Department of Education and Skills. Speech of. Ciaran Cannon, TD. Literacy and Numeracy for Learning and Life

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1 Department of Education and Skills Speech of Ciaran Cannon, TD Literacy and Numeracy for Learning and Life Ireland s National Strategy to Improve Literacy and Numeracy among Children and Young People

2 I wish to thank the Cypriot Presidency for giving me this opportunity to speak to you today on the vital question of literacy. The Irish government believes that literacy is one of the most important life skills that our schools teach and one which is fundamental to a person s life chances. The consequences of inadequate literacy skills are severe: young people or adults without literacy skills are cut off from equal participation in many aspects of life. They cannot benefit fully from schooling or further or higher education. They are often condemned to poorly paid jobs or unemployment and even a lifetime of poverty and exclusion. This failure to develop each person s capability to its full potential is not just a loss for the individual: it is also an enormous loss for all of us in Irish society and in the European Union as a whole. The fact remains that mastering literacy skills brings with it a host of social, economic, cultural and health benefits for the individual and society as a whole. It is no coincidence that more equitable societies tend to have more equitable education systems. They have smaller differences between the highest performing and lowest performing students and achieve better outcomes overall for all students. 2

3 The Irish Government is determined that all young people will leave school with the ability to communicate competently and effectively. With this in mind, in July 2011 we set out how we intended to achieve this goal when we launched Literacy and Numeracy for Learning and Life: The National Strategy to Improve Literacy and Numeracy among Children and Young People Today I want to speak to you about this Strategy and how it is working. I want to emphasise that the actions in the Strategy are very much aligned to the recommendations of the Final Report of the High Level Expert Group on Literacy. The Strategy targets both literacy and numeracy, but today I will focus on those aspects of the Strategy which relate to literacy in particular. We know that students can fail to develop adequate literacy and numeracy skills for many reasons. Some of these reasons, such as family poverty and other socio-economic factors, lie beyond the school and education system. However, we know that effective schools and educational interventions can improve learning outcomes substantially for all students, including those from disadvantaged backgrounds. 3

4 Our Strategy is the first comprehensive national strategy that addresses the learning of literacy from early childhood to the end of schooling. It adopts a modern and comprehensive definition of literacy and acknowledges that this includes oral language and all forms of written and printed communication from handwriting to digital literacy. It is based on the belief that, if properly taught, young people can develop literacy not only in language lessons but also in every other subject on the curriculum. In overall terms, we have set ourselves the targets for 2020 of: increasing the percentage of both primary children and 15 year olds performing at the highest levels in national and international tests by at least 5 percentage points; and reducing the percentage of primary children performing at the lowest levels in national tests by 5 percentage points and halving the percentage of 15 year olds performing at the lowest level in international (PISA) tests. The Strategy involves a radical programme of change and I will focus on four key aspects of this change process in presenting it to you today. 4

5 Firstly, it envisages major changes to teacher education and teachers continuing professional development. These will be improved by: lengthening the training programme for both primary and secondary teachers by one year; ensuring that modules on teaching, learning and assessment in literacy are a mandatory requirement for all primary and secondary teacher education courses; requiring that continuing professional development courses for teachers include mandatory units on literacy and assessment. Secondly, the Strategy provides for revising curricula to ensure that they are presented in clear learning outcomes and supported by examples of students learning so as to enable teachers to use assessment to inform their teaching. In support of this, increased time has been given in the primary school day to focus on literacy. Schools are given flexibility about how to use this time and it may include, for example, maximising opportunities to develop literacy and numeracy skills across the curriculum. 5

6 Thirdly, the Strategy aims to improve the assessment of, and reporting on, students progress. This is being achieved by: standardised assessments in literacy at the end of second, fourth and sixth classes in primary school and at the end of second year in secondary schools; requiring teachers to report to parents and the board of management on the achievement of pupils; and collecting the aggregated outcomes of standardised tests nationally and using this information to monitor standards. Fourthly, the Strategy also acknowledges the key role of parents and how we need to support them as they help their children to learn. In this regard, I note that the HLG Report highlights the importance of creating a literate environment. Our approach also involves focusing on the important role of parents and families in supporting literacy and on the role of public libraries. With this in mind, a website has just been launched - which provides easily accessible support to parents who want to help their children with literacy and numeracy. 6

7 Finally, I would like to mention the approach we adopted to developing the Strategy as this may be of interest to colleagues. We published a draft document initially and launched a public consultation process which generated a lot of interest. Nearly 500 submissions were received and a series of face-to-face consultative meetings were held with key organisations. Many teachers and school staffs made submissions and several colleges and university education departments submitted extensive research-based documents to the consultation process. All of this material proved to be very valuable. We feel that listening to and examining the suggestions of stakeholders will support us in meeting the challenges of implementation and in achieving buyin to the Strategy where it really matters - at the chalkface! Inevitably, asking the hard questions and demanding change, as this Strategy undoubtedly does, is challenging. It implies that what we have done for some time, is no longer sufficient. This is an uncomfortable admission for all of us, no matter what part of the educational system we belong to uncomfortable but absolutely necessary. Many of the actions in the Strategy are long-term initiatives, the effect of which will not be seen for a good number of years. Some are more immediate, but all need to be tackled with a sense of urgency and commitment. The Irish government is determined to tackle these actions and we have already commenced work in several key areas. 7

8 Achieving the sort of improvement and change that we envisage in this Strategy is a great national challenge one in which every parent and every person in the education system must play a part. Making sure that every child and young person gets the opportunity to acquire literacy skills is simply too important for us not to act now. Ends 8