Life-long learning
Investment in education has also fuelled the country's advances within the EU. More recently, the importance of creating a "knowledge society" is often stressed in business and government circles. The target of a €15bn Higher Education Authority plan is that by 2020 seven out of 10 Leaving Cert students will go on to third level, as against 56pc today.
Yet today we learn that an astonishing 38pc of people aged over 15, whose full-time education has ceased, have not even completed secondary school.
This enormous obstacle to a "knowledge economy" is obvious.
How can we aspire to have a competitive, technologically skilled "knowledge economy" if four out of 10 adults have not even gained a Leaving Cert? One in six did not even begin secondary eduction.
How can we ensure that a high proportion of these are given the opportunity to further their education as other European countries are doing?
The National Report on Lifelong Learning today makes detailed recommendations on how a potentially disastrous situation may be rectified.
If talk of a "knowledge economy" is anything more than hot air and lip service, those recommendations should be taken on board by the Department of Education and Science and implemented.
