Dear Editor,

The Department of Education has, through its publication of the White Paper on Education, announced a new era of equality and access. However praiseworthy these aspirations, the reality in our schools is very far removed from these ideals.

I am a parent of a post primary student and I would like to dwell on one area of inequality which has affected me and my son. The revised senior cycle was announced as an opportunity for students to develop and mature at their own pace and to the best of their abilities and aptitudes. One feature of this new senior cycle is the Transition Year. The Minister is on record as saying that the Transition Year "is a very important part of this three year programme which will be available to all our students". The reality is, of course, that it may be available to all our schools, but not all schools provide it for their students. Therefore, it is not available to all our students.

Parents of post primary students living in rural areas do not have a choice about the school to which they send their children the nearest alternative school may be more than 20 miles away. If there is no Transition Year available and a student wishes to spend a third year in senior cycle, he or she must pay a £100 course fee and a further £120 examination fee (unless his or her parents are medical card holders). Is this equality? As well as that, the opportunity for repeating a Leaving Cert year is in no way comparable to the benefits of a Transition Year.

To compound the inequality, there are a small number of schools which continue to offer a four year junior cycle, even though this is not approved of by the Department. Students are not permitted to repeat a year of their post primary education except under special circumstances (such as missing a lot of schooling due to illness or moving home in the middle of a school year). A student who attends a school which does not provide a Transition Year and who would be only 16 years of age when sitting the Leaving Certificate should be allowed to repeat a year either during junior cycle or after the first year of senior cycle.

Yours, West of Ireland (name and address with Editor)