Trade union support for an increased drive to achieve "truly accessible and affordable" education was urged yesterday by the president of the National University of Ireland, Galway, Prof Iognáid Ó Muircheartaigh.
Prof Ó Muircheartaigh was addressing delegates at SIPTU's biennial conference.
It had to be acknowledged that Ireland still did not have the level or extent of education provision that its people required, he told the conference, which is taking place at NUI Galway.
"The needs of the disadvantaged student and the life-long learner have never been quite fully addressed in this country," he said. Prof Ó Muircheartaigh, who is a member of SIPTU, said that as a group of organised working people the union had a special responsibility in the area of education and training.
"I believe one of the measures against which SIPTU will be tested will be how much it has contributed in the effort to achieve a truly accessible and affordable education system in Ireland. The education sector cannot achieve this on its own and the matter is too important to be left to the whims of accident," he said.
People's opportunities in life were directly related to the level and regularity of their access to affordable and relevant education and training. "Low access generally means low skills, which usually means low pay and, more often than not, low self-esteem. Notwithstanding the sacrifices that many of our parents have made to put us, their children, through education, it remains an all-too-common fact that the poverty of the parent often inflicts itself on the prospects of the child.
"That is the cycle we must break, and I mean 'we'," he said.
Prof Ó Muircheartaigh said it was the right of all to build on their innate potential to fully develop as people, and in particular as people who had the capacity to struggle and to achieve, for the betterment, not just of themselves, but all working people.
