Fergus O'Dowd (Louth, Fine Gael)
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Question 698: To ask the Tánaiste and Minister for Education and Skills the progress that has been made in delivering on smart economy proposals relating to the education sector; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [31209/10]

Mary Coughlan (Donegal South West, Fianna Fail)
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In December 2008 the Government published Building Ireland's Smart Economy: A Framework for Sustainable Economic Renewal. It centred on five key action areas: Securing the Enterprise Economy and Restoring Competitiveness; Building the Ideas Economy – Creating the Innovation Island; Enhancing the Environment and Securing Energy Supplies; Investing in Critical Infrastructure, and; Efficient and Effective Public Services and Smart Regulation.

A progress report on the Smart Economy Framework was published in March 2010. The progress report highlights key headline progress from the wide range of policy actions and developments in each of the five key action areas.

Key progress in the education sector highlighted in the report includes the following:- Higher education institutions have been responding to increasing demand for higher education by increasing the number of places they offer. CAO acceptances for the 2009/10 academic year, at 45,582, were up 8.3% on the previous year (2008/09), which in turn had seen an increase of 5.4% on 2007/08. The total number of full-time enrolments in higher education institutions aided by the Department of Education and Skills is projected to be more than 155,000 for the 2009/10 academic year. - In 2010, based on current participation rates, almost 48,000 learners will participate in full-time further education through the Youth reach, Vocational Training Opportunities Scheme, Senior Traveller Training Centres and PLC programmes. An estimated 125,000 learners will participate in part-time programmes under the adult literacy, community education and Back to Education Initiative Schemes. - A process to develop a new national strategy for higher education began in February 2009. Led by a high level strategy group comprising national and international expertise, it is examining how well Ireland's higher education system is performing, how it ranks internationally, how well existing resources are being used and how the system can be re-configured to best meet the many challenges it faces over the next decade having regard to the key role it has to play in contributing to Ireland's economic recovery. It is envisaged that the strategy will provide a vision and related set of national policy objectives for Irish higher education over the coming 20 years and identify the operational framework for the higher education system which will enable it deliver these objectives. The strategy group are expected to finalise their report before the summer. - Project Maths, which is designed to bring about a changed approach to student learning of mathematics, with greater use of contexts and applications and greater emphasis on the development of problem-solving skills, began in 24 post-primary schools in 2008, and will begin in all schools in September 2010. Project Maths is being implemented on a phased basis over 5 strands of Mathematics. Leaving Certificate candidates in the 24 initial schools were examined on strands 1 and 2 for the first time in June 2010. In addition, the Project Maths Implementation Support Group presented its report to me on how stakeholders can work together to help achieve the objectives of the Project Maths in May of this year.

The full Smart Economy progress report is available on the Department of the Taoiseach's website: www.taoiseach.ie.