It's congratulations and commiserations time again for all of those who have endured the Leaving Cert 2008.

Being from Cork, the new Education Minister Batt O'Keeffe chose to trumpet the achievements of the hard working students on his own patch in Ballincollig and fair play to him for that. All is not as rosy in the education garden as it may seem, however.

Many of our children, especially in the vital, early years are being taught in sub-standard, overcrowded accommodation which is no good for either their own development or the nation's future prosperity. The IT infrastructure of our secondary schools is among the worst in the developed world and our science and maths results continue to lag behind.

At third-level the Minister has raised the spectre of tuition fees instead of increased investment and it is a wonder that our universities and ITs don't actually fare even worse then they do in international rankings given their poor levels of funding.

Our top university, Trinity College, Dublin, ranks 53rd in the world according to the Times Higher Education Supplement but it's downhill from there with UCD at 177 at UCC at a lowly 286. The truth is that education has been under-invested in Ireland for many years now. As with so many other areas, we became complacent during the boom years and have forgotten that heavy investment in education was one of the cornerstones of our success.

Of course education is not just about turning out economic units to grow the economy it is also, more importantly about forming rounded, well educated individuals, something the Leaving Cert points race contributes nothing towards.

In fact among the many successful people who never completed their equivalent of the Leaving Cert are at least 18 billionaires, 10 Nobel prize winners and 8 US presidents and many people famous including Albert Einstein, Richard Branson, Alan Sugar, Tom Cruise, The Wright Brothers, George Gershwin, Quentin Tarantino, John Travolta, David Bowie, Billy Connolly, Robert DeNiro, Johnny Depp, Henry Ford, Peter Jackson, John Major, Al Pacino, William Shakespeare, George Bernard Shaw, Frank Sinatra and Vincent van Gogh.

So if you didn't do as well as you hoped and you feel that it's the end of the world, remember it isn't.

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