Speaker: Patrick F O’Donovan. Synopsis: The lecture provides the overall context and background history for Ireland’s education system as it developed in the nineteenth century. How education progressed under native government after the foundation of an independent state in 1922, and how the system was transformed especially in the 1960s, are key features for exploration. The OECD study Investment in Education published in 1965 and Donagh O’Malley’s dramatic announcement of free post-primary education in September 1966 are considered in assessing Ireland’s major reform of education and the emerging patterns of success which followed in subsequent years.
Biography: Patrick F O’Donovan qualified as a national teacher in St Patrick’s College of Education,Dublin, and served as an inspector of schools for the Department of Education. Combining wide experience of the functioning of the education system with extensive research on its historical origins, he collaborated with John Coolahan in writing A History of Ireland’s School Inspectorate,1831 – 2008 and published also Stanley’s Letter:
The National School System and Inspectors inIreland, 1831 – 1922 in addition to various articles on education topics. He has close associations with the establishment of several Community NationalSchools by Kerry Education and Training Board.
