Letters to the Editor: British school admissions system is one that works
That 126 pupils are still without a school place is a national scandal, says Alan Whelan. File picture
Your (September 12) story ‘Foley: Kids without school place to get offer shortly’ deserves urgent attention.
The fact that over two weeks into a new school year, 126 students are still without a school place despite minister of state Hildegard Naughton’s confident suggestion in June that this was not going to happen is a national scandal. No minister would ever accept that for their own child!
Our long-established national parents’ organisation offered successive ministers a simple well tried and tested solution to the ongoing problem: Copy the system of co-ordinated admissions as used by every English state-funded school. That system also insists that top preference must be given to the most vulnerable children, those with statements of special education needs.
In the English system, within common-sense agreed criteria, schools retain their distinctive admission criteria such as religious affiliation, gender or sibling connection. In addition, schools can use their own supplementary information forms to determine order of offers of places in accord with their published admission criteria. Throughout England, parents use a common application form in which they list in order of preference their first six choices.
The Central Admissions Co-ordination Body ensures that on a given day, all students throughout England are offered a school place. The system works extremely well. The software is there and has proved more than adequate in its 30 years of operation.
If ministers are serious in their concern, perhaps they might immediately investigate what seems an easy and effective system that benefits students, parents and schools and cuts down massively on endless duplication of administration.
My siblings and I suffered years of daily caning (just because we didn’t know something) by a teacher at a State primary school in rural Mayo. Being hit on the head and legs was normal — my legs often bled. Humiliation in front of others was also normalised, as was pitting us against others. Bullying by some older pupils was also part of the daily misery. We weren’t/aren’t Roman Catholic, so this was also fodder for the bullies who never came to anything.
The teacher in question was actually a woman with children. She died recently — oh, you should just see the sickeningly sweet condolences on the RIP site! This teacher, and the local priest, regularly entered the principal’s senior room to interrupt already substandard tuition. Many left that school almost illiterate! Because of this, I’d believe that children shouldn’t attend primary school for more than six years.
Our school wasn’t regulated at all, except by this woman who should NEVER have been allowed near children. An inspector appeared from time to time, but only to inspect the attendance book. We heard NOTHING about protests against corporal punishment!
Unqualified women filled in for maternity leave. They too could hit children, and even put them into a lower class! Even a visiting dancing teacher could hit us! You really COULDN’T make up this insane nightmare!
The new report mustn’t treat survivors of physical/emotional abuse as mere tourists because we weren’t sexually abused! Ireland has such an excessively vicarious fascination with all things sexual!
My contemporaries and I may not be around in 20 years…is that what the Government is hoping for?
It is so important to see and hear the account of sexual abuse of children in schools, and also of children with special needs in schools and boarding schools.
One of the things I am feeling very angry about is such talk as: "now we need to have inquiries and restitution as soon as possible".
Can we not sit with the dreadful stories we are hearing without the need to quickly move to "fix it". There is no fixing this quickly. We need to let people emerge with their stories for as long as it takes.
We haven't heeded enough, the one voice who always reminded us of the scale of abuse in this country — Vincent Browne. He was the one who always exhorted us to " remember its ONE IN FOUR". We haven't taken on board this figure, really heard it. I know, as I was one of the one in four.
Next layer of abuse to be revealed: ABUSE IN THE HOME. This is where most abuse takes place and has done so for decades. And yet so many have not yet been able to speak about it.
I know, as I was one of those- and to make it more unacceptable by the general public, it was by my mother - yes, that's right - my mother; the one who was supposed to nurture and protect me from harm. She was the villain herself. She also had a band of men to whom I was passed around. She went to three Masses a day. An ordinary woman to look at.
So the perpetrators are not just fathers and brothers, but mothers also in some cases.
It may be impossible for people who don't have a history of rape in childhood, to believe that the people who do this are ordinary people; they look like the rest of us , they work beside us, play games beside us and socialise beside us. We all know them.
Familial abuse makes it very difficult to disclose. One is cast aside - one loses siblings, who take sides, and one also stands the chance of being written out of wills, etc. Lots of people lose their families altogether as a result of revealing the secret.
It takes a very brave and well-healed person to disclose this and decide to seek freedom and move away from bondage.
I'm not for one minute suggesting that others abused outside the home are not brave. I certainly know how courageous and brave they are and how they and I deserve a life of freedom, and as much help as we need.
The first step in fixing this is to let all of us "emerge from the darkness that has killed many, many of us". It has many more of us in therapy and psychiatric care, in addiction and all the unhealthy habits that abuse may lead to. We all know that abuse thrives in secrecy; people suffer in secret and have to heal in secret. It's time to brings these secrets to the light.
I, today, remember all of us who have taken their own lives, those of us who ended up in psychiatric institutions. I am glad that we are arriving at a point where we can begin to tell our horrific stories. For decades we were shut up and locked up. To have suffered and not be heard and believed is one of the greatest injustices there is.
So let's not try and apply a quick fix. Has this country got the courage to wait, and allow the rest of the horrors to be disclosed — from people's own homes and wherever else it has occurred? Can we now believe the Ryan Report and Vincent Browne's regular reminders some years ago, that sexual abuse of children is as prevalent as one in four?
With much speculation focused on the next budget, I appeal through your publication to the Government at a time when the country economically is in a very enviable position to prioritise the most vulnerable sector in our society. Namely, I make reference to those experiencing physical and mental disabilities and in particular the role of their full-time carers.
Down through the years, those unfortunate enough to be in above categories have been the victims of political lip service which is no substitute for meaningful support and empathy in acknowledging the hardships experienced by those in the above sector who are in need of full-time care.
In the interests of maximising the resources available and ensuring those with the greatest needs are accommodated, our politicians should refrain from using the budget to promote their chances of securing a seat at the next general election at all costs irrespective of the consequences.
If those with disabilities and their full-time carers are to be acknowledged in the budget in any worthwhile way, then as a minimum gesture the means testing on disability allowances must be removed.
While such an proactive move would not address all the challenges be experienced by those with physical and mental disabilities and their full-time carers, it would be confirmation
That finally our politicians were willing to replace lip service with genuine concern for those in the disability sector who have for so long been ignored.
