The employers' organisation, IBEC, is concerned at the high failure rates in key Leaving Certificate subjects and has called for a fundamental reappraisal of the grading system.
IBEC's assistant director, Mr Padraig O'Grady, said the education system is "unacceptably weak" on the number of students taking science subjects, particularly physics and chemistry, and also in the more technical business subjects like accountancy and economics. "It is crucial to Ireland's sustained economic development that a greater number of school-leavers be attracted to these subjects."
He said the recent problem of job losses in some sectors was a stark reminder that Ireland could not compete with developing economies for jobs that were low-skilled and paid less. "As we move higher up the value chain as a skills economy it is imperative that our education system adjusts to this rapid economic change."
The competitive situation whereby students have to fight for points to get into third-level courses under the current grading system made it a lot more sense to take biology or geography, he said. "At Leaving Certificate level the failure rate in physics/chemistry is 10 per cent more than in biology and pupils are more likely to get a pass grade in geography than in any other subject."
Mr O'Grady said the economy could continue to thrive only if the State marketed the strengths of the workforce. He called on teachers and examiners to engage people from the business and scientific communities to work with them on their assessment and examination procedures so more students would be attracted to science subjects.