Ruairí Quinn: From age 14, many students begin to disengage at school

Education in Ireland has many advantages that will help us to recognise and introduce the changes necessary as we approach the third decade of the 21st century. To begin with, we have a culture of learning and a respect for education. Our teachers are well trained and are among the best-paid in Europe.

This is not the norm in many developed countries, including the US and our nearest neighbour, the UK. Our educational outcomes, as measured in the OECD statistics for school participation, completion and academic achievement, place us high up the international league table as it currently stands. But the world is not standing still, and, if we want to grow and develop our society and our economy, then we have a lot to do.

Research from the Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI) reveals that, from the age of 14 – about second year in our post-primary schools – a significant number of young people begin to actively disengage. Some drop out, while those who remain fail to achieve their full potential in school.

About two-thirds (62 per cent) of our school-leavers go on to 39 centres of third-level education, which use the points system to allocate courses. This objective and long-established entry mechanism to higher education is seen and respected as being fair and safely beyond interference or manipulation.

Yet the ESRI has found that many graduates are dissatisfied with the job that they get after they leave college. They feel they are poorly paid or that they did not get into the course or career that they really wanted in the first place.

Broken

For historical reasons, our education system has been divided into three, now four categories: preschool, primary, second level, and third level. Perhaps a more rational divide would be children, teenagers and adults. The reality today is that the linkages between these stages are weak and, for many, the points system is broken.

To begin with, the number of third-level courses on offer has exploded from about 500 in 2000 to more than 1,500 today. While high points achievers (475 to 625 points) will usually get what they want, most others do not. But they will have been herded into a narrow, academically driven path. Why? Because the Leaving Cert curriculum has been captured and colonised by the “points race”.

That ominous position reveals itself in second year, when all pupils are told that in about 15 months’ time they will have to sit a State exam. Don’t forget that, up until now, these young people have only ever done tests in school.

The Primary State Certificate Examination was abolished nearly 50 years ago, in 1967. But now, not only will these young people have to start focusing on the Junior Cert, they will be reminded that this exam is a dress rehearsal for the Leaving Cert and so for their future.

This state of affairs was not planned. The CAO company, which is owned by the seven universities, assigns the range of points to the grades obtained by a student in the Leaving Cert. At third level now, what we have is an overly strong academic tradition and a weak vocational/ technological tradition.

The transition from school to third level is one of the greatest challenges our educational system faces. There simply has to be a rebalancing of the system, in terms of the curriculum and assessment for all of our young people between the ages of 14 and 22.

The shape of the necessary changes is beginning to emerge. Solas, the new body that has replaced both Fás and its predecessor AnCo, is to the further education and training sector what the HEA is to higher education. Like the HEA, Solas will not be a direct provider of courses. Instead, under its oversight, the further education and training sector will develop greater links with enterprise and provide a range of courses, including apprenticeships old and new, to meet the needs of learners in a way that is strongly connected to the needs of the economy and opportunities for employment.

We now have a framework and an infrastructure that can fully deliver a strong vocational/technological education system that will complement the existing academic sector.

Next year will mark the 50th anniversary of the publication of the highly influential report Investment in Education, which was prepared in 1965 with the assistance of the OECD, which Ireland had only recently joined. Among its recommendations were free post-primary schooling for all and the creation of the regional technical colleges, the predecessors of the institutes of technology. It is generally accepted that these measures laid the foundations for our current economic development.

As we have turned the corner economically we need to build a sound and stable economy. This will be built on knowledge and education, using all our technological, vocational and academic skills.

Former minister for education Ruairí Quinn TD gave the Royal Irish Academy’s inaugural address, Leaders in Higher Education, in Dublin yesterday