A new Government reading campaign will have a "significant impact" on poor literacy levels among primary pupils within two years, the Minister for Education and Science, Mr Martin, has predicted.
Mr Martin said the programme sought to put reading and books at the centre of the education system. He said the State should aim to be among the top quarter of OECD members in terms of literacy.
The current performance put the State in "middle of the international league table", which was not good enough. It was not just a problem for schools, but also parents who needed to sit down and read with their children more often.
The Minister was speaking after a survey disclosed that one in 10 primary pupils has significant literacy problems and there has been no improvement in almost 20 years.
He outlined details of the £2.5 million national reading initiative, which will include a media campaign to emphasise to parents and children the importance of reading. It also makes provision for overhauling the remedial teaching service, which Mr Martin said had "weaknesses". The service was outdated because it still operated by taking low-achieving pupils out of the main classroom and "isolating" them with a remedial teacher.
The availability of books was the most important factor in tackling the disappointing levels of literacy, the Minister said. Consequently, £6.5 million had been allocated recently for schools to buy books for their libraries.
At the end of the year the new campaign would be reviewed and further funding would be allocated. "We don't believe the problem will be solved immediately," he said.
There was a connection between adult and child literacy problems, and the Minister admitted that sitting down with children to read was not an option for adults with their own difficulties. He pointed out, however, that the number of people availing of their local literacy tuition service had doubled compared to last year.
The Irish National Teachers' Organisation responded to the survey results by saying that "teachers are not the cause of the problem, but they could be part of the solution".
A statement said a national literacy committee needed to be set up and that early intervention in the classroom was needed.
It suggested that in the second or third term of junior or senior infants class, pupils with difficulties should be identified by their teacher. The school would then ask for a literacy specialist to be appointed who would work with the pupils.
The Fine Gael spokesman on education, Mr Richard Bruton, said the £2.5 million for the national reading campaign was "derisory". The spending was "in stark contrast" to the £250 million allocated to research spending in the third-level sector.
The remedial teaching service had been starved of resources for years and the Department was failing to give technical support to it, Mr Bruton said. Mr Martin had sought political popularity by spreading the remedial service to a wider range of schools, rather than extra recruitment for disadvantaged schools.
Mr Martin responded to Mr Bruton's comments by accusing the last government of complacency over literacy. He said the Government was not just spending £2.5 million, but over £60 million on literacy-related programmes this year.
The remedial service was not starved of resources. Instead, he said, the Government would, for the first time, have a remedial teacher in every school.
Further details of the survey by four researchers from the Educational Research Centre based at St Patrick's College, Drumcondra, have been released.
The survey showed that pupils coped best with tasks requiring "the application of mechanical skills of reading". They were less successful in dealing with the comprehension of continuous text.
The reading achievements of pupils is related to home background, according to the survey. Factors include their parents' level of education, the "educational climate" in the home and the number of books and study aids in the house.