Kevin Humphreys (Dublin South East, Labour)

I welcome the opportunity to discuss education in the House. The motion is timely and I thank Fianna Fáil for raising it and allowing discussion on the issue. Education is critical to the future of society. If we have learned any lesson from the past, we have learned that we must provide people with the skills and training to create an environment that is ready for the economy to grow. I am delighted my constituency colleague, Deputy Ruairí Quinn, has been appointed Minister for Education and Skills. He has a record as a Minister in a previous Government and as a spokesman on education. I believe he will lead change in the education area and he has already hit the ground running.

We need change throughout the system and we must try to bring about that change with the resources we have currently. It is clear significant numbers of extra personnel have been employed in the education area. We acknowledge that has happened, despite what was said earlier. However, return from that investment has been disappointing. It has not delivered. For example, let us look at the OECD report and PISA literacy ranking for 2009. This was a wake-up call for Irish education. It indicated that one in ten children has a serious difficulty with reading and writing. In 2006, Ireland was ranked fifth in the OECD countries for literacy but by 2009, we had dropped to seventeenth place out of 34 countries, a sharp decline. This information is clear in the report. There is evidence also of a decline in literacy standards among teenagers. One in six 15 year olds and up to one in four teenage boys do not have sufficient literacy skills to function in a knowledge intensive society. There is no standardisation of literacy testing at second level. This must be addressed in order to raise levels so that no students fall through the gaps.

Numeracy skills were also identified in the OECD report as being below average. Before the Labour Party became part of Government, Deputy Aodhán Ó Riordáin spearheaded a Right to Read campaign. We now propose that this campaign be implemented to improve literacy skills in disadvantaged areas and target literacy blackspots. Despite all the investment in personnel, the collapse in literacy and numeracy skills demonstrated by the OECD reports are a shocking indictment of the previous Government. Problems with literacy are not confined to primary schools. A further sign of the decline can be seen by looking at the figures for students taking higher level maths and science, where there is a decline in the numbers overall. Previous figures demonstrate that 40% of students doing junior certificate maths take maths at the higher level, but this drops to 20% for the leaving certificate. I welcome the Project Maths initiative, but more must be done if we are to capture new areas.

In my constituency, some of the biggest employers are tech companies such as Google, Facebook and Betfair. All of these require strong literacy and numeracy skills, as do their support companies. The concerns raised by senior management in Google about the quality of Irish graduates must be a wake-up call for us. They said, "People applying for jobs with impressive qualifications but basic literacy errors in their CVs is an embarrassment". We need to look at what we are producing and to raise the bar.

The results from the OECD report clearly demonstrate that our education system is nowhere near the best in the world. Concerns expressed last year with regard to grade inflation at third level must also be addressed. There must be nowhere to hide in the education system. We must demand and get the best for our children.

I welcome the change in the administration of third level grants announced today by the Minister. Many Members will have had to deal with parents and students awaiting a response from local authorities as to whether they would get a grant or could afford to stay on in third level education. I welcome the centralisation of the administration to the City of Dublin Vocational Education Committee. The one regret I had when elected a Deputy was that I had to leave my colleagues in the CDVEC. I believe they will do an excellent job.

See this speech in context