Disparity is evident in education

Education Minister Ruairi Quinn rightly trumpeted the recent, relatively strong performance of Irish universities in the latest world rankings yesterday.

With two colleges in the top 200 of the Times Higher Education table last week, he told the Dáil we are seventh in proportion to our population of all countries represented inside that magic figure. For the proportions of people with third-level qualifications, he further boasted that Ireland is first in the EU and in the top five of developed countries.

But the director of the National Adult Literacy Agency, Inez Bailey, says that, welcome as such statistics may be, there has been insufficient policy or funding focus on the attainment of lower-skilled adults. Hours earlier, Ireland’s below-average ranking internationally in such skills had been revealed by the OECD.