“Education is the most powerful weapon you can use to change the world.” Nelson Mandela. Education has always played a crucial role in shaping the identity of a country. Many believe that education is a privilege. Some believe that education is a right, even an obligation. But the only obligation we might have towards education is to treat it as a privilege as well as a right, but certainly not as an obligation to have an education. Education has been one of the key aspects of the success we see in our parents, our teachers, and most importantly, ourselves. A country's way of teaching can be considered to shape a child's state of mind from an early age. This teaching can be seen as a means of developing certain character attributes and can fundamentally be linked to the development of a national disposition. Later affecting the mentality of the general workforce, government and educational organizations. It is therefore essential that people also strive to improve the education of their state so that the succession of the next generation will hopefully generate individuals who can access their true potential and feel a sense of pride in contributing to their society. This idealistic approach is not always easy to implement. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why violent video games should not be banned”? Get the original essay Many factors can hinder this progression: war, poverty, political and religious differences, all can hinder the progress of 'a child in education. In the past, it was considered and concluded that post-primary and higher education, in particular, was reserved for a privileged few. This was seen as an unnecessary expense that many Irish people could not afford. Sequentially, this has led many people with only primary education to enter the labor market. This divide within Irish society was a perpetual cycle that began to break in the early 20th century. The education sector of the Irish state, which had been distinguished by the enduring strength of the traditional institutions and values ​​of the first generation of the independent Irish state, underwent a profound transformation in the mid-20th century, linked to the policies governmental. intervention on an unprecedented scale. A radical shift in government policy towards post-primary and tertiary education was designed to produce a more skilled workforce. This democratic change in Irish education has led to a change in the attitude of many people towards post-primary and tertiary education. Therefore, this paves the way for a nation more adaptable to an expanding global market and growing international relations. The history of education in Ireland has always been a battle for power. Thus, many lasting consequences can be seen in Irish social dynamics, particularly in the 19th and early 20th centuries. The notion of a middle class sector is a very modern concept in Ireland. While individuals from modest upbringings struggled to cross a gap in society, to find a place of importance or wealth. With this perpetual cycle of power, a change in the status quo was difficult to promote among the few upper-class elites. This had a vicious domino effect on the creation of a class system in Ireland and reinforced the view that higher education is a privilege. Many people are turning toHedge schools and later to national schools for their education, the latter being state funded. The state appears to have more control over the education system since the creation of the Free State. Conversely, the development of the 1937 Constitution reversed this progress. The Constitution simply strengthened the Church's right to education through article 42. The article states that parents have the responsibility "to provide, according to their means, religious and moral, intellectual, physical and social of their children” (article 42.1). . Furthermore, the government had restricted itself from interfering with the decisions of all parents by declaring in article 42.3.1, that the State will show "respect... for the rights of parents, particularly in matters of religious training and morality. Parents could enroll their children in any religious school, and the Constitution effectively prevented the state from interfering with churches. It has been suggested that the Constitution inevitably placed the development of Irish education in the hands of a religious order (O'Donoghue, 1999). Although the national school is legally considered multi-denominational, over 90% of schools were Catholic. The Catholic Church controlled the majority of the country's educational systems at this time. The following brief history of the Irish education system was attached to the report of the Constitutional Review Group in 1995 and written by Professor A. Hyland. When the national school system was established in 1831, its main objective was to "unite into one system children of different beliefs." The National Council was to “examine with particular favor” candidates for aid for schools run jointly by Catholics and Protestants. While many of the schools attached to the Council in the early years were jointly run, major Christian churches lobbied the government to allow aid to be provided to schools run by individual churches. This pressure was so effective that by the mid-19th century only 4% of the nation's schools were under mixed management. (A. Hyland, 1995) Over the next twenty years, the education system remained relatively unchanged. But the implications of section 2.3.1 meant that parents had sole control over the student's attendance. Attendance by children from some factions has been low. This may be linked to the social environment in which the child is raised. For example, children from agriculture would be called upon to work in the fields throughout the year. The same could be said of children from poor homes: most of them would be sent to earn wages. This results in many people traditionally growing up illiterate and/or with very poor numeracy skills. The education that girls received was very similar to that of boys, their education was accompanied by the addition of some sewing and knitting. The girl's education was to focus more on developing a curriculum focusing on domestic science, cooking, laundry, and needlework. Based on R. John's 2011 research on girls' education from 1800 to 1870. So, because of these social expectations of women, in the early 20th century many girls were still removed from ordinary education to prepare for domestic life. This, however, posed a question to the Irish government in the late 19th century. Should a girl be educated for privacy and respectful submission, or should she be educated for independent thought and gainful employment? Nevertheless, Ireland's long patriarchal historyis