International Assessment: According to a recent international report, our education system is performing admirably. It's now time consider the contribution that teachers have made says John White, Deputy General Secretary of the ASTI

We have heard the strident voices on Irish education over the past year. Now is the time for reflection in a cool hour. The publication of the OECD's Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) report, which assessed 15-year-old students in second-level schools in 27 OECD countries, provides the opportunity for such reflection.

While all involved in Irish education, and primarily pupils and their teachers, can deservedly feel proud of the results in PISA, we must never allow a narrow, quantitative league-table syndrome to dominate our thinking in relation to the education service. In any consideration of quality in education, it is important to guard against allowing quantitative data to overwhelm the central core of a grounded philosophy of education. Such a philosophy must be founded upon respect for the dignity of each pupil who attends our schools; academic attainment is not synonymous with human value and, however precariously, the tradition of Irish education has respected this.

With these caveats, the results of the PISA report provide a welcome boost for our education service and for our second-level teachers, who have had to absorb shrill criticism over the past year.

PISA was implemented in 27 OECD member countries and four additional countries. OECD member countries include the industrialised nations of the EU together with other developed countries, such as the US, Canada, Australia, Japan and New Zealand.

The assessment in the year 2000 concentrated on reading literacy and also involved less comprehensive tests in mathematical literacy and scientific literacy. Here, the tests were administered by Department of Education and Science inspectors in 139 schools and 3,854 pupils took part.

Despite our under-resourced education system, the results achieved in the State's schools are excellent. In the reading literacy, we achieved the fifth-highest score among the 27 OECD countries which met the necessary participation criteria. Just one country, Finland, achieved a significantly higher score. In scientific literacy, which was less comprehensively tested, Ireland ranked ninth overall with a score significantly higher than the OECD average. We are ranked, for example, significantly higher than such countries as Germany and Switzerland.

In mathematical literacy, which was also less comprehensively tested, the Republic of Ireland ranked 15th and the performance of students here did not differ significantly from the OECD average.

The authors of the report state that care should be exercised in interpreting outcomes and, that a country's rank is "a crude measure" of performance.

They go on to state that "interpreted with care, such information can provide valuable insights into a country's education system in a comparative context".

These requests for a modest response were certainly not adhered to by certain pundits in response to the results for Irish participants in the international adult-literacy survey, even though it can be argued that these results reflected the fact that free second-level education was only introduced in the late 1960s.

However, accepting and indeed affirming the "crude measure" caveat, some conclusions can tentatively be drawn.

Firstly, the innovative Junior Certificate syllabus in English introduced in 1989, which loosened the procrustean nature of the old Intermediate Certificate syllabus, has borne fruit. The education service owes a debt to all the teachers who introduced the Junior Certificate with less than adequate resources and to Tom Mullins from UCC, who was the education officer to the NCCA committee which drew up this syllabus.

Secondly, the international report states that it is disappointed that a significant minority of 15-year-olds display negative attitudes to school. This will come as no surprise to teachers who deal with such attitudes on a daily basis.

Well-resourced initiatives in the area of curriculum, school discipline, teacher training and parental support are necessary.

Thirdly, given that students in homes with a positive educational environment (as measured by the amount of books in the home as distinct from socio-economic status - though there is wide overlap between the two) achieved significantly higher scores, parents' groups might consider devoting resources and energies towards encouraging parents to make improvements in this area. To assist this, the Government should expand the Home School Community Liaison Scheme.

Lastly, in a section in the international report entitled "What can schools do to make a difference?" it states that qualified teachers are among a school's "most valuable resource".

It is appropriate that we in Ireland remind ourselves of the quality of our teachers, of the need to value our teachers and to address the salary issue so as to ensure this quality is retained in the future to the benefit of our whole community.