The General Secretary of the Irish Vocational Education Association (IVEA), Michael Moriarty, in welcoming the Taoiseach’s announcement to commit some €150 million to a new plan providing laptops and computer software for every school in the State, highlighted the extent to which Ireland has fallen behind comparable OECD countries in the application of contemporary information technology to supporting teaching and learning in our schools.

‘While the Taoiseach’s announcement is very much a step in the right direction’, said Mr Moriarty, ‘Ireland still has a steep ICT skills mountain to climb to ensure that that its school leavers are equipped to take advantage of employment opportunities in a knowledge economy where ICT skills, and the skills that they subsequently spawn, are essentially the new literacies. If, as is widely acknowledged, skills are the leavers that drive national prosperity, ICT skills are the fulcrums on which these leavers rotate.’

Apart, altogether from the ICT skills that learners acquire in the course of an education that facilitates the development of such skills, the appropriate harnessing of ICT in schools hugely improves learner outcomes by facilitating the individualisation of learning and the differentiation of teaching – thus ensuring that individual students learning needs are met to the maximum possible degree.

According to Mr Moriarty, ‘future employability will be very much determined by the job-seeker’s capacity to use ICT in every area of employment. Irrespective of the job that may be involved, workers will need to be able to use ICT efficiently and effectively’.

In Mr Moriarty’s opinion, ‘ensuring that our young jobseekers possess the necessary ICT skills will require not only State investment in hardware, software, maintenance and teacher training, but also a clear outcomes-based plan to ensure that the funds being made available are used to produce the desired outcomes – school leavers with the ICT skills essential both to availing of the job opportunities as they become available and to attracting jobs to Ireland through foreign investment. The reality is that foreign investors will only be attracted to invest in Ireland if we can demonstrate that our work-force has the ICT skills critical to modern business operations’.

‘In April 2007’, said Mr Moriarty, ‘IVEA, in a submission to the Minister’s Schools’ ICT strategy Group had called for a coherent programme to make it possible for all schools to use ICT effectively in every aspect of their work. The IVEA submission had also set out, in detail, what needed to be done in the context of such a programme.
Unfortunately, nearly three years have passed without any real progress being made. It is vital now that the €150M announced today be allocated immediately to kick start the upskilling of future workers - before our situation becomes irretrievable.

Subsequently, in 2008, the DES Inspectorate and the Minister’s ICT Strategy Group produced reports that clearly highlighted the extent to which Ireland was failing to adapt the capacity of modern Information and Communications Technology to the needs of schools, their learners and Irish society generally.

The Smart Economy = Smart Schools report published today amounts to a significant development in that it specifies what Ireland must do in a time-frame context, to catch up with other OECD countries in the ICT skills race. Furthermore, it does this very much from the point of view of the ICT industry.
Indeed, not only does the report address the critical issues of classroom infrastructure, technical support, virtual learning environments, teacher professional development, enhanced broadband for schools and digital content for schools, it also addresses the critical issues of ICT planning, multi-annual budgets to 2012 and the putting in place of a Steering Group, drawn from key stakeholders to direct and oversee the implementation of the plan.

Minister O’Keeffe’s announcement that the Steering Group will be chaired by the Managing Director of Microsoft, Paul Rellis, is also very much welcomed. His position within the ICT industry bodes well for what the Taoiseach has announced today’.