The role of the citizen in creating a new Ireland is an important one. FRANK DILLONwhat foundations, skills and moral attributes should the perfect citizen have?

IN HIS recently published book How Markets fail - the logic of economic calamities, respected author and New Yorker columnist John Cassidy touches on the role of the citizen in the creation of economic bubbles. Individual behavioural biases - such as overconfidence, envy, and myopia - often give rise to troubling macroeconomic phenomena such as boom-and-bust waves in housing, he says. These are the inevitable outcomes of what Cassidy refers to as "rational irrationality" or self-serving behaviour in a modern market setting.

Citizens are mere pawns in this game, in Cassidy's view, as he explained to Innovation. "The lure of easy money is irresistible. To be blunt, a lot of people behaved like spivs in regard to the property boom but it's hard to go against the herd and to be left out. You can't blame human nature. It's up to Government, not regulators, to create the rules and the norms for society and citizens," he says.

Having woken up with a headache from the party that was the Celtic Tiger, attention has been turning to the type of society that was created during those years and which has contributed to a national sense of shame, fear and shattered confidence.

Perhaps its time to look at what was once viewed as the old-fashioned notion of citizenship. What is the perfect citizen? What foundations, skills and moral attributes should they have to ensure that we create a more sustainable form of success. What should we do to create such citizens and what can we learn from others?

Commentators are all agreed on one thing - the overarching role of education. There is also a broad consensus on the idea that to build these solid foundations, we need to start as early as possible in the education system.

The Government's announcement last month of a €150 million ICT package for schools - essentially involving putting a greater number of laptops in classes - is welcomed by all. That it was funded by pulling money from the school building programme was an apt metaphor for the times. Less bricks and mortar - the cause of much of our current malaise - and more intellectual capital.

Paul Rellis, Microsoft's country manager for Ireland, believes such investments are crucial and form a key part of the approach to developing a multi-disciplinary skills base early in the education system. "What we need is citizens coming out of school with good basic IT skills, skilled in communication and with an understanding and ability to relate to different cultures. Getting a combination of these hard and soft skills is vital."

As an economy that is highly exposed to global economic conditions, Rellis adds that Ireland needs to position itself well for the upturn that will come and that education plays a key role in this. At third level, Rellis believes that greater emphasis should be placed on developing niche skills, especially in the underdeveloped areas of maths and science. "We will never produce hundreds of thousands of technical graduates, but we need to ensure that we produce high quality ones in the key areas," he says.

The education system is where we create and shape our citizens and where the interventions need to be made, argues Tom McCarthy, chief executive of the Irish Management Institute (IMI). "I'm often perplexed, for example, at the notion of introducing ethics modules in degree and post-graduate courses, especially in response to the latest failings in these areas. Surely, the simple notion of differentiating between good and bad behaviour should be taught at secondary school level. We have had various approaches to teaching civic behaviour in the curriculum, but it has never been given weight and has been marginalised by not being exam subject status."

The decline in the religious influence over education may be responsible for this lack of a moral dimension to the earlier stages of the system, he believes.

Finbarr Bradley, a former professor of finance at UCD and co-author of the book Capitalising on Culture, Competing on Differenceagrees and argues that identity formation is a crucial attribute in developing the perfect citizen. Students should be helped to define a life purpose and be given opportunities to undergo transformative experiences, he believes.

"They must be equipped to live as responsible citizens in complex multicultural societies while still upholding the richness and uniqueness of their own culture. Fostering self-esteem, a culture of pride, a climate of success, healthy relationships and socially responsible behaviour is the priority. Educators should imbue ethical behaviour or 'character' within the education experience so students learn to think holistically, cope with change and appreciate a sustainable ethic."

It may be difficult to teach citizenship, but it can be learned if educators create an environment where tradition, identity and community are seen as national resources to be respected and valued, he argues. "Citizenship implies sharing resources, not maximising one's own interest. This depends on young people having an enduring sense of self-worth. Practical patriotism must be fostered and promoted so students emerge with a clear recognition of what it means to be Irish, a sense of ownership of the country and responsibility to use their knowledge, skills, and energy on its behalf," he says.

According to Bradley, we need to look at the way in which we have been educating our young people and to radically change the model from passive delivery by teachers to one in which educationally-rich experiences are driven by self-discovery. "Students should perform their own research, solve real-life problems and make decisions such as developing the capacity to apply knowledge to projects in local communities. In such situated learning, they discover the appropriate circumstances in which to apply what they are taught. They learn where, when and why some concept fits or does not fit a particular situation. This, not passively 'taking' courses, should constitute the heart of the education endeavour. Without this, students are unlikely to emerge as creative, engaged and responsible citizens," he says.

