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50th anniversary commemorative issue
It would not cause too much debate to suggest that Ireland in the late 1950s was a depressing country. It had suffered greatly from decades of poor economic performance and the constant haemorrhaging of its population through emigration. Overcrowded classrooms and poor physical school structures meant that only 10,000 students took their Leaving Certificate in 1957 ([3] Ferriter, 2004). Meanwhile, third-level education remained the preserve of the elite and a total of just 8,653 students were present in all of Ireland's third-level institutions by the end of the 1950s ([3] Ferriter, 2004). The most popular solution to the ills of the time was for thousands of poorly educated people to sail to England, America, and other destinations in the hope of earning some kind of living.
But the 1960s brought significant change through a reforming Minister for Education (Patrick Hillary, 1959-1965). He improved the provision of education and broadened its access. He also initiated a modified scholarship scheme for third-level education and appointed a Commission on Higher Education ([3] Ferriter, 2004). However, arguably the most dramatic change to education policy in Ireland occurred in 1966 when the new Minister for Education (Donogh O'Malley) announced the introduction of free secondary education. Further change happened in the late 1960s with the introduction of third-level student grants, which created some shift in the composition of universities with the introduction of young people from the urban middle-classes. The scheme was greatly extended in the mid-1990s with the introduction of free third-level education for all full-time students. In later years, the [2] Enterprise Strategy Group Report (2004) highlighted the contribution that the implementation of these policies offered to Ireland's recent economic growth when it stated that:
The fact that...