Mr. Neil McDonnell:

ISME thanks the committee for the opportunity to make a submission on this matter. Regarding the issues raised on the consultation on assessment, while the leaving certificate has come in for legitimate criticism for the rote learning issue over the years, its fairness, objectivity, reliability and consistency were not in doubt. The significant difficulties caused by obvious grade inflation in the accredited grades system in 2020 and 2021 have demonstrated the failures of adopting an ad hoc approach to continuous assessment. This has damaged the credibility of our education system as a whole.

On key subject areas, Programme for International Student Assessment, PISA, rankings now include a focus on digital literacy. However, ISME and our members have noted basic failings among graduate-level recruits in accomplishing relatively simple tasks, such as formulating a cogent paragraph of text on a business-related topic free of spelling or grammatical errors.

We are not aware of specific issues around access and equality. However, we have had anecdotal representations made to us about the quality of teaching available in certain schools and areas such as STEM and European languages.

On higher and further education requirements, our determination to open ever more universities at the expense of education in technical disciplines is worrying. Annual surveys of the best third level institutions in the world consistently show three technology institutions in the top ten, with Massachusetts Institute of Technology in first place for the last five years. While accepting that university status confers additional cachet on any educational institution, it is essential, bearing in mind Ireland’s relative attractiveness to foreign multinational companies, that we continually strive for excellence in technical education.

We have a significant density of high-tech foreign multinational employers here and a diminishing ability to supply them with suitably qualified labour. Conversely, a study by the IZA Institute of Labour Economics concluded that Ireland had the highest rate of overeducation among employees in Europe. Overeducation was defined as "the proportion of employees in employment whose... level of schooling lies one level or more above the occupational mode." At the same time, the OECD economic survey of Ireland in 2020 found that measured literacy skills of Irish adults remained "close to the OECD average, and numeracy and problem solving skills [were] significantly lower for all age cohorts." This suggests a significant skills mismatch between the output of our education system and inputs required by business.

We note that despite the fact that Irish is an official EU language, Ireland is struggling to fulfil its quota of translators for the translation of EU law, directives and regulations.

On international evidence and best practice, despite domestic views of our education system, the World Population Review puts our education ranking just ahead of the global average. The PISA rankings are now far more granular and useful in their ratings than they used to be, but Ireland is not class-leading in any noticeable respect.