Fergus Cassidy

Inform nation

IN the early 1970s Donogh O'Malley had made a name for himself. As minister for education he got all the laurels for bringing in what become known to everyone as 'the free education'.

At the time, I hadn't a clue who he was and 'free education' meant nothing either. They only thing 'free' about education was when we ran out through the school gate every day.

I knew O'Malley was important because when his name cropped up, the adults would stop just short of blessing themselves. Not a bad word could be said about the man and it's only now that I fully understand why.

Ireland in the late 1960s and early 1970s was a fraught and expectant place. The country was on the brink of an historic switch from agricultural to industrial production and the European Economic Community was beckoning.

With many similarities to today, Ireland was facing a new world of open markets and competition against other countries. Education was seen as the key which could open the door fully.

The teachers in my primary school understood well the significance of what was happening.

Across the road from the school was one of the biggest milk and ice cream manufacturing operations in Europe, called HB. The Hughes brothers (hence HB) set up Ireland's first dairy factory in 1924. Two years later they decided to use up the surplus milk and cream that was produced in spring and summer by manufacturing ice cream.

We worshiped the place mainly because we got to be guinea pigs for new ice cream bars on a regular basis. By the time Choc Ice's hit the shops we had already moved on to Icebergers.

Our teachers also loved HB but for very different reasons. When they wanted to warn us of the dire consequences of not studying or learning our lessons properly they would stand at the classroom window and point in the direction of the factory before announcing that that is where we'd end up if "we didn't buck up".

It was hard to figure that one out - seemed like a fine place to end up. Money in the pocket and the ice cream for free. But the teachers were on to something alright.

They could see that the way the Irish economy was heading would mean that just having the basics - reading, writing and arithmetic - would no longer be sufficient for survival in the way they once were. More, much more, was going to be required for emerging economic realities.

In hindsight, technology was not an issue in the changing educational system of those times. The closest it came was the now defunct Group certificate. If making or fixing things was your desire, then the vocational schools were more than welcoming.

But the 'free education' was intended to try and push the cycle of education right through to third level. To keep more people at secondary and try and get them to university or third level colleges in numbers which would dwarf that of previous generations.

On those terms it worked very well and ensured O'Malley his place in the history books. Ireland stretched the idea of literacy almost beyond recognition compared to what had previously existed.

It encompassed history, politics, geography, arts and languages and many more areas. Not so for technology, however, which was still at the 'making/fixing' stage. Technology was not the issue it is now in a country which was just learning how to walk economically.

Now that we're up and breaking into a canter, perhaps the time has come to look once more at the educational system in the same way that O'Malley et al once did. Over the last couple of years, Ireland has indicated its aspiration to be a 'knowledge economy'. The Industrial Development Authority's current marketing theme is 'Ireland, knowledge is in our nature'. This is where we're headed and, for better or worse, there's no turning back.

A knowledge economy is really a technological economy in the sense that it places technology at the centre and moves away from 'fixing/making'. In this new scenario, a new educational direction is imperative.

Technological literacy is the modern updating of the process which 'free education' started. It means starting at the most fundamental elements of our educational system and working up from there.

Competency is not the same thing at all as literacy. Using computers, mobile phones, electronic programme guides or bank machines doesn't necessarily require any understanding at all of the role and consequence of technology for those fortunate enough to be familiar with using them.

Such competency provides negligible preparation for getting to grips with issues, for example, like electronic voting, waste disposal, genetically modified foods or cloning.

It would be a grave mistake if we became lulled into a false sense of security based solely on our competence. As with literacy in my generation, the goal of its technological equivalent is to provide people with the tools to participate intelligently and thoughtfully in the world around them.

In 1998, the Irish Council for Science, Technology and Innovation (a government advisory body) said that "scientific and technological literacy, appropriate to the needs of the individual, is an essential life skill, which the education system must provide".

If that doesn't happen soon, a little knowledge is a dangerous thing for an economy.