The principle of choice is built into democratic society but does it always work for the common good? Education is one field where choice can have a detrimental effect on social cohesion. An analysis of the annual school census for 2013-14 published in The Irish Times this week shows that four in five immigrant children are concentrated in 23 per cent of primary schools. In 20 schools, mainly in the eastern commuter-belt, more than two-thirds of pupils were recorded as being of a non-Irish background.Underlying this trend is parental choice. Put bluntly, Irish parents have it, immigrant parents don't.
The "new Irish" who moved here for work or to flee difficult circumstances overseas tend to be clustered in specific urban areas, a product partly of Ireland's immigration policy. Teachers and school principals, under patronages ranging from the Catholic Church to Educate Together, have shown admirable skill in helping their children to integrate into local communities. However, the latest data reinforces concerns about segregation whereby children of Irish roots are educated apart from those of other ethnicities. Overt racism is rare but many parents will shop around for a school in their locality and may well include ethnic mix, along with social mix, in their calculations.
Arguably, a parent’s job is to be selfish and one of the questions they are prone to ask is whether teachers in a particular school face the added challenge of educating children for whom English is not a first language, or indeed of catering for pupils with special educational needs. Never mind that there are numerous studies showing that diversity in the classroom enriches rather than undermines education, parents are voting with their feet.
The long-awaited Education (Admission to Schools) Bill will go some way towards levelling the playing field. It will strengthen the prohibition on discrimination on racial, religious or disability grounds, while also tackling "soft barriers" to admission such as waiting lists which favour permanent residents in an area, and the "parents rule" whereby children of past-pupils get priority. However, the goal of inclusion may be undermined by the Department of Education's sister policy of creating a greater diversity of patronage. While this has given parents in some areas a welcome choice for their children, it moves Ireland further away from models such as Finland's - where all children go to a common, public school - and indeed from the national school system that operated here in the early 20th century.
The Department needs to be vigilant against any trend towards segregation, and its creation of a Primary Online Database will help to monitor how immigrant children fare in Irish schools. The project deserves the support of all parents to improve policy-making into the future.