ABSTRACT
This chapter reviews the findings of a number of papers in the Irish economics literature that demonstrate that poor educational qualifications increase the chances of being unemployed and reduce the level of income associated with whatever employment can be found. It also reviews the sociology literature, focusing on educational participation as the mechanism through which inequality is transmitted from generation to generation. The chapter provides some aspects of the Irish education system that contribute to the cycle of deprivation. The evidence indicates that upward mobility in Ireland is low as a consequence of the poor access to, and low participation of, poorer children in the Irish education system. S. J. Prais ascribes this to the strong grounding in the basics of reading, writing and arithmetic imparted to everyone in the early years of compulsory schooling in the successful systems, alongside much greater attention being devoted to vocational education.
