First health, now education. It's been a long time coming, but the publication of school league tables last week shows the consolidation of the great divide in Irish education.

Fifteen of the top 20 feeder schools to universities are fee-paying. The message would appear to be that if you send your child to a fee-paying school, they have a better chance of success, as measured within the narrow, but easily defined, parameters of economic prosperity.

The league tables do not provide information about education. Their purpose is to show which schools send the greatest number of pupils forward to third-level education. Even within that narrow remit, the info is sparse.

For example, Yeats College in Galway sends 100% of its 195 pupils to university. We are not told how many of these do an arts course that might lead nowhere, or law or medicine, which can propel practitioners to a most influential role in society.

Salubrious Gonzaga College in Dublin has a 91% hit rate (for university) compared to around 14% for Synge Street CBS in the city. We don't know the factors that influenced this disparity, such as the socio-economic make up of the pupils. In wealthier areas, apart from the fee-paying element, parents plug gaps by making voluntary contributions. In disadvantaged areas, this is not really a choice.

We don't know the percentage of pupils with special needs in each school, nor travellers, nor "newcomers", as the children of immigrants are now called. We don't know how challenges presented by such pupils might influence standing in the brutally simplified terms of a league table.

We do know that many of the top fee-paying schools have acquired means of ensuring a very limited number of pupils which might present challenges are admitted to their schools. The Irish Times reported that 60% of the "top schools" in their list limit admissions to certain categories, such as the offspring of past pupils, and those who provide satisfactory answers in an interview.

The interview in particular allows a school to weed out any pupil who might present behavioural challenges; it also allows scope to embrace a pupil whose parents have loads of lolly to throw at the school. We do know that many of these particular schools are run by religious orders. We don't know how the members of these orders square this carry-on with their religious calling, but we can guess.

The tables are presented in a manner that implies those who don't make it to third level are non-persons. We are not told what opportunity or occupation they found beyond the campuses of the state.

Mountrath Vocational School in Laois sent only one of its 14 leaving-cert pupils onto third level. What became of the other 13? Are we to understand that because they may not end up part of the knowledge economy, their fate is irrelevant or uninteresting? Will any of them become rock stars like my good friend Bono, who also moved onto better things after the Leaving?

The information provided is bare and satisfies only those who see education in terms of exam results. And in this regard, they do highlight the growing disparity between public and private education.

Through the boom years, the private-school business ballooned, particularly in Dublin. The abolition of third-level fees in 1996 helped, but rising incomes also contributed to it. Now it is arguable that private education is having a detrimental effect on its public counterpart.

In the southside of Dublin, a parent who decides they want to send their child to a non-fee paying school has a narrow range of choices. There are more private than public secondary schools out along the wealthy south Dublin suburbs. In such an environment, the perception that public is second rate can become a reality. Better equipment in the private schools, more access to parental funding, and a restrictive enrolment policy all influence the growing gap.

And it's not just a question of a wealthy elite cosseting themselves away. Some, if not many, who are attending private schools have not come from a wealthy background. Parents now do without in the belief that they are doing the best for their children by sending them to fee paying schools.

From a policy perspective, the government has accelerated this rush to build two tiers. The continued subvention of fee paying schools to the tune of €80m means that, like in health, the upper tier is provided with both public and private funds. The government is subsidising the propagation of the two-tiered system.

Ultimately, this course is likely to have a detrimental effect on standards in the public education system.

Abolishing the subvention in one fell swoop is not really an option, but there would be nothing wrong with lowering it, and pumping the difference back into public education. Accommodating a fee paying sector in the education system is perfectly acceptable. Subsidising it to widen the gap of opportunity for children, at a time when the public sector is suffering from a grave lack of investment, is simply not acceptable.

mclifford@tribune.ie