The Monastic Monolith in Operation

Abstract

The general patterns established during the period 1922–67 regarding the political and administrative arrangements relating to the Irish education system began to break down after following the introduction of free second-level education in 1967 and a subsequent great increase in attendance at second-level schools. In 1965, The OECD-sponsored Investment in Education report contributed greatly to portraying the economic, social, and geographic inequalities of opportunity in Ireland at the time. In particular, it drew attention to the fact that one-third of all children left full-time education upon completion of primary schooling and only 59 per cent of all 15-year-old children were in school. What was less clear in the public mind at the time was that levels of provision had been even bleaker on the establishment of the State and had not changed substantially over the succeeding four decades. That reality constitutes the background to considerations in this chapter. It opens by elaborating on the various types of primary, second-level, and continuation schools that existed across the nation. The overall patterns of access to and attendance at secondary school are then detailed. A very general exposition of the economic and social conditions in the country that influenced the existence of these patterns follows.