Gary Gannon (Dublin Central, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

I am conscious of the Minister's statement that exceptional students in disadvantaged schools will not be disadvantaged. Whereas students performing normally in fee-paying schools or other schools will be grand, it is only the exceptional students in disadvantaged schools who will not be put out. That seems like an inherent disadvantage to me.

Something you learn when you grow up in a working-class house is that somehow poverty is your fault. You work hard in school. You work hard helping with your siblings and supporting family members who might be ill. You have to go off and get a second job while you are 16 so you can support the family income. No matter how hard you work, it will not be enough to shake off the limitations forced on you because of your family's wealth, or lack thereof. I am someone who grew up in the inner city, which the Minister referenced. I am somebody who has had the opportunity to go to university through an access programme and I have also been privileged to work in education for many years. I know full well that points are not a measurement of hard work, ability or potential. I know that in DEIS schools, not only the one the Minister referenced but those all over the country, a student getting 300 points is just as admirable as a student in another school who manages to get 600, taking circumstances into account. In DEIS schools and inner city schools, students who are smart, for example, children from the north inner city, are as clever as any privately-educated students who make up the vast majority of those in the third-level schools.

The leaving certificate is a game that many students cannot win. If you are a student from a low-income background, a student with a disability or a student from a migrant background, the odds are stacked against you. There are access routes into universities that are college-based initiatives available only to a small exceptional few, who will become myths to success to the many others who will fail.

The decision last week to award predictive grades or calculated grades codifies that in black and white. I am not sure what the difference between prediction and calculation is. I do not know of any calculation that has ever been made without an inherent prediction. These are based on the past performances of a school. It has been met with outrage among many equality activists. It has also been met with some degree relief on the part of students, who are just looking for clarity on the decision.

The perception of the leaving certificate as a great meritocracy persists. Every year that is enforced through feeder schools, which decide who gets the opportunity to go to which college and from what schools. That highlights the massive disadvantages inherent in our leaving certificate. There is one thing someone can do to increase his or her chances of going to university in this country. It is not to work hard, study or apply oneself; it is to go to a private school. Regardless of how hard someone studies, it will not make that vital difference if he or she is from a certain background. School progression rates in the same postcode can vary dramatically. Let us take Dublin 1 as an example, where there is a private school and several schools in the Delivering Equality of Opportunity in Schools, DEIS, programme. In the private school, 117% of students go on to third level each year, accounting for those who take a gap year. In the DEIS schools, one which I have referenced, only 34% of students do so. That is not a reflection of the students. Talking about that honestly and clearly is not discrimination. It is not an insult to those students. It just highlights the fact that there is an ingrained disadvantage in there. Failing to talk about it is actually an insult to those students.

The leaving certificate debacle has failed so many students this year, in what is widely acknowledged as one of the most worrying times in a young adult's life. The delays in making decisions, and indeed the decision that was ultimately made, have contributed to what is already an anxious time. However, we must not lose sight of the fact that this year's decision has merely ensured that an embedded economic inequality remains embedded. Our education system has failed students for decades. Every year, students doing the leaving certificate are failed because of an illness, because they are experiencing grief or because of the pressure. This year it is simply failing everybody. It will continue to do so unless we systematically dismantle the inequalities enshrined within it.

Like everywhere else, diversity in our third level institutions is crucial. We need more working-class third level students, more Traveller students, more students from Roma backgrounds, more ethnic students and more students with disabilities. As things stand, the State has totally abdicated its responsibility to ensure equal access to universities. Universities themselves have attempted to diversify their entrant intake through schemes such as college access programmes. These access students are success stories. Study after study shows that when the barriers are removed, the playing field is more equal. These students' grades in college are remarkably similar to those of students who have entered through more traditional routes. These programmes are vital to diversifying our third level institutions and ensuring greater progression rates in marginalised communities. However, the fact that the diversification of third level falls to universities and colleges alone is unacceptable. It is not acceptable that in some universities only 10% of places or fewer are reserved for those from marginalised backgrounds, those whom our State has failed. It is not acceptable that these access programmes, which perform an essential function in diversifying our universities, are reliant on fundraising and donations from private individuals. The State is utterly failing students from disadvantaged areas and schools in areas of economic deprivation, while simultaneously cruelly maintaining that this is a system based on merit or that the exceptional student will progress.

Let us not forget that an industry has been built up to profit off this unequal system. Every year, grind schools, private tuition and fee-paying schools transform education into an arms race. The more money a student's parents have, the more likely he or she is to go to university. The more parents invest in their sons, the more opportunity they have in comparison with somebody else in a disadvantaged community.

More than half of the top 20 schools sending the highest proportion of students to third level were fee-paying schools, according to the feeder list of 2019.

The outrage that a student's grade will be decided as much based on past performance of his or her school as much as on his or her own ability is one that we must keep with us, grow and build upon. We have failed decades of students through this system of educational apartheid. In the Thirty-third Dáil, we need to be able to say, "No more". Our education system is crying out for reform, with mass support from educators, parents and, critically, from students themselves. It must be our priority. The State must step up and ensure that a postcode is no longer the most reliable predictor of third level access.

The leaving certificate subjects all students to sitting through unnecessary stress and pressure and, perhaps most dangerously, teaches the winners and losers of this system that their individual outcomes are due to their hard work or lack thereof rather than myriad complex inequalities exacerbated by a system that has run since 1925 without much innovation or change. The system thrives on the fact that each year, a couple of exceptional students will break through the barriers that we have constructed. We use these exceptional kids to lie to ourselves and say that the system works, and that if only all other kids were like these exceptional few kids, they too would be able to progress. It allows us to pretend that the system is not broken and that somehow the kids who are not exceptional are. Let us think of what that does to the student who succeeds in what is, in reality, a lottery, what it does to the students who came close but always feel that they let themselves and their families down, and what it does to the couple of students every year who understand this in their bones, the 11 and 12 year olds who know that is an unfair system, but know that there is no point in trying, because while they are good, they may not be what we consider to be acceptable.

I have one question for the Minister. We have an opportunity this year to be more collective in our response. The leaving certificate is constructed in such a way that when one unravels one string, the whole thing falls apart. We need a cross-party committee to decide on not just the next stages of education and what it looks like in September, October and November. The Minister has referred several times to the experts who are leading this process. Why can these stakeholders not be in that room? Why can we not have a committee that looks at education for fifth year pupils going into sixth year and sixth class pupils going into first year in September, and let us all be involved in that process, because we all have to carry the news?

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