I have described the recent OECD rankings for Ireland as a "wake-up call" for the Irish education system. The programme for Government makes clear our commitment to improving radically the literacy and numeracy standards achieved by our young people. No child should leave an Irish school unable to read and write. This will be one of the major goals of the Government and I am determined that we will address the serious weaknesses in young people's learning that national assessments, inspection reports and international surveys have identified. What we do for early childhood and primary education can have a significant bearing on how successful we will be. This is an issue for second level schools as well. A cultural shift is needed so that all teachers in second level schools, not just those teaching languages or resource teachers, recognise that they can play a constructive role in fostering improvement in literacy levels. This is especially true for geography and history teachers.

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