Leave private schools alone

Please, Minister, do not remove the subsidy from private schools.

I want to choose the best education I can for my young child. Should that be provided by a private school, so be it.

I pay taxes, so I am paying for the State-run schools as much as I am contributing to the private schools, as the State pays the schools’ wages bill. In fact, I may be contributing to the State-run schools more, as the State must provide all the equipment for those, while the fees provide that for the private schools.

It is my prerogative as a parent to pour money into my child’s education if I have it to spend and if I choose to. I am not taking anything from the State-run schools by doing so, as my tax contribution to them does not cease simply because I am putting my child into a private school.

Take this to its logical extreme, and I should not be allowed send my child for private music tuition, but instead should satisfy myself with the music section of the primary school curriculum, where she may learn to toot on a recorder or tin whistle. I should not send her to Scouts or other outdoor activity where fees are involved, but rather accept the PE class in school.

My constitutional place as the primary educator of my child requires that I do what I feel is best for my child. It may well be a private school (it may not; the jury is out at present).

I believe it will be folly to remove the State subsidy. The private schools will either close, in which case the already stretched State-run schools will need to allow yet more students into the classroom and increase the ratios yet further, or stay open with greatly hiked fees to cover the wages and become elitest rich clubs, which they are not at present.

If you can afford childcare, you can afford a private school. They are not rich clubs. Private schools are much cheaper than childcare. Please leave them alone — they have an important place in our system. And they work.

Anne-Marie Curtin

Ballinlough Road

Cork City