Government under fire over funding for sciences

Paul O’Brien

As the Department of Education ponders another year of troubling Leaving Certificate science results, it has been accused of ignoring a 2002 expert report which recommended ways of addressing the decline.

Education Minister Mary Hanafin yesterday appealed to students who received their results to consider science, engineering and technology courses, saying they were "critically important to support the growth of high value knowledge-based industries in Ireland".

However, she ruled out providing the funding that the Task Force on the Physical Sciences, in its 2002 report, said was critical to address the fall-off in interest among students.

The opposition, business leaders and education experts claim by failing to implement the recommendations in full, the Government could be jeopardising Ireland's economic future.

The task force, established by the Government and chaired by the former head of Dublin City University, Dr Danny O'Hare, ecommended a six-point strategy to address the problem but warned the plan was holistic. "For success, it must all be carried out in full and simultaneously," it stated.

The plan required once-off capital investment of E178 million for facilities and equipment, and annual spending of E66m.

"What is at stake is the ability of our young economy to continue to grow, and to maintain the success already achieved," it warned.

But earlier this year, Ms Hanafin said: "Funds are not available at present to progress the strategy on the scale recommended in the report."

A key recommendation was to provide technical assistants to help teachers with lab work in schools at an annual cost of E18.8m.

But Ms Hanafin said this "would lead to demands for similar assistance across other areas of the curriculum with a strong practical component".

While she said progress had been made on 25 of the 35 recommendations applicable to her department, the Irish Business and Employers Confederation (IBEC) yesterday said there was little evidence of this.

"If the department says they've implemented a lot of the recommendations, they haven't worked," said spokesman Brendan Butler.

"There's clearly a discrepancy between what the department is saying and what industry is seeing on the ground."

Dr O'Hare said few of the recommendations had been implemented.

"Sadly, the issues covered by the task force are largely as they were when its report was written," he said.

He said the cost involved was "modest in the context of what is at stake".

The Labour Party's Jan O'Sullivan said the Government was being shortsighted. "There would be multiple results from putting in this kind of investment, and no losses," she said.