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David McWilliams: 'Ireland is currently the best educated country in the EU.' True, or false?

  • 19-11-2022 6:19pm
    #1
    gaiscioch
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,534 ✭✭✭


    (Yes, the grammar Nazis will smugly note the irony of the missing hyphen between 'best' and 'educated'.)

    I've just read David McWilliams in today's Irish Times:

    'Although we might not appreciate it, Ireland is currently the best educated country in the EU. About 50 per cent of Irish people have completed tertiary education, and this is despite the fact we invest the least in education among OECD countries – only 3.1 per cent of GDP was invested in education in 2019. In the new united island, the school-going population would be in the range of 1-1.3 million by the middle of the century. If we are to improve the existing student-to-teacher ratio from 22:1 to the EU average for primary and secondary schools, 13:1, we would need to see the stock of teachers across the island to be pushed to about 100,000.' [https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/2022/11/19/david-mcwilliams-a-new-united-ireland-should-be-planning-for-a-population-of-10-million/]

    There's a lot there! I'm not sure whether McWilliams definition of 'best-educated' is a commonly accepted definition. Is the Irish school system really higher achieving than the internationally acclaimed Finnish education system, for instance? And if we have the 'best-educated' population in the EU with a pupil-teacher ratio of 22:1, then maybe we don't need to aim to reach the EU average pupil-teacher ration of 13:1 (that's a massive disparity between pupil-teacher ratios)?


    Is this 'best-educated' population the product of the old Leaving Certificate system which the government wants to replace - starting with the Junior Cycle reforms of recent years? Given that these reforms are greatly inspired by the criticisms of the OECD's very powerful (in education philosophy terms) Andreas Schleicher (https://www.oecd.org/education/andreas-schleicher.htm), might we lose this 'best-educated' status if we continue with OECD-approved "reforms" in education?

    Indeed, if Ireland invests the least in education in the OECD, has the highest pupil:teacher ratio and still produces the 'best-educated country in the EU', who can be credited for this success? Teachers? Alternatively, being a bit cynical about this 'best-educated' claim, is there any accurate way to compare the efficacy of education systems across the EU and, if there is, how does the Irish system fair in reality?



Comments

  • #2
    am_zarathustra
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,398 ✭✭✭am_zarathustra


    Interesting article and a point rarely picked up on. Objectively speaking the Irish education system is great value for money, we invest less than the OECD average and are well above average is every metric, be that PISA, retention, level of education........you start to see why internationally Irish teachers are held in high regard. We keep staff too, a blend of experience and new ideas is generally a good mix.


    We won't get any credit though!


    I'd be concerned with the new junior cert and the fact there will be very few experienced teachers in Dublin going forward. Most countries would avoid touching a system producing those kids of results.........



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