Writing for life

Published in the WOW! supplement of the Evening Echo 26/09/2007

If the Irish primary school system was given a school report to take home, the old teacher’s favourite – “Could do better” – would be scrawled all over it.

The latest “Education at a Glance” report from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development’s (OECD) throws up some less than favourable facts and figures relating to the current state of primary education in this country.

Did you know, for example, that despite recent improvements, Ireland’s primary school class sizes are still among the largest in the developed world? We come in at an average class size of 24.3 pupils, compared with an OECD average of 21.7, and an even lower EU average of 20.3.

Primary school children in Ireland, according to the report, spend more of their school time studying religion than in any other developed country in the world. Pupils aged between nine and 11 in Irish schools spend some 10% of all school time studying religion. That’s way above England at 5%, and the OECD average at 4%. The Australians are nearer the mark here – their children spend just 1% of their school time on the subject.

Ireland has moved on. We’re no longer a homogeneous indigenous population – we’ve become a much more diverse multi-cultural, multi denominational society. In such a society, religion is something that should be kept outside schools – religious education belongs in the home, the church, the mosque, the synagogue…. In school, there are more important things for our children to learn.

Things like maths for example. Sure enough, the report finds that we’re falling short in maths. Irish nine to eleven year-olds are spending just 12% of their time studying the subject, compared to the OECD average of 16%. Our young schoolchildren are a sedentary lot too, by all accounts. At just 5% we’re bottom of the table of 31 countries in the OECD report when it comes to PE.

It confirms what the Physical Education Association of Ireland has been saying for years: there isn’t enough emphasis on children’s physical wellbeing in Irish schools. It gets worse, not better, in secondary school – with some children spending just 40 minutes a week on PE. By the time they get changed either end they get only about 20 minutes of actual physical activity.

Little wonder Irish kids are falling to the childhood obesity epidemic that’s sweeping the Western world. Encouraging kids to get more active isn’t just a school problem, of course – it’s one for parents to tackle too. But perhaps – and it’s radical I know – a bit less emphasis on religion and more time engaged in physical pursuits at school would lay a more healthy lifestyle foundation for our youngsters.

All of this is very interesting, of course, but what does it mean?

These statistics are just numbers. They reflect only the proportion of time spent and not the quality of the education delivered in each area. Still, for a parent with children in the primary school system the results are worrying.

It seems that the government, as usual, has its priorities all to cock. Does anyone out there – with the possible exception of Mary Hanafin – really believe an education system that focuses on religion at the expense of mathematics, or of a child’s physical wellbeing, is a good thing?

Primary education is about providing children with basic building blocks to support their future learning. It’s about providing a balanced foundation of skills and knowledge on which children can build. At the moment the Irish education system seems to be falling short. It’s report card is marked….

Has potential… could do better.