What we must do to move education into the fast lane

RAISING OUR GAME: HOW EDUCATION IN IRELAND CAN BE IMPROVED:US multi-nationals have become increasingly critical of the Irish education system. In the first of a new series, MARTIN MURPHY, managing director of Hewlett Packard Ireland explains how Ireland can raise its game – and demonstrate to the international community we are taking education seriously

I HAVE LONG argued about the urgent need for reform in Irish education – as a route to fulfilling Ireland’s potential. I would go further now to say that reform of our education system is as important to the international business community as stabilisation of our banking system.

I know too well, by the way, that education is as much about preparing a child for life, as well as preparing a child to make a living – and indeed not all pupils complete second level – let alone progress into third.

However, education, if it is prioritised, can provide us with the single most important route to job creation – white collar, blue collar, any collar – full stop.

As a multinational, HP been in this country for almost 35 years. One of the most important reasons being the quality, calibre and excellence of our people.

Having that capability here has enabled us to make the business case within the HP family that there is value in further investment in Ireland – but only if we can continue to produce those highly-skilled individuals who drove our economy in the 1980s and 1990s.

We still see individuals that fit into this bracket of excellence, but the world is evolving and within HP Ireland what we are not seeing is an emerging workforce that is fit for purpose, whose talents have been honed, primed for innovation and creativity and have the necessary language and technical skills to drive this economy into the 2020s.

What is worrying is that where we as a country were once regarded as being at the pinnacle with our educated workforce, my international colleagues are seeing a new type of graduate (in competitor countries) with a greater creative edge and a hunger for solving problems.

I am constantly reminded of how great this country can be when our future is looked at through a lens of optimism, most especially when I interact with real-life innovators at an event such as the Young Scientist exhibition or most recently with initiatives like Your Country, Your Call.These show the absolute depth of innovation and creativity that we have.

Our education system simply has to harness ability at all levels and translate that into the skills, knowledge and proficiency to drive our economy out of its current difficulties.

To my mind the time for debate and discussion about reform is over. It is now time for implementation and execution. If reform were in my gift, these are the measures I would take immediately to demonstrate that.

REFORM OF THE JUNIOR AND LEAVING CERTIFICATES

We don’t have the luxury to delay on reform of the Junior and Leaving certificates. Both exams are in urgent need of revision – although I would advocate that we retain both. Sitting down to do a State exam, on State-headed paper, is a good thing, a powerful focal point, and indeed an inflection point for pupils as well as a driver of national standards in education.

A key first step must be to broaden the use of continuous assessment, project work and especially collaborative work – which reflect the modern workplace. Think about it – the only place where the Irish system promotes teamwork is on the sports field – sobering but true.

Beyond that, we need to take some further steps including:

– Ensuring that an overwhelming majority of students sit higher-level maths at Junior Cert. We are limiting the potential skills base of our students and of our society if we continue to allow so many students to drop down to ordinary-level maths;

– Make science compulsory for Leaving Cert. Every student should be required to take a science subject for the exam – physics, chemistry or biology.

At present, only a small minority of students take the key subjects of physics and chemistry at Higher Level.

BUILD UP OUR LANGUAGE AND COMMUNICATION SKILLS

In my view, every student needs to have fluency in two international languages when leaving school. We should also ensure that at least two subjects are taught online by 2012. As a first step, we should also provide a laptop for every fifth- and sixth-year student. Much of this could be done immediately – it is all realistic and achievable.

MAXIMISING TRANSITION YEAR

This year gives us a great opportunity to build up the skills base of our students – but we have been slow to harness this potential.

A key is to build up links with industry during this year. Let’s give even more students the opportunity to enter the workplace and gain some experience at the coalface. This is also a year where students have a unique opportunity to build up foreign language skills through immersion and other programmes. We could also use this year to forge links with European and Asian schools through online learning or exchange programmes.

SUPPORTING TEACHERS

In the work environment the person who has the most impact on any employee is their manager – so it holds true in education that the person who will have the greatest impact on our children’s development is their teacher – great teachers make great students.

Too often we criticise teaching methods but I do not believe that we are giving teachers, lecturers and tutors across the entire system the necessary supports they need to deal with the evolving needs of today’s students.

Professional development is an absolute necessity for our teaching community. As a matter of priority, I would introduce mandatory professional development starting from next September.

STRUCTURES AT THIRD LEVEL

Third level needs to provide graduates with both the technical and the softer people- management skills that will enable them to cope with the challenges of the workplace. Our system needs to acknowledge the spread of skills that are required to succeed in a work environment. On occasion, Irish graduates can seem ill-prepared for the world of work .

There is other work to be done. There is merit in reintroducing fees for those that can afford it in order to give the third-level sector a long-term, sustainable funding base.

But the benefits of this funding should be channelled across our entire education system. Gross inequity still exists in our education sector. I would like to see a sector that embraces all of our children from every background, and of all ability. Why should any child be deprived of the opportunity to reach his or her potential? While the reintroduction of fees will not be a panacea to our problems in this area, it will go some way to ensuring that we can address some of these issues.

A LONGER-TERM VISION

The reforms outlined above can and must be implemented over the course of the next 12-24 months. But we also need a longer-term vision for the education system.

My vision is of a curriculum that moves away from rote learning and promotes independent learning. One that focuses not on learning the answer but on fostering analytical skills. Our learning model for the future must equip students with problem-solving, design, innovation, communication and creativity to drive our economy forward.

We need to raise our game. We need to better prepare our young people for the overwhelming challenge that our current economic woes have foisted on them for the future. Is this challenge too great? I think not.

But we must give the reform of the education system the same priority as the problems in the banking sector – resolving both is the key to our future.

This is the first of a series of articles about how the Irish education system might be reformed.