The 50 most influential people in education — where are they now? (Part 1/5)
Twelve years ago, the Irish Times published an article, out of the blue, which listed the top 50 most influential people in education. It was compiled over four weeks and the journalists stated that key figures (without naming them) were asked to compile their own lists confidentially. The names that featured were the most prominent on the lists. I thought it would be interesting to see where these people are now.
When I shared this article on Twitter, it was interesting that the most notable thing was that people commented on the lack of gender diversity in the list. When it was first published, I don’t remember it being mentioned at all. However, 40 of the 50 names on the list are men and only 5 are women. (The other 5 are agencies or institutes or quangos.)
Back in 2011, when this article was published, Ireland was in the midst of an economic crisis. In 2023, we’re living in a different context but very little has changed in terms of the underfunding of education. Many of the austerity measures made during the crisis have never been reversed.
Anyway, with that out of the way, let’s look at the list and see where are the top 50 most influential people in education today and would they make the list today?
1. Ruairi Quinn
Ruairi Quinn was the Minister for Education in 2011 and became a divisive character. For those of us campaigning for diversity in education, Quinn made some important inroads, such as starting the discussions for breaking down the vast power of religious bodies in education. However, he made some very unpopular and very silly decisions. Some would sympathise with the huge cuts to the education budget, given the economy, but many wouldn’t. The introduction of SSE and the Literacy and Numeracy Plan based on a blip in Ireland’s PISA scores in 2009 has been a disaster. A lot of his proposed changes, particularly at second level, have gone down very badly too. Sadly for people like me, religious bodies still retain almost the same control over primary schools, with very little progress made, though it might be unfair to blame him for this. Now retired from politics, Quinn sits on a number of boards. The current Minister for Education is Fianna Fáil’s Norma Foley. The only positive about this is that it increases gender balance.
Would he make the list today?
It’s tricky to know. His time was so divisive that he probably was never going to last any longer than he did. His work on challenging the religious bodies ultimately failed. Perhaps in another generation, his contribution will be recognised for starting the conversation, but right now, it doesn’t feel that way. However, for me, the most unforgiveable thing he did was to make schools publish their standardised test results in literacy and numeracy to the Department of Education. This has the potential of creating league tables and I’m surprised it hasn’t happened yet.
2. The Troika
For those of you what can’t remember the Troika were probably the most feared group in Ireland during the economic crash. They were a consortium of the European Commission, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund and their job was to provide a bailout to countries like Ireland, and to oversee the financial measures and government policies. It gave Ruairi Quinn and all the other government ministers a scapegoat for all the cuts that had to be incurred. In 2011, the Irish Times deemed them the 2nd most influential people in Irish education. By December 2013, we had exited the bailout programme.
Would they make the list today?
Short answer is no. However, many of the cuts they helped to impose have never been reversed.
3. Colm McCarthy
It says something when 2 of the top 3 people in education in 2011 were economists rather than educationalists. If there was one person that was more feared than the Troika in Ireland during the crash, it was Colm McCarthy, the chair of the McCarthy report of what became known as An Bord Snip Nua. (There was a Bord Snip in 1987) The cuts included the removal of substitute cover for sick teachers, a reduction in SNAs, an increase in class size, a reduction in capitation grants, and a reduction in EAL teachers. The union renegotiated some of these cuts to create the two-tiered pay system that still exists today, but that can’t be blamed on McCarthy — we’ll get to that later! These days you’ll mainly see and hear McCarthy in the media where he talks about economics.
Would he make the list today?
I doubt it. While much of the damage he recommended has yet to be fully restored, and it may never do, he no longer appears in education discourse.
4. Andreas Schleicher
You’d be forgiven for not knowing who this is but he is probably the first person so far that might still make the list. If I mentioned the PISA results, then you’d definitely know who he is. Yes, Andreas Schleicher is Director for Education and Skills, and Special Advisor on Education Policy to the Secretary-General at the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). He initiated and oversees the Programme for International Student Assessment (now you know what PISA means!)
Back in 2011, this man was big news because for the first time in a long time, Ireland’s PISA results had slipped down the rankings. It caused huge consternations in the media and in the political world. Some would argue it gave the government a catalyst to come down harder on teachers’ wages and conditions during the recession. It brought about the introduction of the Literacy and Numeracy Initiative along with School Self Evaluation, both of which remain today.
