ABSTRACT
“Our attitude to education is still Victorian and is based on a conception of class which is no longer valid but which the systems themselves perpetuate,” was the judgement of an independent study group which evaluated Irish education in the early 1960s. 1 Children were sorted into slots by the various systems, primary training being for labourers, secondary schooling for clerks and clerics, and university education for professionals and aspiring gentlefolk. Within the academic secondary school system, the sorting process ground exceedingly fine. The intermediate school certificate, usually taken at age sixteen, was a means of qualifying for business posts, and the leaving certificate, taken at eighteen, acted as a screening device for entry into professional careers. 2
