Improving Second-level Education: Using Evidence for Policy Development

Emer Smyth and Selina McCoy

No EC5, Papers from Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI)

Abstract: Second-level education has a crucial role to play in Ireland's long-term economic prosperity, as well as being intrinsically valuable, allowing young people to develop intellectually, socially and personally. Much of the debate internationally has focused on how countries compare against international benchmarks and indicators like PISA. This paper argues that, while we can potentially learn from what other systems have 'got right', it is important that we do not fall into the trap of engaging in 'policy borrowing'. Furthermore we now have a rich evidence base in Ireland on 'what works' in terms of school organisation and process. The paper reviews this evidence in a number of key areas: ability grouping, school climate, teaching and learning methods, and curriculum and assessment. The discussion reviews how these aspects of school policy and practice can make a substantive impact on student outcomes and act as 'drivers' of improvement, often requiring relatively modest levels of expenditure.

Keywords: education/Policy/policy; development/Ireland (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2011-12
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-edu and nep-lab
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.esri.ie/pubs/EC005.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:esr:wpaper:ec5

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Papers from Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI) Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sarah Burns ().