Innovation skills absent from Irish schools

THE creativity and innovation skills needed to foster economic growth feature less than the EU average in Irish schools programmes, an international study has found.

The shortfall highlighted in an EU Commission update on how member countries’ education systems are performing shows that creativity, innovation and similar terms are three times more prominent in the curricula for primary and second-level schools in the North.

The emphasis on these skills was measured for the commission’s Joint Research Centre study across subjects under the arts, languages, maths, sciences, social and personal education headings, with the use of terms like entrepreneurship, invention, cutting edge and risk-taking also sought in the analysis of Ireland’s school curricula.