The achievement of high literacy and numeracy skills standards is one of the primary goals of education. High levels of literacy are essential to ensuring that everyone can participate educationally, economically and socially in our society. In general, schools have relatively low proportions of children with significant literacy difficulties as evidenced by Ireland's comparatively high overall achievement levels in successive international surveys of reading of 15-year-olds under PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment). The PISA 2006 study assessed performance of 15 year olds across 57 countries in maths, reading and science. Ireland performed very well in English reading, ranking 5th out of 29 OECD countries. Only one EU country, Finland, achieved a higher mean score than Ireland in reading.
The most significant levels of literacy difficulties tend to be concentrated in those schools which serve disadvantaged communities. The Educational Research Centre in their 2004 report on Reading Literacy in Disadvantaged Primary Schools found that the proportion of pupils with serious literacy difficulties in schools serving disadvantaged communities was about three times the national average. That report recommended a new ten year target to reduce to between 14%-15% the proportion of pupils with serious literacy difficulties in schools serving disadvantaged communities.
The Programmes for Government, the social partnership agreements Sustaining Progress and Towards 2016 and the National Anti-Poverty Strategy (NAPS) all provide a common language of objectives, priorities, targets to improve educational outcomes for disadvantaged children. In particular the National Action Plan on Social Exclusion sets a target to reduce the proportion of pupils with serious literacy difficulties in primary schools serving disadvantaged communities to less than 15% by 2016. To achieve this goal significant resources to address literacy and numeracy difficulties in schools have been provided through DEIS (Delivering Equality of Opportunity in Schools), the action plan for educational inclusion. The action plan provides for a tailored planning process for schools which supports schools in developing their own plans and targets for literacy and numeracy.
Other measures under DEIS designed to improve literacy levels include a maximum class size of 20:1 in junior classes and 24:1 in senior classes in the 200 urban/town primary schools serving the most disadvantaged communities and increased access to literacy and numeracy support services and programmes for all urban/town primary schools. Additional literacy and numeracy tutors are available to provide in-school support and guidance to teachers in these schools.
Training in "Reading Recovery", "First Steps" and "Maths Recovery" has been made available to all urban/town primary schools. The Junior Certificate School Programme's Demonstration Library Project has been extended in phases to second-level schools with the highest concentrations of disadvantage. DEIS also includes measures promoting the development of Family Literacy projects. For the year 2009/10, funding of €196,000 was approved in November 2009 for 13 projects following an applications process. Funding of €200,000 has been provided for the next round of the DEIS Family Literacy Project 2010/2011. The Department recently issued an invitation for applications for the new round of funding to VECs. The closing date for the submission of applications is the 11th June 2010.