Towards a Better Future

Chapter Seven: The School System: Equality, Inclusion and Rights
by the way they profile themselves, or by the criteria they choose for admission, indirectly exclude
students from particular social backgrounds (ibid.). If certain social classes are excluded from a school
through these kinds of sociological mechanisms, it is difficult to see how they can be inclusive, or
how greater equality can be achieved. Indeed, exclusionary practices, of whatever kind, have no
place in the system if the DES is to achieve the inclusive system envisaged as a goal of its current
strategy (DES, 2015a).
While social class has a very strong influence on educational outcomes, school social mix is found to
have a very significant impact on post-school outcomes, with those who attended middle-class schools
having particularly high levels of participation in higher education (McCoy et al., 2014). In contrast,
young people who had attended working-class schools are much more likely than those in middleclass
or socially-mixed schools to enter the labour market directly upon leaving school, even taking
account of their Leaving Certificate grades (ibid.). However, in recent decades general school
completion rates and transfer to higher education have improved very significantly. For example, Central
Statistics Office data show that 38% of Irish 25-64 year olds had attained a third level qualification in
2011 and 48% of 25 – 34 year olds had a third level qualification (www.cso.ie). This places Ireland very
favourably in the matter of attainment levels in comparison to many European countries. Nevertheless,
in spite of these undoubted gains, there are still substantial inequalities relating to social class.
The impact of a range of austerity measures brought into effect in all Budgets since 2008 is very likely
to be a negative one in the area of social class inequality. These Budgets introduced substantial cuts
in public expenditure, which impacted disproportionately on the poor. The effects are already
evident. In 2008, 6.3% of all children aged 17 and under were living in consistent poverty. By the
year 2014, the most recent Survey on Income and Living Conditions (SILC) shows the proportion had
risen to 11.2% (CSO, 2015). A recent UNICEF (2016) analysis points out that in Ireland, the
household income of the child at the 10th percentile is 41.5% lower than that of the child in the
middle of the income distribution – the median. Such is the level of child poverty in Ireland that
the Children’s Rights Alliance in its annual Report Card (2016) awarded the government an E-
grade on this area. This report points out that the children at high risk of poverty include children
in lone parent families, children in jobless households, Traveller and Roma children, children living
in direct provision centres, children with a disability, and homeless children. A range of recommended
actions to address child poverty is included in this Report Card.
While cultural and social capital plays a key role in educational achievement, there is ample evidence
from Ireland and other countries that children from poor households are much more likely to do
poorly in school and to have lower levels of achievement than others. An increase in child poverty
will aggravate existing levels of educational inequality and will increase the risk of socially
destabilising factors such as early school leaving, future unemployment, juvenile crime and early
parenthood.
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