Investment in Education and the tests of time

Thirty years after the publication of Investment in Education, Patrick Clancy wrote that the report represented '"the" foundation document of education' in the era since the introduction of economic planning in the late 1950s. This paper considers the importance of the report in disseminating theories of human capital formation (as well as other less recognised influences) among Irish political and educational elites. Investment contributed to a seminal shift in educational policy linked to a widely held conviction among politicians, officials and international advisers that education was vital to national economic salvation. This paradigm shift was informed not only by changing domestic priorities driven by a legacy of economic failure but also by wider international trends inseparable from the Cold War, especially the importance accorded to education and technological development as key battlegrounds in the global struggle between the capitalist West and the Soviet Union. Defining ideas of Investment - notably increased financing of education as an essential factor in economic development and the necessity for a far-reaching expansion of participation at post-primary and higher levels, not least to meet a perceived shortfall in the supply of well-qualified workers - became central to Irish educational policy over the two generations that followed publication of the report, as illustrated by quantitative trends examined here. Due to the extraordinary persistence of these features over this period, it is worthwhile examining their emergence as lasting forces in an 'effective history' of education that is much more than historiographical interpretation.