Social Justice report findings rejected by department

The Department of Education has disputed the findings of a report on social justice in the European Union which said government spending on education in Ireland lags behind the majority of its counterparts.

The report, published by the German Bertelsmann Stiftung philanthropic group, says Ireland spends the smallest amount of money in the EU on pre-primary education. It also says Ireland has a "two-tier" secondary system where access to education is dependent on social class "the higher up the educational scale one goes".

A spokeswoman for the department rejected the report’s findings but said there is “scope for further progress”. She said “this report, which ranks Ireland’s education system as 21st of 28 countries, cannot be accepted as an accurate portrayal”.

She said the Social Justice Index formulated by the group to measure poverty, education and the labour market was “not internationally recognised”.

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Ireland falls behind on education due to lack of spending

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She cited a €1.68 billion investment in special education and a 32 per cent growth in the last four years in the number of people from disadvantaged areas making it into third-level education. She said the index omitted factors that would give “a truer picture of the success of Ireland’s education system”.

She insisted that investment in education “is a key priority” for the Government and said the Minister for Education had been given a record €10 billion budget for education for next year.

The Bertelsmann Stiftung report states that Ireland spends just 0.1%  of GDP on pre-primary education

These funds, she said, will allow for the employment of “thousands of extra teachers and special needs assistants”.

The Bertelsmann Stiftung report states that Ireland spends just 0.1 per cent of gross domestic product (GDP) on pre-primary education, which is the least of all other EU members.

Presenting the Government’s education spend as a percentage of GDP gave a “misleading picture” of investment in the sector due to the “inflation” of GDP by factors including the repatriation of profits by multinationals, said the spokeswoman.

A “more meaningful indicator” would be to present the spend on education as a percentage of total public expenditure, she added.

The department’s preferred approach measures the percentage of total public spend on education in Ireland at 12.9 per cent – higher than the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development average.

Disputing the claim that 10 per cent of children attend fee-paying schools, the spokeswoman said the correct figure is 7 per cent. The department estimates that were these schools to join the free-education scheme, it would cost an additional €25.55 million per annum.