The other area that needs to move centre stage is the teaching of maths, which McCarthy says should be viewed as a 'language' rather than a technical discipline, given that it lies at the heart of so much more than most people appreciate. "It has been proven in countries such as the United States, that when societies become more prosperous the proportion of lawyers to engineers increases. The question for us is can we be atypical and put a much greater emphasis on maths?"

Getting the balance right in that mix between broad and niche skills and technical and non-technical disciplines, is crucial, agrees Prof Rita McGrath from Columbia University, a seasoned observer of Ireland. "The Irish university education system forces young people to select extremely narrow specialties early - some even in fields that are not particularly relevant to the future such as conventional chemistry, for instance.

"My suggestion here is that the specific choice of focus for study be delayed by two years, to allow young people to gain skills and also to experiment in a variety of fields. This would give them greater adaptability in a changing world and could prove to add greatly to Ireland's economic resilience," she adds.

Another area that should be addressed, is championing entrepreneurship and business innovation among the citizenry in general, she says. "There is a need for a greater interest in and comfort with business. For many people in Ireland, business isn't seen as something that is all that interesting. Ireland's future entrepreneurs, its innovators, and its leaders, would be well served by early and positive exposure to business skills and by social norms that encourage business activity," she says.

Tom Begley, dean of UCD's Smurfit School, says he agrees that entrepreneurship needs to be celebrated more in Ireland, but not so much in terms of pure money making, rather in the positive contribution it can make to economy and by extension society. He also feels that recent economic developments have come at a price in terms of developing good citizenship.

"There are practical difficulties for people and many of the traditional supports and structures are not there anymore, such as families living in close proximity to each other. The church isn't the stabilising influence it once was."

McGrath feels that we should not be too hard on ourselves and that many of the fundamentals that have been developed in modern Ireland should not be abandoned. "Solid education, a deep respect for language, the easy charm with which Irish people interact with others, and the enthusiasm for exploring other cultures and places that is so evident in Ireland are qualities which are worth preserving. I am also impressed with the Irish willingness to engage in public life."

While the focus of education and training has been on the younger population, an area that needs to be addressed urgently is re-skilling of mature workers. The fall-out from the collapse of our construction industry is a clear case in point. Its an area of particular interest to Peter Davitt, chief executive of FIT (fast-track into IT), an industry funded initiative designed to address skill gaps.

Currently there are 2,500 participants on FIT training programmes and further 4,500 job seekers will commence FIT programmes during 2010. "While a lot of workers are feeling pain, nobody feels more pain than those who are unemployed. Its vital to retrain people so that they can feel engaged as citizens. As a society we need to develop a new generosity of spirit," Davitt says.

Finnish lessons

PRIOR TO Ireland's economic boom, much of our time was spent looking at models of other societies. How had they developed their economies, social support systems and ultimately their citizens?

Scandinavian and neighbouring countries, especially Denmark, Finland and Sweden figured largely in this analysis. Comparisons were made in terms of physical size, population, lack of and physical remoteness. Now that shortcomings have been exposed in our own model, looking at others is back in vogue.

Prof Rita McGrath thinks Finland holds lessons for Ireland. "Like Ireland, the Finns believe in a very strong educational background for all citizens. Like Ireland, Finland's industries must be globally competitive, as their domestic market is too small to support the growth ambitions of a significant business. Unlike Ireland, however, Finns tend to be far more interested in science and engineering - technical fields that have allowed them to outperform their peers in high-tech industries," she says.

Nokia is probably the best known example of a company that has taken advantage of these attributes, she adds, but there are others - Kone, the elevator company and F-Secure, a globally competitive security software firm, provide two other examples.

Finbarr Bradley says culture is again an important differentiator. "In Finland, dynamic integration in the global economy, strong national sentiment, a unique language and closeness to nature, represent important sources of meaning. Strong affirmation of its culture is key and might similarly be a driver of innovation in Ireland," he says.

Like the Finns, we can also learn from the Danes and Norwegians, he adds. "They realise that the fundamental building block to create an entrepreneurial learning culture is to give students a sense of place, a strong root from which to grow. This helps them realise that they must utilise the world's natural resources without interfering with the balance of nature as well as developing a responsible attitude to social questions. They learn to respect the society and culture of their own as well as those of other countries, fostering a strong ethic of citizenship."

These societies, along with Sweden, have developed a very egalitarian model, agrees Prof Tom Begley, though he acknowledges that Sweden's model is more admired when it is in a positive phase of the economic cycle it typically goes through. "Sweden's model has been funded through high taxation and the pay-offs is great models of childcare, universally available healthcare and other social supports. It's based on the notion of people being willing to contribute - good citizenship in practice."