Inequality in education isn't just about the issue of third-level fees - society's inequalities are already at work long before children reach primary school, writes CARL O'BRIEN
IT'S A FLAT six-mile car journey from north Clondalkin to Trinity College Dublin in the city centre. Yet, it's a route that crosses some of deepest ravines of the country's social divide.
If you're a child living in areas like Neilstown or Ronanstown, there's a 30 per cent chance you'll leave primary school with a serious literacy problem. You have a 50:50 chance of sitting the Leaving Certificate. There's a 90 per cent probability you won't go to college.
It may be just a few miles to the most elite university in the country. But in a profoundly unequal society, moving up a social class can feel as alienating as moving to Timbuktu.
Some parents don't want to let their children go, and some children don't wish to emigrate out of their family circumstances. When that social distance is so wide, of course, it is much harder for young people to cross it.
They're figures worth noting in the current debate over whether to reintroduce third-level fees.
As well as easing the strain on Government coffers and providing more revenue for universities, the subtext to the fees debate is that more money would be available to tackle educational inequality.
Somehow, almost overnight, the uneven playing pitch between poor and rich families would begin to be levelled. Middle-class students, stripped of the university fee cash their parents had been investing in grind schools and private education, would be competing with less well-off students on a fairer footing.
It's a ludicrously short-sighted view. The reality is that long before children even sidle up to the door of their primary school, the gross inequalities of the system have already played their hand.
Consider the following frightening research on the rate at which children develop in their early years. "Neurologists have determined that 90 per cent of brain growth occurs by age three . . . Without adequate levels of care and support, without exposure to everyday experiences and stimulation, a child's development may be damaged.
"Once the critical period (0-4) is past, that system of the brain will never be able to develop or function normally . . . These years are irreplaceable."
And who says this? None other than the Department of Education, in a White Paper on early childhood education published almost a decade ago.
Three years ago the State's think-tank, the National Social and Economic Forum, set out a framework for the development of early childhood care and education. It drew on the findings of a landmark US study that followed the progress of children who participated in early childhood care and education as long ago as the 1960s.
The conclusions were stark: it found that quality pre-school programmes for young children living in poverty contributed hugely to their intellectual and social development in childhood.
Not only that, but it helped lead to school success, economic performance and reduced levels of crime in adulthood.
Incredibly, a cost-benefit analysis of the study estimated that every €1 spent on early childhood education yielded a return of more than €7 later.
The National Social and Economic Forum, mindful of these overwhelming benefits, urged the Government to fund a year's free pre-school for all children, at an estimated cost of about €136 million a year.
It's clear, then, that the highest returns are on early interventions that create the abilities needed for success in later life.
So what did the Government do? It proceeded to ignore the evidence and opt for the populist stroke of handing out an extra €1,100 in child benefit to all families, regardless of their level of income.
This is costing the taxpayer in the region of €500 million, more than three times the cost of a year's free pre-school for all children.
For all that, we are right to be proud of some of the achievements of the education system.
In recent years educational opportunities have widened enormously. Free fees, along with greater prosperity, have seen the proportion of school-leavers entering third level rise from about 44 per cent in 1998 to about 60 per cent today.
But alongside this success story there is the harsh reality that too many young people are leaving school early, often with few if any qualifications, and with poor literacy levels.
In a world where employment is in constant flux, where pools of labour are increasingly mobile, there is a generation of young people at risk of being locked in long-term disadvantage.
There has been much rhetoric about the importance of tackling educational disadvantage, especially in the context of axing third-level fees.
But the reality is that targets for class sizes, literacy and educational achievement have not been achieved. Funding in schemes such as Deis - the Government's blueprint for educational inclusion - is spread too thinly to make a real difference in the lives of children.
Matching the rhetoric of tackling educational inequality with a level of investment in meaningful supports and early intervention needs to be a key priority of the Government.
Otherwise, what is the point in spending vast amounts on third-level and fourth-level education when whole sections of society have no hope of getting there?
Why isn't the Government acting on these issues? The truth is that long-term gains don't interest political parties that are up for re-election next year. There are few votes in a strong vision for the longer term.
It's easier to play the short-term game and throw some extra money into people's pockets. And it's easier to dress up a cost-saving measure like ending free fees as being motivated by a desire to tackle educational inequality.
It's much more difficult to find elected representatives with the courage and vision to see beyond the short-term gains of stroke politics and to direct public expenditure to where it is needed most.
As it stands, the distance across the social divide - even within the suburbs of our own cities - looks destined to remain as wide as ever.
Carl O'Brien is Social Affairs Correspondent of The Irish Times