How Fianna Fáil has failed education

Over the coming months, The Irish Timeswill be asking the main opposition spokespersons on education to assess Fianna Fáil's record in education over the past five years - and to spell out how they might change things. Today, Jan O'Sullivanof the Labour Party argues that the legacy of Mary Hanafin and the other Fianna Fáil ministers is a grossly under-funded education system

The last decade has been a period of prosperity unprecedented in Irish history. That prosperity was generated by the hard work of people who benefited, some more than others, from an education system that has been on a progressive curve since the mid-1960s.

When economic times were hard and public money was in scarce supply, brave decisions were made by ministers of different political hues and opportunities were offered to young Irish people beyond the dreams of their parents. Sadly, that leap of imaginative vision has been absent for the past 10 years when unprecedented public wealth could have made such an impact on educational outcomes for our people.

If we do not grasp the opportunities offered by economic success, we will wake up in 2010 or 2015 to find that Ireland's reputation for having one of the best education systems in the world is a thing of the past. As spokeswoman for the Labour Party, I have talked to many people from other countries about what they are doing within their systems and sectors. These interactions convince me that we have become too complacent and too conservative.

Warnings have been given by observers who would be considered more objective and dispassionate than me. For example, the OECD Economic Survey of Ireland 2006 pointed out that the failure to invest in pre-primary level, and the well-below OECD average spending (2.5 per cent of national income) on primary and secondary levels is putting our future prosperity at risk. More importantly, in my view, it is failing large numbers of children for whom the lack of an early response to their particular needs leaves them falling behind from the start with no chance of achieving their potential.

The Minister for Education, Mary Hanafin, and her predecessors Noel Dempsey, Mícheál Martin and Michael Woods, have been content to scatter small percentage increases across the board.

What is the outcome of this approach? Classes as large as ever, prefabs and inadequate classroom conditions as prevalent as ever, no improvement in literacy levels in disadvantaged areas or in the percentage of young people who drop out before Leaving Cert, huge waiting lists for special needs assessment and a drift to the private fee-paying sector among those who can afford it . . . and the Society of St Vincent de Paul taking up more and more of the slack.

It doesn't have to be that way. If we shift the share of the national pot of money spent on education to the level it was at in the mid-1990s we can make quantifiable changes for the better. The failure of the Fianna Fáil and PD Government to keep pace with national and international spending averages is at the heart of many of the problems that exist in our education system.

The other major area where the current minister has failed to lead is in dealing with what is actually going on in our schools: the quality of learning and the content of the curriculum. While always retaining what is best, we must adapt what young people learn and how they are taught to the pressures and demands of a vastly changed world.