The recently published OECD report, Education at a Glance 2008, found that the percentage of Ireland’s wealth allocated to education was one of the lowest of the OECD member countries.

The report found that:

• Ireland has the third lowest education spend in Europe with the proportion of GDP invested in education at 4.6 per cent;
• Of the 30 countries surveyed, only Britain, Japan, Korea and Turkey, have bigger classes than Ireland.
• Luxembourg has the smallest classes, at 15.6 pupils per class, compared with an average class size of 21.5 pupils.
• Irish primary schools have an average of 24.5 pupils per class - the second largest of the EU countries surveyed. Only Britain fared worse, with one more pupil per class than in Irish schools.
• On average, there are four more pupils in Irish classes than in other EU countries.
• Irish primary teachers spend more time in class than those in other countries. On average, primary school masters teach 812 hours per year. This compares with less than 650 hours in Denmark and Turkey to more than 1,000 in the USA.
• Participation in job-related training in Ireland is at 11% compared to 35% in Denmark, Finland, Sweden and the US.

The report also examined the incentives to invest in education and estimated the rate of return from education. The financial benefits to government from investing in education go much further than revenue growth from increased wages and other payments, the report said.

It said that in practice, raising levels of education would give rise to ‘‘a complex set of fiscal effects’’ beyond those related to higher wages. For example, those with better education generally had better health, which lowered public expenditure on the provision of healthcare.

‘‘As earnings generally rise with educational attainment, there is more consumption of goods and services among the more educated, and this gives rise to fiscal effects beyond income tax and social security contributions,” the report said.

The report found that in Ireland there was no tax and expenditure data compiled on these indirect effects of education.

Diarmuid de Paor, deputy general-secretary of the Association of Secondary Teachers Ireland (ASTI), agreed that "in addition to increasing revenue, it [education investment] also has other societal benefits, which include improved health, lower crime rates and increased spending by the better educated”.

Fine Gael Education spokesman Brian Hayes warned that Ireland is heading in the wrong direction.

“It is extremely worrying that Ireland is hitting the bottom end of the scale in almost every category. The bleak statistics revealed [in the OECD report] should act as a warning signal to the current Government that the education sector should not be neglected...

"We cannot continue to slash resources in education and expect to compete on an international scale in terms of educational output.

“...If we are going to come out of this [economic] downturn with a well-educated and skilled workforce contributing to a vibrant ‘knowledge economy’, the trends revealed by the OECD need to be reversed.”
(Sources: Irish Independent, Sunday Business Post, Fine Gael Press Office)