Education as a "utility"

An Ciarraioch

Amid the controversy over Rosita Boland's article on Irish in the Irish Times, it struck me that the weakest point was her argument that the language should be made voluntary on account that it wasn't "necessary" - after all, the teaching of Welsh or Maori would be a similar "luxury" for the majority of the population of those countries, but few educationalists would argue for a reworking of their national curricula. The broader question, perhaps, is what portions of the Irish curriculum would be considered fundamentally useful to the average student? After all, we all learn algebra, quadratic equations and trigonometry in secondary school, but rarely find occasion to practically apply such knowledge in everyday life. Similarly, Shakespeare and poetry add to the cultural edification of the next generation, but outside of teaching English, are of little practical benefit. No, Rosita got it badly wrong - educare means to draw out, and rather than think in a Gradgrindian sense of strict pedagogic utility, education should be about producing well-rounded individuals, skilled in languages, science and given a general cultural grounding.