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The Minister for Education and Skills, Ruairí Quinn TD, today opened the 52nd General Assembly of the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA)  at the Grand Hotel, Malahide, Co Dublin.

The Assembly is being held in conjunction with the Department of Education and Skills and the Educational Research Centre (ERC). 

Speaking in Malahide, Minister Quinn said: "Ireland has long been an active member of the IEA, and I am delighted to be here today to acknowledge the excellent work done by the organisation over the years." 

The IEA is an independent, international cooperative of national research institutions and governmental research agencies.

It conducts large-scale comparative studies of educational achievement and other aspects of education, with the aim of gaining in-depth understanding of the effects of policies and practices within and across systems of education.

The General Assembly is the main policy body of the Association and meets once a year, with over 100 delegates from 48 countries in attendance this year.

The Minister noted that Ireland’s participation in two major IEA studies of primary school pupils[1][1] "will not only provide comparative information on Irish students’ performance on maths, reading and science relative to pupils in other countries, but will also allow broad comparisons with the performance of Irish 15-year olds on the recent OECD PISA study.

"This will be an extremely valuable resource for increasing educational attainment in Ireland."

Minister Quinn concluded by wishing all delegates an enjoyable and productive conference, and again thanked them for their contribution to increasing education standards.