A Rebel Education Reviewed: Reforming the Irish Comprehensive System

Community schools have returned to the headlines following Virgin Media’s recent documentary A Rebel Education, which examined Carrigaline Community School in County Cork. During the presidential campaign, Heather Humphreys also declared her pride in having attended her local community school.

That pride is misplaced. Community schools exist not to cultivate learning or culture, but by bureaucratic necessity—to house children who have not yet reached the school-leaving age. They have no organic educational mission, and it is unsurprising that many Irish parents with the means to do so avoid them.

The core problem is not funding but philosophy. Community schools are “comprehensive” by design: every child of a given age must attend, and the school must accept them. This arrangement is dysfunctional. Most children are not academic by inclination, and the quality of a school is determined largely by the proportion of its pupils who are. A school composed entirely of academic pupils will develop an academic ethos; one dominated by non-academic pupils will inevitably reflect a non-academic culture.

Community schools, by their nature, have a non-academic majority and ethos. They were introduced in the 1970s, imitating British policy at the time. Unlike grammar or private schools, which maintain academic cultures, community schools foster an anti-academic one. They offer few extracurricular academic or cultural activities, and any additional funds tend to be directed toward remedial rather than enrichment programmes. Rarely do they host professional career talks or cultivate an atmosphere of aspiration; instead, a culture of self-pity and low expectation prevails.

One should not expect community schools to send as many pupils to university as private schools, since intelligence is unequally distributed and partly heritable. Yet this disparity is deepened by the structure of community schooling itself. During the mixed-ability Junior Certificate years, academic pupils must endure disruption from classmates uninterested or incapable of engaging in academic study, while teachers spend precious time trying to teach those without the requisite aptitude.

These issues were plain to see in A Rebel Education. Carrigaline Community School’s lax uniform standards—students with shirts unbuttoned, ties loosened, and trousers replacing skirts—symbolise the wider malaise. The school seemed oblivious to how it appeared on national television. Such sloppiness, common across community schools, is both symptom and cause of low standards.

The unwillingness to enforce even basic rules reflects the underlying problem. As the only school in the catchment area, Carrigaline cannot afford to suspend or expel large numbers of students for breaches of discipline. Any expulsions would attract local controversy and sympathetic press coverage. The result is institutional complacency: rules exist only to maintain minimal order. By contrast, private schools—chosen by parents and funded through fees—can impose and maintain exacting standards with ease.

The programme’s featured pupils illustrated this dysfunction starkly.

Sixth-year student Alannah confessed, “School isn’t for everyone… it’s pure self-control that I’m even here.” She openly admitted to having “never wanted to be here.” Though she filled out a CAO form and achieved 485 points—barely above the national average—her own testimony reflected alienation rather than aspiration.

Second-year student Kalen stated bluntly, “I don’t like learning… I go to school because I have to.” He found French incomprehensible and “a waste of time.” His teachers described him as disruptive but insisted they “had to keep trying.” Kalen expressed a desire to be a carpenter—work far better suited to his aptitudes.

Third-year student Gisele admitted, “I don’t like school… I just don’t have an interest for it.” Her mother observed that Gisele “likes the craic more than the academic side.” Scoring 33% in a test, she prioritised athletics and training over study.

Fourth-year student Nicole described herself as “good at dossing” and often left school early, calling it “pointless” and “torture.” By year’s end, she planned to skip her exams altogether, attending only sporadically.

Would not Alannah, Kalen, Gisele, Nicole, and countless others be far better served by vocational schools, apprenticeships, or work placements from age thirteen, as was once common in Ireland? The documentary inadvertently demonstrated that formal academic education is beyond the aptitude or interest of a significant proportion of pupils. Based on experience, at least half of those attending community schools derive little or no benefit from doing so.

Primary education should remain universal, but secondary education should be differentiated. Pupils ought to specialise early in either academic or vocational pathways. Instead, Ireland compels thousands of children to spend five or six years in what are effectively glorified youth clubs. Many then proceed to “tertiary” institutions of equally low standard—consuming taxpayers’ money without developing real competence or maturity.

The solution is not greater inclusion but greater selectivity. Public education should consist of academically selective schools providing rigorous instruction to those capable of it—much as in Northern Ireland and continental Europe—alongside technical schools offering serious vocational training. Universities, likewise, should admit only the most capable, perhaps one-sixth of each age cohort.

Such a system would use public resources efficiently, reward merit, and cultivate both intellectual and technical excellence—replacing Ireland’s culture of over-schooling with one of genuine education.