Improving Quality in our Schools
Yesterday, I had a comment piece published in the Irish Times on how to improve the quality of educational outcomes in our schools. You can read the article in full below.
MUCH HAS been written, and even more promised, about a knowledge economy. Yet, too often the focus has been on the high-level goals of our third level institutions, at the expense of the building blocks of a knowledge society – literacy, maths and science education at primary and second level.
It will be the foundations laid by our school system that determine how we fare in the race to a 21st century knowledge economy. The Irish education system does well, relative to the resources it has. However, the widely-held belief that we have “the best education system in the world” falls far short of reality.
Yes, Ireland is fifth in the OECD league for literacy, but one in three children in some disadvantaged schools has severe literacy difficulties, compared to one in 10 children in the general population. Overall literacy levels have not significantly improved since 1980.
We know Irish students rank about average in international league tables for maths and science. There are worryingly low levels of uptake for higher level maths – a mere 16 per cent of the class of 2009. Last year, 4,292 pupils failed maths, the bulk of them at ordinary level.
We can start with literacy. For Labour, it is a matter of principle that no child should leave primary school unable to read and write. We need to examine how we teach literacy, with more intensive pre-service and continuous training for teachers. There should be additional literacy training for teachers in disadvantaged schools. Every school should have a literacy policy, which involves parents with target outcomes.
Literacy beyond the school gates is important too – a principle which informs Labour’s Right to Read campaign. This includes extending the opening hours of local libraries, setting up community-based homework clubs and improving social housing so that there is a quiet space to do homework.
I welcome the Project Maths reforms to the second-level maths curriculum – which Labour has called for since 2006. However, we need to pay as much attention to how maths is taught and learned, as to curriculum content. This means reforming teacher in-service training that focuses on students’ understanding and problem-solving skills, not just “getting through the course’.
We also need to address maths teachers’ skills. Up to 48 per cent of second level maths teachers do not have a qualification in that subject. This reflects, in part, the difficulty in attracting maths, science, engineering and other similar graduates into teaching. Labour will examine the development of an online course for graduate engineers, physicists, professional scientists and others to qualify as second level teachers.
There is a need for a fundamental reform of the maths syllabus at higher, ordinary and foundation level so that students can choose their level based on aptitude, rather than a pressure for points or fear of failure. However, higher level maths will always be challenging and should attract bonus points.
The third area where we need to do better is science. At a most basic level, every second level school needs to be able to offer each of the science subjects to their pupils. Labour’s proposals for a major school refurbishment and building programme include equipping schools with modern lab facilities.
The old and slow ways of introducing change in our primary and secondary schools can no longer be tolerated. We have neither the time, nor the economic space, to travel the low road of incremental improvements.
We must consciously, as a nation, put our children on the high road if they are to find their way to the knowledge economy upon which all our futures depend.
Ruairi,
Everything you say is true. One way to help deal with it would be to address the issue of time wasted in national schools placing specious ideas into the minds of our children.
People are entitled to entertain irrational beliefs so long as they do not in any way damage others as a result. Irrational beliefs are those that are held in the absence of evidence for their validity.
There are many irrational beliefs. Belief in the efficacy of astrology; in the usefulness of homeopathic medicine; that water can be found by use of a hazel twig in the hands of a ‘water diviner’; that there exists in every human a soul that survives after their death.
Children do not have a choice about which beliefs they should hold. This is because there is an element in the genetic makeup of all creatures which makes the young trusting of the information given them by their parents and, by extension, by authority figures in general. This is important for survival as, without it, the immature would be in jeopardy before they would ever have the chance to gain sufficient experience themselves to recognise danger. Children, by and large, accept instruction in such matters as how to cross the road safely and how to avoid risk by not accepting the blandishments of strangers. These things are recognised as hazards by adults because of the large body of firm evidence that has been built up to show that this is the case.
I have a problem, as an objective matter of principle, with people taking advantage of this natural defence mechanism to inculcate irrational beliefs into the minds of children.
The most significant example of where this happens is in the indoctrination of children in the precepts of the Catholic Church in the national schools of this country. The Church authorities are fond of invoking what they call parental choice in this matter. There are a number of problems with this: Firstly, If the Catholic Church were really in favour of parental choice it would have no difficulty with a state of affairs existing in this jurisdiction where abortion were legislated for in the same way as in other developed countries. Secondly, in many cases, the state itself is prepared, correctly, to intervene where parental choice is inimical to the health of children, such as when members of a particular religious group try to prevent blood transfusions for their children when they are indicated by medical opinion.
There is no doubt that we are some way from enacting legislation that would prevent children’s natural credulity from being used by those who would take advantage of it to further their own ends or to build up a following. There is, however, one thing we can, and should, do now. We should ensure, as a state, that we do not allow public money to be used for this purpose.
Sincerely,
Seamus McKenna