League tables are for football — not for schools

NOW that feeder school league tables are again upon us, it might be timely to reflect on the call made earlier this year 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.

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; that instead of throwing a lifebelt to struggling schools is holding them underwater; is harming the teaching of sport, music and drama and is giving nervous breakdowns to top-performing schools lest they fall out of the top”.

League tables suggest that those not going to third level have somehow failed. This is a narrow and lazy analysis. 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 further academic progression.

I wonder how many of those saying “no more” do so because of interminable years of hothouse schooling aimed solely at maximising CAO points.

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

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 most other countries, including Ireland, in educational performance. League tables are unheard of in Finland.

If the real concern 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.

Our great challenge, as a society, is to bring forward a generation of intelligent and articulate young people who will question and change our unsustainable assumptions about success and progress. Surely the present calamitous economic and climatic situation should tell us something about creating a self-serving elite, putting them on pedestals and giving them free rein.

What will it matter if we all have six A1s — on its own a commendable feat — but no understanding of the real challenges this generation collectively must address. By equating certification with education we risk ending up knowing the price of everything and the value of nothing. Just how far down this road will we blindly travel before we too begin to realise the damage caused to a generation of our children?

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

Barry O’Callaghan

Principal

Senior College Dun Laoghaire College of Further Education

Co Dublin