Sir, – Breda O'Brien (Opinion, February 1st) uses data from the PIRLS and TIMSS 2011 studies to support her claim that religion should retain its current number of hours in the Irish curriculum. As the researcher responsible for managing the studies in Ireland, I wish to point out inaccuracies in her description of the findings of PIRLS and TIMSS.
The article claimed Northern Ireland was the new “promised land” for education, despite spending the same amount of time on religious instruction as in the Republic. The high performance of pupils was attributed to investment in education and the superior working conditions of teachers in Northern Ireland.
It is true PIRLS and TIMSS found that primary pupils in Northern Ireland scored significantly better on the reading and mathematics tests than did their counterparts here. However, a look at the broader evidence paints a more complex picture. In the last three cycles of Pisa (assessing 15-year-olds’ reading, mathematics and science knowledge), for example, Northern Ireland’s performance has been significantly poorer than the Republic’s in most areas examined.
Even if we look only at primary level data, the North-South difference on science performance was non-existent and the gap on reading very small. Only for mathematics was there a marked gap. This largely mirrors the differences in instructional time allocated to the subjects in the two systems. In both Ireland and Northern Ireland, the amount of teaching time devoted to reading instruction was slightly more than the international average, and pupils in both jurisdictions performed extremely well on the reading test. For maths, the situation is different. Teachers in the Republic allocated slightly less than the international average time to maths instruction, whereas in Northern Ireland, they spent more time on maths instruction than all but one of the other countries in the studies. Of course, one cannot assume a perfect link between hours teaching and pupil performance – the relationship is far from clear, as noted in the article, and is complicated by the extent to which curriculum is integrated across subjects. However, it is also clear that the PIRLS and TIMSS studies offer no support to anyone opposed to the Minister’s suggestion that more time should be allocated to maths.
It is misleading to say that while our religious education instruction time is above the EU average, it is the same as in Northern Ireland. The Republic of Ireland officially allocates proportionally more time to the teaching of religion than any EU country, and among OECD countries, only Israel allocates a similar proportion of time. In relation to Northern Ireland, the allocated numbers of hours per week are comparable, but as their school week is longer, religion constitutes a relatively smaller proportion of instruction time. – Yours, etc,
Dr EEMER EIVERS,
Research Rellow,
Educational Research
Centre,
St Patrick’s College,
Drumcondra,
Dublin 9.