Understanding the success of Irish education

When people talk of high-achieving nations in school education, they usually cite Singapore, China, Japan, and maybe Finland (before their results fell). Those who follow the debate more closely know of the strong performance of Canadian provinces such as Alberta. But no one talks about Ireland.

The popular imagination Ireland is a country of extraordinary history, great books and music, beautiful scenery, pubs in picturesque villages and Guinness, not of excellent schools and high-performing young people. It’s an outmoded perception that needs to change.

Staying the Course on What Matters Most: Ireland’s Education System, a report written by Learning First shows that Ireland has one of the world’s most successful school systems. In school-age reading it outperforms all countries except one. Only Singapore finished higher in the world rankings in the latest (2022) OECD reading assessment of 15-year-old students.

In Maths and Science Ireland is also above the OECD average. Ninety-five per cent of Irish students attain upper secondary education, while between 60 and 70 per cent go straight from school to university.

While Ireland’s culture and history help to explain these achievements, the foundation for success is the same as in every high-performing system around the world: a strong, knowledge-rich curriculum and assessment system, effective instruction, and a strong teacher workforce, all backed up by policies to ensure consistency across schools and classrooms. The lessons for Australia, a lower-performing system on international tests, are stark. 

Culture and history

The Irish have “an uncontested belief that participation in education is a force for good, and from that stems everything,” says Sheila Nunan, former president of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions and former Secretary-General of the Irish National Teachers’ Organisation. That uncontested belief stretches back many centuries. Ireland was a centre of learning and religion during the Middle Ages, a ‘land of saints and scholars’. Its cultural identity has deep literary roots and strong branches: a culture of oral storytelling, a reverence for books and learning, and pride in Irish poets and writers.

This proud education tradition emerged in large part from cultural, religious, and political resistance to the long period of English and British rule from the 12th century to the 20th. From the 16th to the late 18th century, schools run by Catholics and Presbyterians were discouraged and then prohibited, allowing only Anglican schools.

In response, Catholics and Presbyterians set up secret “hedge schools”, often located behind a hedgerow, or in barns or the back rooms of houses. These schools gave children a basic education and the fight to maintain them under British colonial rule is part of Irish lore. They were the main source of schooling for many children until a National School System was established in 1831. Even today, government ministers, education officials and teachers cite hedge schools as evidence of the importance of education to Irish life.

The Church remains central to education, and almost 90 per cent of Irish primary schools and about half of secondary schools are Catholic. Ireland also has a long history of people emigrating to start careers and establish lives in other countries. Many people Learning First spoke to in Ireland highlighted the desire parents have long had to give their children a good education so they could prosper in Ireland or abroad.

Curriculum and assessment

For decades, Ireland has had a strong knowledge-rich curriculum. Unlike Australia and some other lower-performing systems, it didn’t go down the path of teaching general capabilities and 21st century skills.

The Irish curriculum goes into great detail about the ‘what’ and ‘how’ of student learning. It clearly guides teachers on content, pedagogy, learning outcomes, and assessment. Curriculum content is clearly stated and has changed little over time -- recent reforms to lower-secondary years are the first curriculum changes since 1999. Stability gives Irish teachers confidence in what to teach and enables them time to continually improve how they teach that content. They don’t have to spend their time trying to interpret vague curriculum content that changes regularly. 

Standardised assessments in primary school and external examinations in secondary school reinforce national curriculum content. International research has long shown that exams provide clarity on what is most important in the curriculum. Irish secondary students take their first set of examinations in virtually every subject at age 15, at the end of what is known as the Junior Cycle.

At the end of Senior Cycle, students sit examinations for the Leaving Certificate. Grades are aggregated and converted to points, which largely determine entry into university courses, similar to the method used in Australia’s ATAR system. Irish teachers strongly support external examinations in secondary school, and past attempts to remove them from the Junior Cycle failed after resistance from teacher unions and teachers.

