We are going to make same mistakes as US

In reading and viewing the extensive coverage of the visiting American football university teams to Dublin, it is regrettable no Irish media covered the damage done to higher education and hundreds of thousands of young students — mostly male — across the US because of the emphasis placed on sports in primary and secondary schools there.

For example, when secondary school students are recruited into the major football universities, and are given 100% scholarships because of their athletic potential, many are then given tutors so that they can pass classes in basic English and work towards degrees in relatively non-descript subjects such as “sports medicine”.

I was a teacher in California for 30-plus years and watched its public schools go from No 1 in the nation in the early 80s to 47th by the year 2000, primarily because of the emphasis placed on the possibility of a 12-year-old making it into the professional ranks in basketball, baseball, or American football.

I had one 17-year-old male student who was failing my class and I asked him what he would do with his life if he did not graduate. His response: “I do not need an education, I am going to become a professional football player and make millions.”

The same factors that have brought California to its knees, are appearing in Irish education today, but nobody in the Department of Education, or academia, or the media, or teachers’ unions, etc, wants to touch the issue publicly — each for their own reasons.

Vincent J Lavery

Dalkey

Co Dublin