Which is the more astonishing: the OECD finding that a quarter of Irish adults have poor reading and writing abilities or the indifference with which that finding has been greeted? Could it be that our repeated self-congratulations on our "well-educated workforce" have so hypnotised us that we are simply not able to appreciate the importance of this statistic? The sheer number of people involved is staggering. The National Adult Literacy Agency estimates that 500,000 Irish adults have severe difficulties in reading and writing.
The figures also serve to underline a dangerous division in our society. On one side are those who do not read, do not vote, do not succeed in our education system, do not see the workplace as one which holds any opportunity for them and whose stake in our society appears to be shrinking all the time. On the other are those who know the value of education, who know how to make their voices heard, who are able to take advantage of the information age and who are confident of their future in a booming economy.
The National Adult Literacy Agency held a conference last week as part of its continuing efforts to address these issues. The Minister for Education was supposed to open it but sent a civil servant instead, to the annoyance of the attendance. He was unable to attend because he was involved in the launch of a £250 million fund to be invested in education technology and which will, among other things, create at least 7,000 new third-level college places. For some, this scale of priorities will serve to illustrate the manner in which the illiteracy issue has been marginalised. Certainly, none of those 7,000 new places will go to them.
Ms Kathleen Lynch, co-ordinator of equality studies at University College Dublin, spoke passionately about the meagre resources put into schools in poor areas. She contrasted one such school which has no recreational facilities for students with a better off school some miles away which has tennis courts, a gym and other top-of-the-range facilities. She is not, of course, making an argument against tennis courts. The argument is about the attractiveness and richness of the educational experience in one school compared with another. It is about one school's access to resources compared with another's. The school in a poor area must beg companies and other possible benefactors for a computer. A school half an hour's drive away in an affluent area bristles with computers.
The Minister of State for Education and Science, Mr Willie O'Dea, announced at the weekend that he is to provide an extra £250,000 for adult literacy services this year. For that he is to be commended. But much more is needed. Ms Lynch suggests a five year plan to tackle illiteracy in a serious way. That some such plan is needed there can be no doubt but it would, if done properly, make £250,000 look like petty cash. Are we listening?