accompanied by a continuous evolution of its women's movements. The first wave of the Irish women's movement dates from the mid-19th century, with the right to vote granted to women in 1918, while they were still under British colonial rule. First-wave feminists played a role in the nationalist movement, but their demands were later sidelined in the construction of a conservative, Catholic, postcolonial Irish state. It wasn't until the 1960s that things really started to change. There has been a shift in emphasis in Irish culture from 'education as a social expenditure to an investment expenditure in the individual and society as a whole'. (Coolahan, 1981) It is also important to mention that the change in educational policy is the result of a change in economic policy. Ireland's economic policy now focused on “encouraging industrial growth and attracting foreign investment” (Raftery & Hout 1993 p. 44). Across Europe, mentalities broadened and international relationships were established and businesses began to cross borders. It was no longer in Ireland's interests to be isolated. Traditional Ireland would quickly be abandoned as the rest of the world progressed towards a modern society. Drastic measures were needed, and they were taken when Ireland became a founding member of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). It was not until 1965 that the first findings of the OECD report on Ireland's "investment in education" were made public. This was a huge wake-up call to the Irish government, long overdue. The report identifies many of the major flaws in the Irish education system. - Social and geographical inequalities of opportunity, - Inefficient use of resources - Imbalance of system production: fewer people with adequate education and/or technical qualifications compared to a greater number of people lacking basic education and/or a technical qualification. - He also drew attention to the insufficiency of the statistical data available on the system, - The absence of any foresight mechanism (OECD reports) The report was one of the first measures which "favored the planned development of education as a contribution to the economy”. growth” (O’ Callaghan 2013). When examined by an OECD committee, Education Minister George Colley said the report had had an immediate impact on Irish policy. Since then, the Irish education system has been modified to meet the needs of the nation with the aim of encouraging economic growth. Since the 1960s, Irish education has therefore been characterized by economic factors. All changes to the program were made with the aim of industrializing the economy. These consequences of this report led to a "seven-year period from 1962, the only one since independence in 1922, when education policy was a very high priority on the government's agenda". Fleming and Harford (2014) At the same time, An Taoiseach Lemass appointed Donogh O'Malley and other Education Ministers and these individuals transformed the Department of Education from its previously laissez-faire function to a new role of assertive leadership/change initiator. In his first major speech as minister, on September 10, 1966, he condemned the inequalities inherent in the existing system, describing the fact that a third of young people received no education beyond primary level as "a dark stain on thenational consciousness. He continued: “I am pleased to be able to announce that I am developing a plan that in the future no boy or girl in this State will be deprived of the full opportunity of education – from primary school to university level – due to the fact that parents cannot afford to pay for it. Donogh O'Malley served as Minister of Education for twenty months until his untimely death on 10 March 1968. During this short period he caused great upheaval by abolishing the Primary Certificate examination, reviewing the reports on regional technical colleges and the Higher Education Commission. , established the Ryan Tribunal on Teachers' Salaries and controversially proposed a merger between University College Dublin and Trinity College Dublin. He is best known as the Minister of Education who proposed a free secondary education program in 1966. The new program aimed to increase access to secondary education for all social classes. During this period, government spending on education almost doubled (Raftery & Hout 1993). Public responses were overwhelmingly positive and public pressure sustained the momentum for change, regardless of protests from the cabinet and religious orders. I know I'm up against opposition and serious organized opposition, but they're not going to defeat me on this. I will further tell you that I will expose them and their tactics at every available opportunity, whatever they may be. I see very clearly my responsibilities to Irish people and to Irish children. No interest group or group of any kind, at any level, will sabotage what any reasonable man considers to be a just project. » Donogh O'Malley, 1967 in Seanad Eireann. This great paradigm shift was perhaps the nail in the preverbal coffin of the control that the Catholic Church exercised over Irish education. Because very soon, church authorities started demanding more money when they heard about the fund that would soon be available for the education sector. They wanted to lessen the state's influence on high school programs and policies. But with funds came the right to have a say. Additionally, powerful Irish leaders began to question the authority of the Catholic Church. The example being Seán Lemass in 1968, he convened an educational council to debate the allocation of funds and implementation of the curriculum in national schools across the country, no member of the Church was invited to the table. It can be argued that secularization was another factor that contributed to the fall of the Catholic Church. Catholicism was no longer the national identity as it was replaced by secularization. The period of social protection: From the 1960s, in Ireland as in other countries, schooling became a more central element of the social structure: the links between schooling and professional placement were strengthened and school has become more important as a mediating institution between children's social origins and their professional situation. their professional destinations (Breen, et al. 1990, pp. 123-142). Irish pedagogy also began to change during this period. Typical education assumes that children are empty containers that need to be sat in a room and filled with academic content. Dr. Mitra's experiments prove this to be false. The idea that the child is an empty vessel alludes to common sense. Instead, the idea is taken out of context, transmitted in a game of digital Chinese whispers and.