Most new teachers appointed to schools should be sent to disadvantaged areas, the Justice Commission of the Conference of Religious of Ireland has said.
The State should also provide the necessary funding to completely eliminate early school leaving without a qualification by the year 2002, it says.
The proposals are included in Resources and Choices - Towards a Fairer Future, in which CORI calls for the creation of a society "with a place for all, which is socially, economically and environmentally sustainable in the longer term".
Among the means it suggests for achieving this is an education system which enables people to "participate fully and meaningfully in developing themselves, their community and the wider society".
Education spending should be targeted at schools and areas most affected by poverty, it says. Aspects of education which, it says, contribute to disadvantage - the points race and the narrow academic focus of the curriculum and exams - should be tackled.
Adult and community education should be developed. Among the measures it suggests is a requirement on third-level institutions to reserve 25 per cent of places for mature students by 2015.
Any new national programme should include three strands: a programme for social, economic and cultural rights; a programme for sustainable development; and a programme for "integration and synergy" in the public sector.
The latter would involve screening all new policies and initiatives for their effects on poverty, equality and on the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.
The expected economic growth in the years immediately ahead and the resources coming on stream from the EU provide a unique opportunity, it says. "These new resources should be used principally to build a society with a place for all, which is socially, economically and environmentally sustainable in the longer term."
"Citizenship is about more than having a passport and the right to vote," it says. "It is also about having social, economic and cultural rights that have been badly neglected at a national level as we sought to build up the economy.
"Any new national agreement, the forthcoming Budget and government policy generally should include detailed programmes to underpin these social, economic and cultural rights," it says.