Schleicher remains one of the most influential voices in education internationally. For example, before anyone was talking about Artificial Intelligence in the classroom, he spoke about Ireland’s education system being stuck in the 20th century and how it needed to step up given the world of automation and AI that was coming down the tracks. A year later, the NCCA launched the 2026 revised primary curriculum, which has done little to inspire any confidence.
Would he make the list today?
I think so. Ireland still places a lot of faith in the PISA scores that come out, but that’s not why. In fact, it’s exactly what we shouldn’t have done back in 2011. Schleicher’s wisdom is generally spot on and we do need to start listening to him. We can’t rest on the laurels of the last 30 years or we are going to find ourselves falling behind our OECD colleagues. It’s possibly fair to say we already might be slipping.
5. Brigid McManus
The first female on the list was about to step down from her position in 2011. She was described as formidable and praised for her attention to detail. She was the first ever female to hold the position, which is often described as the most influential position in education so, to be fair, she deserved her place. I’m not exactly sure what the general secretary of the Department of Education does but when she was asked to describe her job, she said:
“The civil service is a fascinating and very challenging place to work. It is a job where you can make a real difference and where you have a job which has real significant. I am not saying that other jobs don’t give you this but the excitement and challenge of working in the civil service is not widely recognised.”
It’s hard to describe exactly what a General Secretary does but I know nothing happens without their approval. When McManus gave one of her last speeches at the Irish Primary Principals’ Network (IPPN) conference in 2011, she outlined exactly what was coming down the line — the Literacy and Numeracy Strategy (thanks to our “very disappointing” PISA results), Croke Park Hours and, adjustments, the word government people used instead of “cuts” to make it sound more palatable. (It didn’t.) McManus now sits on the Board of Children’s Health Ireland.
Would she make the list today?
Without a doubt. Her two successors, Seán O’Foghlú and Bernie McNally, have similar credentials, and no doubt they are pulling all the strings in the Department of Education. Whether any of that is a good thing or not, I’m not so sure. The Irish Times noted that McManus was brought in to shake things up and I’d suggest the time has come for that to happen again.
6. Brendan Howlin
In 2011, Brendan Howlin was the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform, in other words the person that holds the purse strings to the education budget. Howlin took the portfolio in a time when the country was broke. His challenge was to make cuts (or is that adjustments?) without damaging his trade union roots. It looks like Brigid McManus decided what had to happen so I’m not quite sure what exactly he did to influence it but his speech was fairly human insofar as it started by acknowledging his predecessor, Brian Lenihan, who passed away very young. He then went on to say:
We are going through a painful process of adjustment. Public anger is acute because the public was not responsible for putting us in this position.
Damn right, except for the word adjustment. In fact, his budgets were criticised by the ESRI as “regressive” which, to be fair, probably wasn’t his fault. Ultimately, Howlin continued his career eventually becoming the leader of the Labour Party for a short time. He remains a TD but likely to be coming to the end of his political life.
Would he make the list today?
The current Minister for Public Expenditure probably would make the list but in a much lower position, and rightly so. Of the six people listed so far, half of them are focused on the economy rather than education. I do wonder if Howlin took the education portfolio what he would have done given his previous career as a primary school teacher.
7. Harold Hislop
Recently retired chief inspector Harold Hislop was one of the few educationalists in the list back in 2011. At this point, he was one of Ruairi Quinn’s key people due to the fact that he had expertise of the education system, amazingly rare in the people making the rules in the Department of Education. Hislop will be most remembered for his pantomime villain act at the 2010 IPPN conference where he goaded the grumbling crowd after announcing that principals would be taking over the role of the inspectors in probated newly qualified teachers, with his now infamous “Oh yes, you will” retort.
All that aside, nobody could deny him his place in recent Irish education history. Back then the Times praised him for his ambition to make teachers more accountable and School Self Evaluation was definitely part of the plan. His plans to make principals responsible for probating newly qualified teachers became the damp squib that is Droichead, which really was no win for anyone in the profession, and is likely to play its part in the decline of teaching standards.
Would he make the list today?
I asked teachers on Twitter/X for their thoughts and it was interesting how close the response was.
