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THE GOVERNMENT is determined to inject a sense of urgency in the battle to boost literacy standards, the Minister for Education has said. Ruairí Quinn was speaking yesterday as a literacy initiative in disadvantaged schools delivered encouraging results.

An OECD report last year found that close to one-quarter of all 15- year-olds were functionally illiterate. Ireland has dropped from fifth to 17th in literacy in the past decade, the sharpest decline of any developed nation. By some estimates, up to 30 per cent of pupils in disadvantaged primary schools have serious literacy difficulties.