O'Dowd Begins North American Fact-Finding Trip

Education Minister John O’Dowd has begun a four day visit to North America to meet with educationalists in Canada and the USA.

The Minister will meet with those overseeing education in the cities of Toronto and New York, before undertaking a series of engagements in New York City.

Mr O’Dowd said: "Since becoming Education Minister, I have spoken of the need to internationalise the debate on education. If we want to have a world-class economy, we must first have a world-class education system.

"In Toronto I want to find out the ingredients that lead to their educational success. In the international PISA (Programme of International Student Assessment) results, Canadian 15-year old students outperform their counterparts from the north of Ireland in the three subject areas assessed: reading, mathematics and science.

"The performance of students in Ontario is better still than the Canadian average and, crucially, demonstrates not just high achievement, but also a small performance gap between high and low income students."

Mr O’Dowd continued: "My trip to New York, later in the week, will give me the opportunity to visit a number of education projects in the city to see how schools are engaging parents and communities in children’s learning.

"The importance of parental and community involvement in a child’s education is, I believe, central to helping raise the value of education and the aspiration of children and young people. In recognition of this, last year I launched the ‘Education Works’ campaign to highlight to parents the small steps they can take to assist their child’s learning and the huge impact that can have. I hope that the visit to New York will give me more information on how we can broaden this concept out and raise the value placed on a good education in all our local communities."

(IT/CD)