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File photo of pupils from St Vincent's School reading. Adeline Pericart/Photocall Ireland.
education test
Irish fourth class pupils above average in reading, maths and science
Minister Ruairí Quinn welcomed the report but said science and maths teaching needs to be improved.
11.09am, 12 Dec 2012
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IRISH FOURTH CLASS pupils scored above average in literacy, maths and science but did not make it into the top performing countries in any of the three subjects.
The results are from two major international studies assessing the skills of fourth class pupils in 2011.
Overall our 10-year-olds place tenth out of a total of 45 countries in reading, but fair lower on the scale when it comes to maths and science.
Reading
Students in only five countries performed significantly better than Irish in reading, Hong Kong, Finland, Singapore, the Russian Federation and Northern Ireland. Ireland came in one place ahead of England and scored significantly higher than students in 31 other countries, including Germany, Sweden, Australia and New Zealand.
Maths
Seventeenth out of 50 is how we fared in the maths TIMSS 2011 test, scoring above the international average. The fourth class pupils scored significantly below countries such as Singapore, Korea, Japan, Northern Ireland, Finland, England and the Unites States, and at about the same level as students in Germany, Lithuania and Portugal.
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Science
In science, Irish students again scored significantly above the international average and were placed 22nd out of the 50 participating countries. Irish students scored significantly below countries such as Korea, Singapore, Finland, Japan, the United States, Sweden and England. Ireland’s score did not differ significantly from 10 countries including Italy, Northern Ireland and Australia.
Gender difference
In all participating countries, apart from Colombia, Italy, France, Spain, Belgium and Israel, girls significantly outperformed boys in reading.
In maths, Irish girls slightly outperformed boys and in science, boys and girls obtained identical mean scores.
Minister for Education & Skills Ruairí Quinn T.D. welcomed the report but said science and maths teaching needs to be improved:
This is the first time that we have these international comparisons in reading, maths and science available to us at the primary level. While encouraging, they demonstrate the real need to work on the issues we are seeking to tackle in the Literacy and Numeracy Strategy. We need to build on the good work in reading going on at primary level into second level, especially at junior cycle. Clearly, we also need to improve our teaching of mathematics and science at all levels.
More than 4,500 fourth class pupils in 151 randomly-sampled schools completed the tests.
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Excellent.
Probably the most important journalistic input on the Journal.ie.
When you guys put your minds to it you lead the way in information gathering and analysis.
You should do a fact check on some of the stuff said in the comments section. Genuinely, pick a clue of divisive opposing claims made and break them down…
Brilliant bull buster..could you do a fact check on Irish political pensions..I read somewhere that they were unique in that multiple pensions can be claimed..and that it differs from other countries in the EU in that respect..and can politicians in other countries claim lump sums and pensions from a teaching post held decades earlier?
Fantastic column, just goes to show what The Journal can do/could do. Shame their agenda is dictated by others whose sole intent is to keep the status quo
Could you do one on sentencing? One ‘fact’ I often read is that privileged people get light sentences while those from less affluent backgrounds get treated much more harshly.
You should fact-check attendances at demos.. There was a demo in Dublin that attracted between 5,000 to 10,000 people. Very poor turn out. The organisers and one journalist in particular, is claiming 30,000 attended. Easily checked by use of digital photography and/or crowd densities..
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