Educate our childen to think, not simply to remember, Quinn tells conference
Issued : Saturday 17 April, 2010
Statement by Ruairi Quinn TD
Minister for Education and Skills
Ireland's education system needs radical reform and substantial investment.
Many of our school buildings are a national disgrace. They are a graphic reflection of the Fianna Fail-led speculators building binge. Today, we have 120,000 houses lying empty across the country, while at the same time 50,000 of our primary pupils are being educated in pre-fabs.
165 schools are spending over €50,000 a year renting pre-fabs. This would cover the mortgage on a permanent school building.
Labour will change all that with a transparent building programme, replacing temporary pre-fabs and establishing new schools to meet the needs of our growing student population.
There are currently 500,000 pupils in our 3,200 primary schools.
That number will increase to 600,000 in ten year's time.
We must plan for their future now. A new school building programme will create jobs which are badly needed in the construction sector.
At secondary level, we have to take a serious look at both the Junior and Leaving Certificate state examinations. Many educationalists are now agreed that we need to move from teaching students to learn to remember into learning how to think. We have become far too complacent about our educational system. For many students it is a good experience but for a minority, particularly disadvantaged families, it is a failure. 20% of our students, mostly young men, leave school functionally illiterate. Consequently, their future employment prospects are bleak.
We have good teachers but they need help.
By international standards, among the thirty OECD countries, we are merely average for literacy in maths and science and fifth place for reading literacy. This is not the world class education system that we need to build the smart knowledge economy and which will create our future prosperity.
That is why Labour will build a national consensus around increasing our spending on education from the European average of 5% up to 7% of GDP over a five year period. This is the only way that we can repair the damage done to our education system by thirteen years of Fianna Fail's under- investment at an unprecedented time of prosperity.
At third level, we need to ensure our Universities are recognised as Centres of Excellence by the international community. This sector has been deliberately underfunded by this government. Fianna Fail wants to bring back undergraduate fees which Labour successfully abolished in 1995. We will not let that happen. The campaign of Labour Youth and the Union of Students in Ireland has been successful.
Third level education is not free. Ask any student or their parents. Undergraduate students already pay a €1,500 student charge which is higher than the fees charged in some universities in other European Union countries. Bringing back undergraduate fees would put a real barrier between third level education and those very students that we need to go to college.
Increasing financial resources for third level education is an investment in all our futures, in our young people and in our economy. But the universities and third level colleges must also improve their own performances as well. Greater productivity and enhanced co-operation and collaboration are required.
Ireland has a unique opportunity to get a much bigger share of the international student market. But we are not doing enough to attract foreign students from Asia and America. When they do come, the Department of Justice puts numerous obstacles in their way. Labour will close down the bogus English language schools and the so called 'Universities' instead of harassing genuine students and their families. Ireland could earn substantial revenues for our Third Level Sector by increasing the number of students that want to be educated in an English speaking environment in top class colleges.
We are just six years away from the centenary of the Proclamation of 1916.
One hundred years ago Ireland was a very different country to our present modern State.
The dominant control by the Catholic Church of our primary and secondary schools no longer reflects the contours of our modern, diverse and pluralist society. The Catholic Church controls 92% of all our primary schools in which a Catholic ethos and faith formation is an integral part of the daily school curriculum. This can no longer continue in its present form.
Article 42 of our Constitution recognises the primary role of parents in choosing the school, whose ethos they want for their children. Today, many parents, including Catholic parents, cannot exercise that constitutional right. That is why Labour, in Government, will establish a National Forum on Patronage and Pluralism in the primary sector with participation from all of the stake holders so as to provide a wider range of choice and ethos in our primary schools.
The cost of the Redress Board established to compensate the victims of abuse while under State care in institutions run by some Religious Congregations, was much more than originally anticipated. The secretative deal done by Bertie Ahern and Michael Woods on behalf of Fianna Fail meant that the 18 Religious Congregations paid just 10% of the €1.3billion cost of the Redress Board. The Irish taxpayer has paid the rest. This is not fair.
I welcome the Government's decision that the Religious Congregations should share the costs of the Redress Board on a 50:50 basis. However, the government has said the Religious Orders will need to find an extra €200 million to reach this goal.
We all know that the Congregations are ageing with elderly members who need and are entitled to decent care. Money is understandably scarce and we all know how expensive nursing care is.
That is why Labour will negotiate with the 18 religious congregations to secure the transfer, at no cost to the State, the legal ownership of their schools and educational infrastructure.
These schools will continue to operate under the existing Patronage arrangements until such time as they decide otherwise. We simply cannot allow this critical infrastructure to be sold off. Besides, most if not all, of the buildings were constructed with the assistance from the Irish taxpayer.
This transfer by the Religious Congregations would go a long way towards making a fair and just contribution to the massive Redress costs.
A progressive, modern and professionally delivered education system, accessible to all, is the real pathway to equality in our society.
Education is the necessary foundation for the construction of a prosperous and intelligent knowledge based economy. Equality and prosperity are now the two sides of the same coin of investment in education. Combined together, they make Labour's commitment to education not only the right thing to do but the best thing to do.
ENDS
Contact Ruairi Quinn - 087 262 1946
