Education Minister announces £15million investment in science education

A fifteen million pounds investment programme to boost the teaching of science subjects has been announced by the Minister for Education, Mícheal Martin. The money, which will be paid out over three years, is aimed at stemming the shortfall of students qualified to take up jobs in the growing number of high-tech industries.

The programme, announced by the Minister in Cork, will involve: major investment to modernise outdated school science laboratories; a payment to schools of ten pounds for each student to aid the purchase of materials for their classes; new syllabi in Leaving Certificate chemistry and physics; and improvements in training for teachers.

Minister Martin said that he was sending out a very strong signal to students that the science subjects are important not only to themselves but to the performance of the Irish economy in the next decade.

Since the late 1980's, the number of pupils choosing to take the sciences to leaving certificate level has decreased by several thousand, despite a dramatic increase in the numbers of jobs offered by a wave of high-tech industries locating here. Teacher organisations blame inadequate facilities in the majority of schools for this decline in student interest.

The ASTI said that the programme announced by the Minister was a step in the right direction. However, Executive Member Paddy Mulcahy said that fifteen million pounds spread over 700 schools nationally would not prove as meaningful as the minister suggests.