Republican News · Thursday 8 August 2002

Education tax reinforces disadvantage

All through the general election campaign this year, Fianna Fáil talked of the disadvantaged, the destitute, in hushed tones, promising reforms that would make living in the most unequal, expensive, exploitative state in the EU better. Health and education were key elements in the FF spin; now they're the key areas for its inequitable cutbacks. Some things never change.

When a 69% increase in capitation fees was levied on students last week by Education and Science Minister Noel Dempsey, there was uproar. It has since been revealed that the Higher Education Authority was looking for an increase of no more than 7%.

This tax was introduced by stealth - but its logic was simple. Take a largely disorganised group of people, with little clout, tax them to the hilt and thus avoid taxing those who have demonstrably benefitted most from the Celtic Tiger - the rich. The fact that student activism has declined in the last decade, that parents are increasingly anxious that their children achieve academically and are willing to fork out for ridiculous charges, and that student strikes disrupt only themselves, figured largely in the government's choice of victim.

Free education is a myth. The education system continues to mirror and maintain social division and exclusion. The government is now worsening class divisions in education. Children from disadvantaged backgrounds are still extremely unlikely to reach university and are more likely to leave school early.

According to the Higher Education Authority, there has been no significant improvement in the number of school leavers from disadvantaged backgrounds reaching university over the past five years. Of 14,000 students graduating from universities in this state, only 2.2% come from households headed by an unskilled or semiskilled worker. The situation is bad enough without making it harder for those from lower income backgrounds to break the mould.

Now that the 'Teflon Taoiseach's' mask is off, we see the cruelty at the heart of establishment politics in the 26 Counties. Behind all that patronising rubbish about how much better we're off since the Economic Boom, the poor, the poorest of the poor, still subsidise the rich, and the rich, who can afford any amount of academic fees, are still getting richer.

Almost 100 years on, Pádraic Pearse's analysis of the Irish education system, as "a murder machine, killing young minds", stands as a stark reminder of how little progress we've made.