Apart from sounding like something that Stalin’s best copywriter would come up with, the Soviet-sounding ‘National Centre for Partnership and Performance’ is a quango that has been set up to assess skill levels in the economy. Its most recent report says we are falling way behind. In the immortal words of Dean Freidman (for fans of cheesy 1970s musical shockers), ‘We are not as smart as we’d like to think we are’.
According to the latest figures, too many children are being left behind : one in five is dropping out of school before the Leaving Cert and too many of us are not keeping up with innovations in our fields of work. These two findings should have two distinct impacts on society and our economy: the uneducated underclass should be growing, as those without much formal education get left behind; and the productivity of those in work should be falling because we are not qualified to use the latest technology.
Yet at this stage, there is little to substantiate the argument that the underclass has expanded relative to the rest of us. All evidence points to the opposite. Income levels are rising across the board, as is spending. Unemployment is at an all time low and anecdotal stuff from car sales to Celtic shirt sales ‘ at ’65 a pop ‘ indicate a broadly based upswing. That is not to say that there are not thousands of people falling behind, but the overall figure is not anywhere near 20% of the population. In contrast, for the bulk of the population, the past five years has been the story of upward social mobility. Likewise, trends in productivity have been remarkably positive up to now. We have been amongst the most productive workforces in the world.
So is everything hunky dory? Unfortunately, far from it. Ireland is close to the tipping point which is why the figures on education are worrying.
We have just come through a unique, one-off golden age characterised by three positive outside influences. First, we had cheap money which allowed us to finance today’s spending and worry about paying for it tomorrow. As interest rates are rising, this era is behind us. Second, we had cheap energy. It is hard to remember that oil prices fell to $9 a barrel in 1999 and were at historically low levels till 2004. This allowed us to develop a dependency on cheap fuel such as electricity, oil and gas. We now know from the latest double-digit hikes in energy prices, that this period is gone too. Finally, we had loads of new cheap foreign labour which fuelled the boom. These immigrants have now copped on and won’t have the wool pulled over their eyes so easily in the years ahead.
This halcyon period is unlikely to happen again. In fact, outside forces will turn sharply negative in the years ahead. Three major economic and demographic factors will impact on all of us ‘ the Irish people – in the years ahead. The first and by far the most significant will be the impact of China and India. Put simply, Chinese and Indian skilled workers are likely to set the wages for the world’s manufacturing industry in the next two decades. We are already seeing the impact of this in the US, where middle class and working class incomes have been falling relative to the very rich. This will happen in Ireland. And it won’t just be the lads at Intel who will suffer. Nor will the changes be limited to workers at the lower end of the jobs market. The middle classes will be hit.
We will see a significant outsourcing of Irish service jobs to these places in the years ahead. Why get an Irish architect to design your building when you could get the same service with precisely the same specifications done for a fraction of the cost in India?
So our wage rates will not be set by partnership or ICTU or IBEC but by how much the job can be done for in Asia. This has enormous ramifications for what was traditionally regarded as the ‘traded-sector’ in Ireland. This is where the second outside influence will come from. In the years ahead, immigration will probably impact on our wages in a negative way. While the established Poles, Lithuanians and Latvians know the deal, there are millions of Bulgarians and Romanians keen to work here for a fraction of the price that would entice the rest of us out of bed. At some stage this has to impact significantly on wages in big labour-intensive areas like tourism and construction.
Finally, even if interest rates rise, there will still be ample credit here stemming from the basic fact that the main EMU countries have old populations who are not spending. Someone will have to borrow their savings and we will, until it is too late and we realise that we have these huge accumulated debts but our incomes are falling relative to where they were in the past few years.
Even as this becomes apparent, the Irish banks will continue to make this credit available in huge amounts. This will have the effect of keeping house prices artificially high, even at a time when Irish incomes are under threat from the twin dangers of ‘outsourcing’ and mass immigration.
It is difficult to see a plausible alternative to this scenario, particularly if we stick with the same policies that have served us very well in the past. The problem is that we now have two generations of policy makers wedded to the idea that small countries can’t determine their own destiny and the best thing to do is hitch your wagon to some bigger entity. However, the best reaction to these outside influences may well be some form of old-style protectionism. In order to see this possibility, our politicians must stop being caught in the glare of corporate interests and globalisation at all costs.
So in this election year, we should hope to see the debate driven by fundamental questions about what is happening outside which may affect us; what have we got to lose and what are we going to do about it?
But when you have a leader who is still talking about his communion money ‘ which was three currencies ago ‘ it’s hard to see us being open and forward- thinking on the very issues which will determine our future.
40% functional illiteracy in Ireland. Nothing done about it. Hanifan and her cronies are stuck in a 19th century world. Along with the unions and taxi drivers the governmment is implementing yesterdays answers to todays problems. Its cool to be thick in school. Its cool to laugh and point. Its also cool to teach a 19th century system to 21st century people. School leaves kids completly unprepared for the real world and turns them into willing servants rather than value creating wealth generators. Irish kids are being educated to work for someone else and not ask questions. China will have… Read more »
Billy you hit the nail on the head. There is no doubt about it that the ramm it into you singsong education here in Ireland along with the fancy cramming schools does not encourage imagination or a sense of individualism. This is a core problem in our education system aside from the points race. The measure of sucess of course is the gas guzzling 4 wheel drive with custom interiors and enormous houses I have yet to hear anyone on in every day converstion admire a person for their volunteer work, sense of civic duty or philanthropy. It is always… Read more »
The nineteenth century school system is fine. it is the Chinese and the Japanese that cram, maybe the Indians too. learning shakespeare and the Classics, and a difficult mathematical syllabus that makes people think is good. We have decidely not dumbed down, unlike the British. Maybe we should cram, or produce technical subjects only, but that is not a system I would want. Secondly, the education system certainly hasn’t helped Billy to understand statistics. Functional illiteracy is not 40% but 22%. I suspect the bar is a bit high in the definition of functional illiteracy but it is – according… Read more »
Good article – quite odd for a commentator like DMW to be
advocating some form of protectionism – Im sure I read
previous articles where David sings the praises of the free
market. Perhaps with are very particular circumstances, a
limited bit of protectionism is required – I think not
giving open ‘green cards’ to Bulgaria and Romania will
certainly happen, but not indefinitely.
An open and honest debate is required, and I guess that is
what DMW is trying to inspire..
Great Article and debate.
I would certainly agree that our education system does not
inspire and is to a great extent to blame towards the
ignorance of our population. I think however that it is a
more general cultural phenomenon that is aflicting, in
particular, the Anglophone world..and like many things
recently I will blame the Americans. In these countries
teenagers are anti-intelectual to the extreme. I remember
being slagged for ages over saying that being a poet would
be great…and most would rather watch Cribs or Dirty
Sanches than the News or PrimeTime.