I’m going to go against the grain here and say “yes.” Although he has retired, I’m told he is still working away in the background at second level. However, the reason I am saying “yes” is because if I asked you to name two chief inspectors, it’s likely you might struggle past his name, despite the fact that the current chief inspector has a memorable enough name. By no means did he completely reshape the inspectorate to a more modern role but he certainly advocated for it. One might argue that Hislop merely moved the chairs on the deck and the inspectorate continues to be the autocratic, judgemental role it always was, and despite the sales pitch, he failed to transform the role into a supportive one. However, perhaps he did steer the ship slightly.
8. Sheila Nunan
Sheila Nunan was the first female General Secretary of the INTO, taking over from John Carr in 2009. Her tenure was bookended by the recession and I feel if she had have been in the position any time outside of it, history may be kinder to her. As impressive as she was in many ways, Nunan has to claim responsibility for leading and campaigning for the two-tier system where teachers teaching since 2012 have lost tens of thousands of euro. At the time, the INTO campaigned furiously to protect teachers in the system in 2011 at the expense of newly qualified teachers, who became known as Lower Paid Teachers. Over the years, Nunan oversaw horrific cuts to the conditions of teachers, which were always defended by “it would have been worse if it weren’t for us.” The union became more theocratic in its delivery as their CEC Reps started delivering sermons at meetings instead of listening to the congregation. Trust in the union hit a low when, during her tenure, we saw the first ever election for president of the INTO where their preferred candidate barely scraped victory.
However, Nunan deserves huge praise in overseeing the establishment of the LGBT+ Teachers’ Group. Her dedication to equality in the teaching profession has to be recognised. In fact, in all aspects of equality, the INTO always were on the right side of the argument, and that comes from the top.
The Irish Times also praised her for “showing steel,” which seems to be a compliment reserved for women for some reason. To me, she was a charismatic leader and believed in herself and her vision and she saw it through in extremely difficult circumstances. Despite some of what I’ve said, I can’t help to have liked her a lot. I think she was the General Secretary at the wrong time.
The Times also said that her critics felt she was too close to Labour Ministers, which ended up coming to fruition when she was picked as Labour’s candidate for the European Parliament elections, where she earned 3% of the first preference votes.
Would she make the list today?
Sheila Nunan stepped into politics and out of it very quickly and now sits on some Boards and most recently was drafted in for negotiations for compensating victims of the Mother and Baby Homes. (As I said, I do really like her.) Given that she is no longer in education, she wouldn’t make the list now.
It seems most people agree. The big question is whether her successor, John Boyle, would make the list now. It would be naive to think that the leader of the biggest teacher trade union in Ireland wouldn’t feature in a list like this but where exactly in the list he’d be is another question.
9. The US Multinationals
Sheesh… I remember the reason that these guys ended up on the list. For some very odd reason, the Department of Education decided to create a vision document for the education called Smart Schools = Smart Economy, which was supposed to advise schools on using technology well. The only problem… there wasn’t a single practicing teacher on the Membership of the ICT in Schools Advisory Group!
Even more bizarrely, not one of these multi-million euro businesses thought that they might invest some of those millions into schools, at a time when schools received no ICT grant at all, and relied completely on cake sales to buy their equipment. How on earth the Irish Times felt that these people would influence education at any level other than 3rd level is beyond me.
Thankfully after all the teachers stopped laughing at the document, it went away.
Would they make the list now?
They absolutely shouldn’t have back then and given that they still haven’t managed to come up with a simple brainwave of investing in the education system in a meaningful way, they certainly wouldn’t make it now.
10. Brian McCraith
McCraith was in his first few years as the president of DCU back in 2011 after succeeding the enigmatic Ferdinand von Prondzynski. Ultimately, McCraith wouldn’t have had much influence on primary education except in one case.
McCraith oversaw the amalgamation of St. Patrick’s College and the Church of Ireland College of Education into DCU. As part of the deal, McCraith agreed that separate CAO points would be allowed for Church of Ireland Leaving Certificate students would remain in place, despite the fact the the amalgamation was to bring the two college courses under one course.
While this was to be a (very) temporary measure, it has been allowed to continue year after year. No other faith in Ireland benefits from preferential points to become primary school teachers.
Would he make the list now?
In terms of primary education, he wouldn’t have made it in 2011, might have made it in 2016 when that fateful decision was made, but would no longer make it now. His successor, Daire Keogh, on the other hand, given that he came from education, might possibly make the list, though his impact on primary education has been minimal since his appointment.