On top of national external examinations, a strong assessment system provides the backbone of many schools’ approaches. Weekly tests of spelling or multiplication tables – “the Friday test” – are common, as are mid-year and end-of-year exams in secondary schools. Frequent assessments can benefit learning as students are more likely to remember what they’ve learned when they must retrieve information stored in long term memory to answer questions.

Irish teaching and classroom practice tends to be traditional. Textbooks are widely used and popular with teachers, leaders and families. Many teachers and system leaders we spoke to all emphasised structured, teacher-led lessons as the dominant form of instruction.

Primary and secondary schools also commit significant time to literature. Phonics has been used to teach reading for years and in secondary school novels are mandated, with students required to study a set number from prescribed text lists in both Irish (Gaeilge) and English. Novels also provide rich resources for students to read as they study diverse subjects. 

Strong teacher workforce

The impact of strong teaching cannot be overestimated. Teaching in Ireland is a high-status, relatively well-paid profession. In any town, a teacher is generally as well regarded as the local solicitor or doctor. Harold Hislop, former Chief Inspector with the Department of Education and Skills, says that “if your son or daughter says they want to be a teacher, you’re delighted.” Entry into high-quality teaching programs is competitive. Admission to university to study primary teaching, for instance, requires applicants to achieve at around the same level as applicants to law and engineering programs.

Universities focus on teaching new teachers how to effectively teach the national curriculum in Irish schools and classrooms.  “The curriculum is front and centre in initial teacher education,” says Jennifer O’Sullivan, lecturer in literacy education at Marino Institute of Education. Courses align closely with the national curriculum and combine a focus on understanding the subject content with practice in how to teach it, alongside extensive in-school experience.

Ireland’s approach to education reform is deliberate and collaborative. The 1998 Education Act enshrined Ireland’s social partnership tradition, in which government, employers and workers collaborate to achieve reform. Change can take time, but it makes wild swings in policy and practice less likely. Sheila Nunan says: “I have found the slow pace of change frustrating at times, but it’s the wisdom of the crowd to slowly, slowly make change.”

Covid and lockdowns

Most school systems around the world – especially in Europe and the United States – experienced significant drops in performance during the Covid lockdowns. But Ireland’s performance on international and national assessments remained relatively stable. Researchers and policy makers have flocked to Ireland to understand why. Had it found some innovative new way to reduce the impact of lockdowns, or discovered new technology that would enable better learning at home?

The answer is a resounding no. Education leaders and teachers worked extremely hard to support student learning at home. Educators in every country did the same but Ireland had the advantage of decades of building the fundamentals of what matters most for learning; a strong knowledge-rich curriculum, strong instruction and effective assessment practice. When thinking of covid lockdowns, Seán Ó Foghlú, former Secretary General of the Department of Education said “The pandemic was just horrible in so many ways, and for Irish students, just like those in other countries, it was a really difficult time… (but) it was our actions beforehand, which facilitated our system-wide approaches during COVID-19”.

While the rest of the world focused on online and technological methods to reach students, Ireland could utilise their long history of common textbook use in schools.

There are many specific lessons from Ireland but the most important is their focus of gradual and sustained improvement in the fundamentals of education. In contrast, education debate in many countries gets sidetracked and drawn into a wide range of issues.

‍In Australia, countless groups argue each year that we should upend our system, totally change assessments, introduce a host of new technologies, change the structure of schooling, and shift to future-focused this and that. Advocates for each proposal make promises of success but Ireland and every other high-performing system show that is not the way.

‍Instead, these systems focus unflinchingly on ensuring a high-quality, knowledge-rich curriculum, strong teacher development, and effective assessment.  Improvement is gradual and must be sustained. It’s hard work but the research and evidence from around the globe shows it’s how children learn, and how educational inequalities are reduced. Too few people are willing to recognise this truth. We hope the story of Ireland’s success helps Australians to focus on what all the education research says matters to improve learning and equity in our schools.