Warning of inequality in education

THERE IS a growing “normalisation” of poverty and inequality in the education system, a leading expert on education policy has warned.

Prof Kathleen Lynch, of the school of equality studies at UCD, called for funding sanctions to be imposed on schools that “cherry-picked” students, for an end to “streaming” in schools and the regulation of school books to protect parents against having to buy them new every year due to minor text alterations.

Prof Lynch was addressing a conference, hosted by the Combat Poverty Agency, entitled Overcoming Barriers to Education.

She asked: “Why are we passive in the face of persistent inequality? In the changing political climate of the last decade and with the impact of neo-liberalism there has been a normalisation of inequality.”

She said neo-liberalism sought to reduce the cost of public services, including education, and to give these over to the market. This meant access to education, which was identified by the UN as a human right, was “becoming contingent on the ability to pay”.

She cited an increasing prevalence of private schools and grinds as evidence of this.

Margaret Craen, researcher at the UCD school of equality studies, said negative attitudes towards working class culture were internalised by people from poor backgrounds who “live with self-blame and shame every day”.