Domesticky

The Education Crisis

School is supposed to be where we grow. Where we ask questions. Where we figure out who we are.

But for too many kids – North and South – it’s become a place where you learn your place and don’t ask why.

This is the third Horseman of The Drain Game: The Factories of Forgetting.

Because when you drain creativity, curiosity and connection out of education, you’re left with obedience, overwhelm and animosity. And that’s just the teachers.

And on this island, the cruelty’s doubled – two education systems, both underfunded and outdated, each reinforcing old lines of division and new layers of inequality.

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North vs South: Divided We Learn, Unequally We Lose

In the North:

• Education is deeply segregated. Roughly 90% of pupils attend schools divided along religious lines: Catholic or Protestant.
• Integrated education still only serves around 7% of the population, despite growing demand.
• Grammar schools maintain a brutal 11+ system, sorting kids by test score at age eleven.
• Stormont collapses = school budgets collapse. Teachers are on strike. Resources are vanishing. Kids are being failed.

In the South:

• The HSE’s oversight of education is minimal. But the Catholic Church’s? Still enormous.
• Patronage remains religious, despite a supposedly secular republic.
• Schools are bursting at the seams while special needs supports are chronically underfunded.
• DEIS schools (serving disadvantaged communities) are still fighting for basics.

And both systems?
They’ve become pressure cookers of performance. Testing, targets, and endless homework. Creativity is optional. Mental health is collateral.

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The Cruelty: Obedience Over Education

This isn’t just bad policy. It’s deliberate design.

• When school teaches obedience, not inquiry, students become compliant workers—not critical citizens.
• When learning is a race, kids burn out early.
• When schools mirror sectarian divides, they pass on trauma under the guise of tradition.
• When teachers are exhausted and underpaid, passion dies in the staff room.

This is The Drain Game in the classroom:

• Kids are drained of joy.
• Teachers are drained of resources.
• Families are drained financially—grinds, uniforms, “voluntary” contributions.
• And all the while, the “top performers” rise, and the rest are left behind.

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📢 Resistance: Reclaiming the Classroom

We don’t need to tinker around the edges. We need to reimagine what school could be.

Alternative Education

• Montessori, forest schools, democratic schools—they exist. They thrive. But they’re too rare.
• Start your own learning groups, co-ops, or after-school collectives that centre kids’ interests.

Cross-Community Education

• Push for more integrated education in the North—not just token projects, but real systemic change.
• Support campaigns in the South for secular, inclusive schooling that reflects the actual population.

Teach at Home, Even If They’re in School

• Counter the system with storytelling, creativity, and emotional intelligence at the kitchen table.
• Show kids that education doesn’t begin and end with grades.

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The All-Island Vision: Education Without Borders, Without Bullshit

Imagine this:

• An all-island education system that values creativity over conformity.
• Integrated schools as standard, not exception.
• No 11+, no religious gatekeeping, no postcode lotteries.
• Just kids learning, growing, building peace from the inside out.

That’s not fantasy. That’s what Ireland’s Future is asking us to imagine across every sector—including education. One joined-up, inclusive, publicly accountable system that serves all children, regardless of creed, class, or county.

Because no matter where you stand on the border, one truth holds: if we want peace on this island, we need to stop educating our children apart.