Seanad debates

Wednesday, 7 March 2007

3:00 pm

Photo of Ulick BurkeUlick Burke (Fine Gael)

Reducing class size requires substantial investment. We know from OECD reports that Ireland's expenditure on education, at 4.5% of GDP, is the second lowest of 30 OECD countries. This figure is indicative of our lack of commitment to primary education. In recent years, we have repeatedly argued that failure to invest in primary education will result in children being lost forever. Every year, as many as 1,000 children fail to transfer from primary to secondary education and drop-out levels are even higher in secondary schools. This is a serious problem.

Yesterday, at the launch of a job skills report, the Minister for Education and Science stated Ireland must address skills levels and increase the number of students in third level. This objective will not be achieved with such high drop-out rates. What have the Minister or her predecessor, the Minister for Communications, Marine and Natural Resources, Deputy Noel Dempsey, done to provide the necessary investment in recent years?

Information technology is another vital issue. Ireland trails practically every other OECD country in investment in IT, ranking 29th out of 30 states in the 2006 report, Education at a Glance, in terms of IT investment. The Minister promised that all teachers would be allocated a laptop to assist them in their work to further IT penetration in the classroom. This commitment, given in 2002, has never come to fruition. One quarter of Irish children aged under 15 years use computers frequently at school compared to an OECD average of approximately 40%. This is a further illustration of a dishonoured commitment. Despite the Government's many statements and commitments on the importance of IT in education, children in primary and early second level education do not have access to computers.

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