Maire Devine (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Today we found out from the Programme for International Student Assessment, PISA, which is published every three years, that Ireland ranked fourth out of the 36 OECD countries for the education of children.We should be proud of our education system in enabling our children to reach such high standards. Obviously, most of our education system is working well. When it comes to reading, science and mathematics, a group of 15 years olds were interviewed in 79 countries. When it comes to reading, science and mathematics we are out-performing other OECD countries. As I said, we ranked fourth out of 36.

Gender balance and gender attainment produced interesting results. Significantly, girls out-perform boys in reading but boys are holding their own in science and mathematics, where there are no significant differences. It gives us an insight into our youth, their interests and what we are doing. The low Internet use reported in Ireland is important. Students here use school books. It seems that they are less likely to report the negative feelings that heavy Internet users report. One thing that is somewhat concerning is the data on their well-being. Some three-fifths of teens said that they were not satisfied with their lives. That is above the overall average. They are significantly less satisfied than the average in OECD countries.

In July last year, the former Minister for Education and Skills, Deputy Bruton, launched the well-being policy statement and framework for practice in schools, clearly outlining the strong policies and actions that need to be in place to ensure students' sense of belonging. Perhaps the current Minister for Education and Skills could come to the House and update us on progress. Kudos goes to the students and parents. What we want mostly is for happy contented children to grow up into happy contented adults.

I want to give a shout out to the four new candidates, in particular my colleague, Deputy Mark Ward.