Investment
in Education and the intractability of inequality
Investment in Education, initiated in 1962
and published in 1965, has been described as ‘probably the foundation
document’ of modern Irish education (Clancy 1996) and a ‘landmark both in the national and international memory’
[Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) 1991]. Dr. Patrick Hillery, the Minister forEducation, who commissioned the report,
recalled 30 years later that ‘there were no real ideas before the OECD
project’ – a harsh but largely justifiable commentary on the entrenched
conservatism of political and educational elites for the previous generation. Investment
was the product of a pilot study initiated by