Ms Elaine Crory:

I agree. One of the issues we have with integrated education is that not only is there not enough available to meet demand, which means significant investment in the sector is required, but also that we have an additional level of segregation around class. The grammar school system was originally intended in the 1960s to open up "better schools" to those from working class backgrounds who scored well in what was known as the 11-plus examination and is now known as the transfer test. It has come a long way since the 1960s. There is now a certain degree of coaching or what we south of the Border - I am originally from Cavan - would call "grinds" to get children through those tests. They take these tests at the age of ten, to get into the better schools. There is a system associated with how well those schools are considered when it comes to doing well later in a person's career, for example. The classism present around school and education does not exist in the Republic. There are private schools here, of course, and we have private schools in the North as well, but they are a very small minority. Most people here go to schools of mixed ability. The name of a person's school does not necessarily convey anything about where they live, the kind of house they live in and the kind of estate they might grow up in. People can go a lot further in life, without anyone ever knowing what background they came from. The same does not transfer over in the North, where the class division is very clear in terms of where somebody went to secondary school, more often than not. It was not intended to do so, but now almost universally does.