Sometimes the debate gets stuck on a small item and ignores the larger issue; that is, it can’t see the forest for the trees. Take the debate over the mobile phone pouches. While not downplaying the issue of protecting children from public health threats, the debate has been over €9 million. Yet, when compared to other European countries, Ireland significantly under-invests on education. A lot of debate on the former, none on the latter – forest for the trees.
Take primary education: Ireland would have to spend hundreds of millions more just at the primary level to match the investment by other high-income EU countries.
Ireland is at the bottom of the table, bar France. To reach Austrian, Swedish and Danish levels, Irish spending on primary education would have to increase by nearly 40 percent, or a massive €1.7 billion. To reach Finland, who is just ahead of us in the table, spending would have to increase by 11 percent, or approximately €500 million.
These are significant sums and helps explain why so many schools are forced to rely on household ‘voluntary’ contributions. Even the parsimonious Germans spend more than we do – 16 percent more.
In fact, Ireland spends less on primary education than some mid-income economies. Slovenia, Cyprus, Italy, and Malta all spend more than Ireland, while we are only marginally ahead of much poorer economies such as Poland and Estonia.
This story is not confined to primary levels. Ireland lags behind most other high-income European countries in secondary and third level educational investment. In the early years sector, while the Government has ramped up investment over the last few years, we still trail the EU average spend of 0.7 percent of GDP. In 2025, Irish investment in early years’ education and care will be approximately 0.4 percent of GNI*. We’d have to increase investment in this area by over €900 million to reach the EU average; never mind UNICEF’s target spend of 1 percent of national income.
We are paying for decades of under-investment in our educational sectors. And none of this factors in related programmes such R&D, adult education and in-work training. Yet, we spend considerable time debating a relatively minor piece of expenditure such as mobile pouches.
Low educational expenditure can have a deleterious effect on people’s life-chances and living standards into adulthood. This makes it a key social issue. But it is also a key economic issue. How curious, then, when all the talk is about ‘competitiveness’, there is little time spent discussing our low educational investment. In the future, ‘human capital’ will be vital as economic growth will come to depend more and more on innovation – not only what we produce, but how we produce it. An innovative economy, as well as a progressive society, will need skilled workers, and continuous education and training throughout people’s entire lives.
The Minister for Finance described the budget as ‘transformational’:
“Today’s Budget is . . . unique in the opportunity it presents to plan, transform and deliver for the future. And that future is not just about next month, next year or the next decade, it is about ensuring that the children born today in Ireland and every day from here on can live prosperous and fulfilled lives. They will enjoy better healthcare, live longer, have better education, more housing and significant infrastructure improvements as a result of the decisions made today.”
Hopefully. But we are doing ourselves considerable damage, socially and economically, both today and into the future, by under-investing in education. The first step in a truly transformational strategy is to acknowledge the real deficits we face today and, in this case, our relatively low levels of educational investment.
That means being focused on the forest, regardless of the individual trees.