By and large secondary education in Ireland is excellent so it would be pure madness shelling out thousands of euro on private education
I cam across this in another thread and it made me hot under the collar so that I felt the need to let off some steam.
Secondary education in Ireland is in crisis.
After 12 years studying Irish most people cannot hold more than a basic conversation. This is not because students are incapable, nor because Irish is impossible. It is because the teaching profession is useless at its job.
Even a student with an A at higher level in a foreign language is not capable of working through that language. It is not just that teachers are useless, the level of expectation from society is too low.
Tesching in other subjects is no better, just harder for an outsider to judge objectively.
Expectations have plummeted in recent years. Matrices and Vectors dropped from the maths syllabus. Stair na Teanga and Stair na Litriochta dropped from Irish.
Principals have total freedom to manage or mismanage their schools as they like. Those that don't bother, suffer from alcohol addiction or whatever destroy schools without anything to stop them.
HR issues in schools are never resolved, they just fester on. I know of 2 schools who have finally settled their problems in the High Court recently.
Before anyone comes back to tell me that many teachers do an excellent job. Work more hours than they are paid. Support all sorts of extracurricular activities. I know, I can name a dozen from my own experience. That does not change the fact, just makes it more heartbreaking. Irish second level education is falling apart.