Time to raise the bar on education spending

TEACHING MATTERS:IN IRELAND, there are countless public documents and reports which testify to the value of the education system and the contribution it makes to the "common wealth" of the society - economically, socially and culturally, writes Tim Collins.

It is surprising, therefore, that Ireland should lag behind so many comparable countries in its education spend. According to the OECD's Education at a Glance (2007), Ireland spent 4.6 per cent of its GDP that year on education. Of the 28 OECD countries for which data are available, only two - Greece and Turkey - spent a smaller share of the national income on education. The Irish spend compares with an OECD average of 5.8 per cent and an EU average of 5.4 per cent.

A sizeable group of countries, however, were significantly above the average spend, including Iceland (8 per cent); US (7.4 per cent); Denmark (7.2 per cent); Korea (7.2 per cent); New Zealand (6.9 per cent) and Sweden (6.7 per cent). By contrast, only eight of the 28 countries spent less than 5 per cent GDP on education. Along with Ireland, these included Italy; the Czech Republic; the Slovak Republic; Japan; Spain; Turkey and Greece. Many of these countries, however, have among the lowest proportions of their population - less than 20 per cent - enrolled in formal education. In Ireland, the number is 24 per cent, just 1 per cent less than the average in the OECD as a whole at 25 per cent. In other words, while being among the lowest spenders, we are among the highest in terms of participation rates in education. The money therefore is spread ever thinner.

Furthermore, while between 1995 and 2004 - a period of unprecedented economic growth in Ireland - the spend on education increased substantially, it did not keep pace with the level of economic growth.

In 1995, we spent 5.2 per cent of GDP on education. This dropped to 4.5 per cent in 2000 and rose marginally by 0.1 per cent to 4.6 per cent in 2004. In the same period, Sweden's expenditure moved from 6.2 per cent to 6.7 per cent; that for the US from 6.6 per cent to 7.4 per cent and Denmark's from 6.2 per cent to 7.2 per cent.

There is now growing concern that the relative underspend on education in Ireland is placing an increasing strain on all aspects of the system. This strain is evident in the reports on the recent teacher conferences and in the public utterances of the presidents of Irish universities and the institutes of technology. It is against this background that the time may now have arrived for the Irish Government to commit to a national target of 7 per cent GDP expenditure on education. Such a commitment should not be entered lightly. It should be done only on the recognition that the contribution of private funds to education should be increased and against a set of nationally agreed education outcomes.

Of Ireland's total education spend of 4.6 per cent, 1.2 per cent of GDP is spent on higher education. Of this figure just 0.1 per cent is sourced privately .The comparable figure for the US is 1.9 per cent-19 times the Irish figure. As the benefits of higher education are predominantly of a private, as opposed to public, nature it is not unreasonable to suggest that those who benefit from higher education should also be those who pay. In its over-reliance on public funding, higher education in Ireland is experiencing ongoing funding problems while at the same time public funds currently being directed at higher education are being diverted from early life education. A commitment, therefore, to increasing the GDP spend on education should not be assumed to be merely confined to public expenditure. Instead, the Government needs to find new and innovative ways of engaging private investment such that this investment should constitute at least one per cent of GDP.

With regard to agreed outcomes, all education partners should agree on a series of targets to do with educational attainment and achievement not just for the school-going population but for a wide range of other learners and learning sites. A commitment to 7 per cent GDP would increase the spend on education in Ireland from a current figure of circa €9.5 billion to about €12.5 billion. This would add an additional €3,000 per person for each student enrolled in full-time education in Ireland. With such an additional resource, it would be reasonable to expect the education system to address the deficiencies in pre-school education; to tackle the class-size issue in primary schools, where there are still 100,000 children in classes of more than 30 students; to support the second-level system as it comes to terms with the diverse learning demands of children with special needs, children with emotional and behavioural problems and children with English as a second language; to continue to increase the participation and completion rates in third level - particularly among non-traditional student groups; and to resource adequately the invaluable work of youth organisations, community groups sporting bodies and the adult education sector.

In summary, a commitment to 7 per cent would allow Ireland to put in place a truly comprehensive and lifelong education system.

Tom Collins is Professor of Education at NUI Maynooth