O ver the coming months, the Green Party will be rolling out its proposals aimed at improving our education system. We will be looking at all levels of the education system, but with a particular focus on getting the early years right.
Each of our “50 Steps to a Better Education System” will be aimed at ensuring that our children are given the best chance to turn into healthy, creative and balanced adults and also help Ireland to meet the social and economic challenges of the 21st century.
While some of the steps proposed will be radical, we are not necessarily talking about reinventing the wheel. Our focus will be on two areas: Where the system needs to be changed; or where targeted funding is needed to make existing ideas work. The 50 Steps will form the basis for any contribution on Education as part of a Programme for Government involving the Green Party after the next election.
In developing our education system, we need to look at how the curriculum can be changed to meet the needs of a changing society. How the various types of intelligence can be measured and how students can be encouraged to follow the life path that leads to their personal development and fulfilment. We need to create new career pathways alongside the traditional academic routes so that students can benefit from developing their particular skills.
All of the above will be looked at in due course in terms of how the existing curriculum can evolve. But before doing this I personally believe that funding the existing education system is the single most important task. Even without any new curricula or programmes, the relative lack of funding in key areas of our education system has led to major inequalities in our society. These inequalities don’t just affect those who have been forgotten by the system and their families, they also have a knock on effect on all aspects of Irish life. Whether it is through higher taxes, an increased crime rate or a reduction in our economic potential, we all suffer one way or the other.
Investment
This is why our “Step One” is to significantly increase investment in our education system. We estimate that an additional €1 billion is required annually over the next 10 years to make the existing education system work to its potential. We also contend that this investment will pay for itself. However before committing to such a 10 year programme, if in Government the Green Party would first carry out a cost benefit analysis of any additional investment in education.
The current Fianna Fail/PD Government likes to focus on the economy and the public finances. However despite international evidence pointing to the benefits of additional investment in education (see 'Investment in Education makes sense' below), this Government has been penny pinching in the extreme when it comes to funding education.
Finance Minister Brian Cowan and Education Minister Mary Hanafin painted a bright picture during last year’s Budget when they announced the creation of new 'fourth level' for PhDs, along with significant funding to develop the third level sector.
While such a new investment is to be welcomed, it ignores the fact that Ireland continues to under-invest in education when compared with other leading countries. The fact is that investment has remained stagnant since the 1990s in GDP percentage terms.
So while the trumpets blared for third level during the Budget, other areas of our education system were creaking under the strain. Areas such as adult education, further education, special needs education and the primary and second level sectors are all under-funded and need money now.
Creating a 4th 'PhD' level is all very fine, but many children are lost to the system before they even go into second level.
This should have been only one part of a multi-level, multi-annual investment programme. What about the further education sector and the PLCs, for example? What about investments in IT and tackling disadvantage at second level. And, equally important, what about funding at primary level to reduce class sizes, to resource special needs and to ensure that more students are in a position to eventually access third level or further education?
Failure
Put simply, the Government has failed the most vulnerable in our society and has done nothing to tackle educational disadvantage. And this costs our society and our economy.
Class sizes in Ireland remain the second highest in the EU. There is a government commitment to reduce class size to below international best practice of 20:1. Yet there has been no reduction in class size in primary schools for the last four years.
In 2006, one euro out of every six being spent by the Government goes to the education sector. But this is not enough to catch up on years of under-investment. We need a further injection of funding to roll out the Education Welfare Officers who have a statutory role to play in ensuring school attendance. We need to invest in the building and refurbishment of our schools. We need to take the burden of fund-raising for day to day expenditure away from parents and staff.
Facilities
We need to provide decent PE and Science facilities, rather than leaving it up to creative teachers. We need to ensure that all students are adequately nourished with nutritious meals so that they can operate to their potential.
We need to ensure that all those students with special educational needs are catered for through the provision of adequate teaching resources and fair assessments.
We need to properly fund PLCs and the adult education sector so that everyone can benefit from education at whatever age.
Ireland invests less in both primary and secondary level education than the OECD average. Adult participation in life long learning also remains relatively low in Ireland. Yet paradoxically, Ireland continues to enjoy relatively strong attainment levels despite these lower levels of investment. This is testament to the work of parents, teachers, principals and the Department of Education over the years.
All of our achievements to date were in spite of the enormous under-investment in education. Just imagine where we could be if the proper resources were invested. We would be a richer society in more ways than one.
Investment in Education makes sense:
The Green Party wants to see a cost-benefit analysis carried out into the benefits of investment in education at all levels in Ireland as it believes that such an investment would pay for itself socially and economically. It believes that this would convince politicians and sceptical taxpayers of why Education should be prioritised. However there are already several international studies in English-speaking countries that point to the benefits of investing in Education which makes the Government’s foot-dragging seem senseless. These include the Abecedarian Project in North Carolina and the High/Scope Perry Preschool study.
The latter, a landmark, long-term US study of the effects of high quality early care and education on low-income three and four-year-olds shows that adults at age 40 who participated in a preschool programme in their early years have higher earnings, are more likely to hold a job, have committed fewer crimes, and are more likely to have graduated from second level school. Overall, the study documented a return to society of more than a $17 for every dollar invested in the early care and education programme.
The High/Scope Perry Preschool study was conducted over four decades by the late David P Weikart, founder of the High/Scope Educational Research Foundation; Larry Schweinhart, High/Scope's current president; and their colleagues. Children in the study were randomly assigned either to receive the High/Scope Perry Preschool programme or to receive no comparable programme and were then tracked throughout their lives to age 40. At earlier stages, High/Scope Educational Research Foundation staff studied these same groups of children every year from age 3 to age 11, and again at ages 14, 15, 19, and 27.
The report shows major benefits from an educational and social point of view for those who received the programme. However equally important are the results from an economic perspective, which ridicule the current Government’s relatively frugal attitude to funding Education at a time of revenue buoyancy.
Among the study's major findings in the economic area are:
More of the group who received high-quality early education than the non-programme group were employed at age 40 (76% vs. 62%);
The group who received high-quality early education had median annual earnings more than $5,000 higher than the non-programme group ($20,800 vs. $15,300);
More of the group who received high-quality early education owned their own homes; and
More of the group who received high-quality early education had a savings account than the non-program group (76% vs. 50%).
The facts speak for themselves. Investment in education pays. Yet this Government has failed to provide the necessary funding for our education system.