I welcome the delegation. I want to concentrate on adult education, its past, present and future. Adult education was so marginalised in Ireland that it was a sub-Cinderella sector. In recent years, successive Ministers for Education and Science have been successful in seeking to bring it to the centre of the educational experience.
The principles that underpin the journey to the centre of the educational experience relate to partnership. We have had many problems historically. One expert on partnership describes the many successes we have enjoyed through the principle as "violently opposed groups temporarily setting aside their hostilities in the interests of funding", although the word "education" or the phrase "holistic approach to life" could be inserted in place of the term "funding". The vision of successive Governments has been that we are on a journey to a holistic educational continuum that starts in pre-school and lasts to 90 and beyond. That is the core of our vision.
Since the mid to late 1990s, adult education has been transformed beyond our wildest dreams. I have studied it closely and there have been many exciting initiatives. We had many problems relating to poverty, isolation and rural location in the past. I was reared on a remote mountain at the foot of which was a village. I was fortunate that two religious orders brought education to my village many decades before I came into this world. I suppose that story symbolises and encapsulates one aspect of the history of Irish education. We in Ireland are lovers of education. People like me had to have education to get off our mountains because at that time we did not have much else. Education was the key and we passionately sought it. Although some of us did not seek it as enthusiastically or as diligently as we should have, education brought us from the mountains to Dublin and to other places around the world and many of my former neighbours now hold high profile positions around the world because they embraced education with a passion.
Adult education, among many other things, seeks to bring literacy to everyone in Ireland. For example, it seeks to bring literacy to housewives who live on the top of mountains, deep in the valleys or in the middle of bogs who have never had a chance to do anything for themselves. They reared their children, they minded their families, they inculcated values and they forgot about themselves. The new adult education experience enables people of all ages to share in this educational voyage. Structures are being put in place in small halls, rooms above shops and so on throughout the country to facilitate those who want to share in this voyage. It is happening as we speak. As Deputy O'Sullivan stated, we have not nearly arrived at our desired destination. Our vision is way ahead of us but we have come a long way in a short time because we tapped into the existing goodwill and the deep yearning of the Irish people for education.
I taught in the south inner city among the poor in the flats and I enjoyed every minute of it. I had nothing to recommend me as a politician. I worked, not for communities in my area but for the community in the south inner city. I possessed one advantage that enabled me to become a politician in 1981 — I had letters after my name. If one used that today, one would be laughed at. With nothing to recommend me except that I was a teacher, I was chosen as a candidate to represent my party in 1981 but I saw something in the Irish psyche that could appeal to the people of Dublin North-East who elected me. I saw that I had what a few other candidates did not have — the letters NT, BA, H.Dip Ed after my name. When that went up on a poster the people elected me. Perhaps if they knew who they were electing they would not have selected me. That story is funny but it is also serious. What came true in Dublin North-East and enabled me to have the misfortune to come into places like this, is the story of Ireland, the Irish people and their love for education. We are tapping into that now in terms of adult education.
We have made considerable advances. We speak of our vision of education as inclusive and embracing the marginalised and inviting them to go on the journey with us. The marginalised are included, whether they are housewives, people from the bogs, mountain men like myself or people of poverty, because some of the programmes are cost free. Deputy O'Sullivan and others have referred to the wide range of programmes that are available.
This is one of the most exciting initiatives we have brought into the world of adult education. A person may grow up illiterate for various reasons. For example, I brought a group of children, including two dyslexic children, from second class to sixth class. Those two boys were intelligent but I did not know they were dyslexic and neither did the inspectors in the then Department of Education whom I invited in to help me educate them. Unfortunately, one of those boys is now dead but the other is in occasional contact with me. We can embrace such people now, as well as the housewives from the middle of the bogs, from the tops of mountains and from areas of urban poverty and deprivation. Until now, they were the invisible in our society. We have invited them to become visible primarily to empower them to empower themselves.
We set up a structure of adult education guidance counsellors, although that is not the correct technical title for them. The guidance counsellors acknowledge that people are nervous about putting themselves forward for courses and the counsellors will encourage and guide people in respect of the most appropriate courses for them. The counsellors will encourage such people to join in this wonderful exciting educational experience which is only starting.
Many refer to further education and the role education plays in the development of the economy. We have many models of what I call local development, but one cannot talk about local development without talking about national development. Local development is a microcosm of the bigger picture and one cannot talk about national development without talking about education. The key to our success is partnership and, as a teacher, I firmly believe that part of the secret to our success is education. Of course I am biased. Without that love of education we would not have achieved the current degree of economic success. Although there are social down sides, I will not go into them today because that is not why the delegation is here. As well as the principle of partnership, at the core of our journey, from the brink of bankruptcy to the dizzy economic heights of today where we are the second or third wealthiest country per capita in the world — on which I defy challenge — is primarily our love of education.
One of the most beautiful aspects in terms of the marginalised is the manner in which we have approached those with a disability. In the past, one of the most invisible cohorts of people in our society, apart from the housewives and the rural mountain men like myself, were those with a disability. The manner in which we are reaching out to people with disabilities is reassuring. We have come to acknowledge that access to education must be curricular as well as physical. It is not good enough to state that one can educate those with a disability by widening doors and providing wheelchairs. As I am technologically illiterate, I cannot describe the fancy technological advances we are providing for those with disabilities. We have come to a realisation, an acceptance and acknowledgement that as well as providing physical accessibility we must also provide curricular accessibility for people with disabilities.
As part of our future vision as we go forward on this journey we should invite those who up to now have been invisible in the system to share the lifelong journey of education. The formal structures of pre-school, primary and secondary school and third level are only constituent parts of the entire picture. From pre-school at the age of four to the age of 90 and beyond, this educational voyage must continue.
Key to enabling and empowering people to participate in our journey is our child care programmes which, as everybody including myself would admit, have a long way to go.
However, in the absence of such programmes, much of what we achieved would not have been realised. I am heartened and reassured by the significant strides made by the Government. I am delighted to have shared that experience with the delegation because I am passionate about it. I believe strongly in it and our vision is only commencing. I regret I am unable to compare and contrast because I did not have time to read the report.
