issue is access for all to quality education and under-performing teachers, then there are, beyond league tables, many more effective and intelligent ways to address this. By pandering to a particular socio-economic agenda, we are doing a generation of children and their schools a great disservice.

Will any principals of ‘top-performing’ schools in this country have the courage to take up the challenge of their English counterparts and critically reflect on the damage being done by league tables?

Barry O’Callaghan

Principal

Senior College

Dun Laoghaire — College of Further Education

Co Dublin