The Irish have always believed that education is a journey, not a destination. Unfortunately, for almost a century that journey for millions for the country's young people meant flooding out across the world to the seemingly greener pastures of the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia - anywhere they could get a job.
The country itself was a rural backwater, with little industry. The majority of young people rarely went beyond primary school. Some did manage to get a secondary education, and the wealthy few went onto university.
Then along came Donogh O'Malley, a bright young education minister, who persuaded his government colleagues that free education could help to stem the emigrant fide. That was in the 1960s. But jobs didn't materialize overnight. Emigration continued - and the only satisfaction the Irish taxpayer got was that the free education system, one of the best in the world, was sending out a better educated product.
The spinoff envisaged by Donough O'Malley didn't happen until the following decade. In the 1970s, the Irish government decided to capitalize on the O'Malley legacy, gearing the country toward attracting high-tech industry and using its highly educated youth to bolster its claims.
The pharmaceutical, health care, and computer industries were targeted - sectors mainly dominated by American multinationals. In came the big electronics and computer world players: General Electric, Digital, Hewlett-Packard, Apple, Intel, Motorola, Gateway, Microsoft, IBM, Analog, Lotus, and scores of others.
The Industrial Development Authority, which is responsible for attracting new industry, says Ireland now rates as the single most important location in Europe for the world's major electronics companies. Five of the world's leading software companies are also here.
The main attractions: generous tax breaks, a green-and-clean working environment, and one of the world's best educated and highly skilled work forces.
The latest OECD education surveys shows Ireland with the fourth-highest number of graduates at degree level within the European Union. Indeed, 24 percent of Irish 25-34 year-olds have a tertiary qualification, compared to an OECD average of 23 percent. Ireland ranks eighth out of 21 countries.
In 1994, Ireland had the highest number of 25-34 year-olds in the OECD with science-related tertiary qualifications per 100,000 (higher than Japan and Korea).
And Irish teachers, after 15 years of service, are shown to be the third-highest paid in 18 OECD countries. Only Germany and Switzerland pay their teachers more at this stage.
In the current year, almost $3.3 billion will be spent on education - a 40 percent increase over the last five years. Former education minister Niamh Bhreathnach says this spending is essential. In a world of global market and multinational corporations, satellite television, and almost instant communication through the Internet and other technologies, she says one thing is clear - education is, and will continue to be, the basis for economic prosperity.
The new education minister, Michael Martin, says information technology is an education priority - at all levels. It will help to establish Ireland as the "information services hub" for Europe. And he says his policy objective is to ensure that every child is computer-literate by the end of their school life.
Knowledge is at the heart of new products and processes. The knowledge revolution has surpassed even the industrial revolution in its impact on human life, and it continues to grow at a phenomenal pace.
That eminent educationalist, Frank Rhodes of Cornell University, put it like this: "Nations that can work smarter - not harder - will be the ones to lead the world in to the next century."
The Irish government is investing $71 million up to 2001 in acquiring information and communications technologies equipment, training, and curriculum manuals - as well as Internet connections - in more than 4,000 schools. And Education Minister Martin has set up a joint education-industry task force to improve the supply of technicians for high-tech industries, which, he says, are crucial to continued expansion.
Microsoft's Bill Gates agrees - and has even adopted a small primary school in the remote rural community of Carnacon, in Ballyglass, County Mayo. The three-teacher, 60 pupil school has been working with computers since 1982. School principal Art O'Sullivan says children as young as five years of age are working on computers while others compile pages for the Internet and work on software programs.
Bill Gates has declared the school "a center of excellence" for information technology and, according to Art O'Sullivan, is supplying the school with a variety of educational and business packages.
Although children in Ireland are not obliged to attend school until the age of six, 65 percent of four year-olds and almost all five year-olds are enrolled in primary schools. Post-primary (second level) includes secondary, vocational, community, and comprehensive schools - 775 schools with just more than 370,000 students.
These secondary schools, educating 61 percent of second-level students, are privately owned and managed - the majority by religious communities and the remainder by the boards of governors or by individuals. The state meets 95 percent of salaries. In addition, allowances and capitation grants are paid to the 95 percent of secondary schools participating in the free education scheme.
A wide range of vocational education and training courses are also provided for students completing second level studies.
Almost 90,000 students also pursue higher education, or third level, in universities, technological colleges, teacher training colleges, and some non state-aided private, higher education colleges.
Alvin Toffler in Future Shock wrote, "Our schools are facing backwards . . . toward a dying system, rather than forward ... their vast energies are applied to cranking out people tooled for survival in a system that will be dead before they are. We must search for our objectives and methods in the future rather than in the past."
That was written in 1971. Ireland, with an already rich heritage in the arts and culture, is now facing the new millennium and the information superhighway, sights firmly set on placing education at the forefront as an essential tool of communication - and continuing prosperity.
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