The Classroom Divide, RTE 1, Monday at 9.35pm
A bit like our own Stephen Nolan, RTE’s Joe Duffy occasionally gets away from his radio phone-in show to make a television programme.
In another similarity, he’s also very focused on his place in the world. Joe Duffy mentions his working class upbringing in Ballyfermot as often as Nolan mentions the Shankill Road.
Both presenters’ world views are heavily influenced by the conviction that their communities are discriminated against and that superior education was the making of them. In Nolan’s case it was getting a place at a grammar school and for Duffy it was the introduction of free secondary education and later getting into Trinity College.
Duffy, whose Liveline call-in show is among the most popular in the Republic (if not quite the biggest show in the country), makes the not unreasonable case that educational disadvantage has not lessened since his youth.
The figures are stark, although Duffy concentrated on the ones close to home. One in a hundred pupils from Ballyfermot go on to university while, on average, 44 per cent of student from affluent Sandymount make it to college.
Duffy visits a community school in Donegal, a fee paying school in Limerick and meets a mum from Sheriff Street in Dublin’s north-inner city whose son has followed him into Trinity.
He shows us pictures of his school days, congratulates Fianna Fáil’s Donogh O’Malley on introducing free secondary education in 1967 and he asks if the state is right to continue funding the teachers’ salaries of the Republic’s 52 fee-paying schools.
He speaks to academics, educationalists and campaigning politicians.
But one voice is missing.
If this was a story of disadvantage, why did we not heard from the disadvantaged? Where were the people who wanted to stay in education but couldn’t afford it? Where were the families let down by low standards and failing schools?
While Duffy made his argument with passion, the programme can only get marked as a C.
The Classroom Divide has ability, but lacks focus and discipline, it would say on the report card.
It couldn’t make up its mind if it was a programme about Joe Duffy’s education, working class success or a real analysis of the reasons for educational underachievement.
****
F1 Challenge: Speed with Guy Martin, Channel 4, Sunday at 8pm
Has there ever been a more sympathetic television presenter than Guy Martin?
As a viewer, you’re just desperate for him to do well. And it being TV he invariably does of course.
Whether it’s his northern soul, the touch of autism, or his modesty; Martin has likeability in spades.
He’s not a full-time TV guy either, the truck mechanic still races motorbikes and I’ve no doubt he was serious when he said he’d love a job as an F1 mechanic.
For this episode of Speed he was trying to get a place in a pit crew of an F1 team.
And this wasn’t going to be on the test track - Martin would end up on one of the corners of a £3 million Williams racing car in the Belgian Grand Prix.
And not only that. Williams has the reputation as the fastest pit-crew on the circuit with a record time of 1.92 seconds. Panic, fear of clumsy fingers could cost seconds, cost the driver track position and have real life consequences for the team.
I have zero interest in F1 and motorsport in general, but I was transfixed by Martin’s efforts to make the team.
It was the best thing on TV in ages and deserves to be watched on catch-up.
