Ireland was shaken out of its “complacency” and the view that it had “the best education system in the world” by an OECD study that showed educational outcomes had declined, Minister for Education Ruairí Quinn has said.
He was speaking in Dublin to mark the publication by children's charity Barnardos of the book Early Literacy and Numeracy Matters, designed to inform and guide educators working in early years settings.
The OECD ‘Pisa’ education rankings in literacy and maths published in December 2010 showed Ireland had slipped from 5th place to 17th place in reading levels since 2000. This was the sharpest decline among 39 countries surveyed.
Mr Quinn – who was still in opposition at the time the study was published - said that what had “shattered and angered” him most was not the rankings, but the fact that after 30 years and with increasing resources put into the education system, reading outcomes, particularly for a cohort of young, working-class boys, had deteriorated.
He said that when resources had been “by and large not a problem”, outcomes had been static or falling. Educationalists here could not explain the drop, he said.
“In retrospect, even if it [the ranking] was an overshoot - and it probably was - it was the best thing that happened to us. Because we were shaken out of our complacency in saying – with reference to nothing that any of us had any experience of – that we had the best education system in the world.”
“How many times did we hear ourselves smugly say that to each other?”
Mr Quinn attributed the claims to “nothing other than wanting to believe in our own ability” and a desire to believe “something that sounded very comforting”.
A draft literacy and numeracy strategy was published in November 2010 by the previous government. Mr Quinn published the Government’s national literacy and numeracy strategy for 2011-2020 last June.
Noting that literacy and numeracy were key predictors of future educational performance and outcomes, Mr Quinn said he believed a lot of parents and grandparents felt these skills were for the classroom.
“Formal learning may start in the classroom, but learning starts from the day you can communicate.”
Referring to comments he made in the Dáil in March last year that a child who was not read to when going to bed at night was an abused child, the Minister said he had used “an unfortunate” word. But he stuck by his view that children who were not read to were “maltreated”.
Mr Quinn said it was possible to go into a household that had “every electronic device available” and yet not a single book or a newspaper.
“That passes from generation to generation and we have to try and somehow or other to intervene.”
Mr Quinn said he hoped himself and Minister for Children Frances Fitzgerald could develop a “more structured” relationship between their respective departments to establish a bridge from the toddler age group through early childhood into the system. Work was already starting on this area.
Author of the book Dr Geraldine French said it took the approach that children were “active agents in their lives who can initiate experiences as opposed to being the passive recipients of ideas created by adults”.
She said this required educators who were “imbued with a sense of passion about children’s learning and development”, who thought positively about literacy and numeracy and who were able to “seize every opportunity indoors and outdoors to enhance both”.
Barnardos chief executive Fergus Finlay said helping children to develop the skills of reading and writing and to use mathematics to solve a problem was giving them "a most essential toolkit for life".
"These are the tools which enable them to engage confidently in learning, to break generational cycles of poverty and disadvantage, and enable them to fully participate in society."