AS IF loss of sovereignty, draconian budgets and sliding helplessly on melting ice were not enough, we are also sliding down the OECD literacy ratings, a dramatic fall from fifth to 17th place, writes
BREDA O'BRIEN
The primary teaching unions urge caution; that all may not be as it appears. However, even the redoubtable Sheila Nunan, the INTO general secretary, offers cold comfort. “In the case of reading, no significant changes in average performance at fifth class level have been recorded since 1980,” she says.
Barnardos, in its 2009 report on educational disadvantage, Written Out, Written Off, put it differently. “Unfortunately, literacy levels have remained largely unchanged since 1980 with one in three pupils from disadvantaged areas continuing to have severe literacy difficulties.”
So even if the OECD results are somehow wrong, our literacy levels are deeply worrying.
Early school-leaving is linked quite often to literacy problems. According to the Barnardo’s report, early school-leavers are three to four times more likely to be unemployed. They are 2.4 times more likely to describe their general health as “poor” or “fair”, 1.4 times more likely to report moderate or extreme anxiety or depression, and 4.5 times more likely to be in receipt of a medical card.
A sample of prisoners in Mountjoy showed that 80 per cent had left school before the age of 16, and 50 per cent had left before the age of 15. If all of this was true during the Celtic Tiger era, one shudders to think of future outcomes.
The Government has announced a greater emphasis on literacy and numeracy in primary teacher training. That is useful, but it only skims the surface of an entrenched problem.
Meanwhile, in the current Budget, the number of educational psychologists has been capped, despite the fact that the service has been over-stretched for years. There have been cuts to School Completion Programmes and Youthreach. (The latter targets young people who have dropped out of mainstream school.)
One of the explanations offered for the increase in illiteracy is the fact that ther are now far more children for whom English is not a first language. Guess what? This Budget announced cuts in language support teachers. Educational support for Travellers has been cut too. The pupil-teacher ratio for the Leaving Certificate Vocational Programme has been increased. Notice the pattern? It is the kids most at risk and marginalised who have lost the most.
As a result of these and other measures, numbers of teachers have been reduced. But don’t worry, there is a Fás scheme. Under the Work Placement Programme, schools will be able to employ for up to 40 hours a week, and for up to nine months, people who are currently unemployed. Can we really countenance young people working for Fás pay rates alongside colleagues earning multiples of that? Apparently, it is a way for young teachers at second level to fulfil the requirement of having 300 accredited teaching hours before being fully registered as qualified teachers by the Teaching Council. But what use will it be to be registered with no hope of getting a proper job? As it is, new teachers work for an average of 7½ years before getting a permanent job.
It is enough to make you despair. But that is not all. The very same disadvantaged children will be hit by cuts in child benefit and in unemployment assistance. Yes, I know, cuts had to come from somewhere. But we have made choices in this country, and continue to make them, in a way that penalises vulnerable children.
Literacy is not just about reading and writing. It is about being able play a full part in society. It is not just the absence of books. Sometimes the whole household is chaotic. Children thrive on stability, but they often do not get it. Literacy difficulties are obviously worst in areas of deprivation, but there are problems elsewhere, too. Parenting, and mothering in particular, has been devalued in our society.
The Budget penalised single-income married families yet again. A one-income married family on €60,000 per year will pay almost €5,000 extra in tax and charges each year compared with a double-income couple where one spouse earns €40,000 per year and the other earns €20,000. It is designed to increase workforce participation by women.
In extreme poverty, a mother in the workforce helps. For other children, the fact that prior to the recession both parents were in the paid workforce meant less time spent doing ordinary things, like counting steps as you climb stairs in a shop, or reading books at bedtime – all which lay the foundation for literacy and numeracy.
Combine this with less parental input even in stable, highly advantaged homes, and the surprise is that the statistics are not even worse.