Damien English (Meath, Fine Gael)
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Question 64: To ask the Minister for Education and Science the percentage of young persons leaving secondary school with literacy difficulties; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [12975/05]

Mary Hanafin (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)
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There is no facility within the education system to measure the percentage of young people leaving post-primary schools with literacy difficulties. However, the results of PISA, the programme of international student assessment, provide detailed information on the standards of reading literacy among Irish 15 year olds.

In the second cycle of PISA, which was carried out in 2003, Ireland ranked 6th in reading out of the 29 OECD countries for which results were analysed. Just three countries — Finland, Korea and Canada — had significantly higher scores than Ireland. The percentage of Irish students in the 2003 survey whose performance in reading was at or below level 1, the lowest level of proficiency, was 11%. The corresponding OECD average was 19.1%. The results of the first cycle of PISA, which took place in 2000, displayed similar differences in favour of Ireland. These outcomes provide strong evidence that, with regard to reading, there are proportionately fewer low achieving students in Ireland compared to the OECD.

Closer examination of the category of low achievement referred to reveals that 2.7% of Irish students performed below level 1 compared with the OECD average of 6.7%. This indicates that the proportion of students with serious reading difficulties in Ireland is less than half that of the OECD average. The results of PISA 2000 provide similar evidence with regard to the prevalence of reading difficulties of this nature among Irish 15 year olds.

Notwithstanding that, young people with poor levels of literacy are a source of concern for my Department. To address their needs, learning support teacher services are available to all second level schools. Currently, there are 528 whole time teacher equivalent posts for learning support. In addition, a total of 1388 whole time teacher posts are provided at second level to cater for students with special educational needs. All of these teachers prioritise the development of literacy skills.

There are also a number of initiatives at post-primary level that have students with literacy difficulties as their target group. The junior certificate school programme focuses specifically on developing literacy skills and schools participating in the school completion programme are given considerable financial resources to provide targeted students with opportunities to improve their literacy skills in accordance with their identified needs. The reduction of the numbers of students with literacy difficulties continues to be a key priority for my Department