The 19th century Protestant patriot, Thomas Osborne Davis, wrote, "Educate that you may be free." Though his exhortation was directed to the Irish people, the call is as universal as its central tenet – that education is the enemy of poverty and prejudice.

As exam results arrive, it is apparent just how seriously people now take education. Grades are ever-rising as young people liberate themselves from ignorance and geographical immobility, and from the tyranny of unrewarding work. Their efforts and sacrifices should bring rewards as opportunities open up all over the world for study, careers, development. Undoubtedly, Ireland and its young people are putting ignorance on the run. We may no longer be a nation of saints, but we certainly are a nation of scholars.

There are always the naysayers who would rob our young people of acclaim by alleging that standards are falling as grades rise. By this, they suggest that this generation is somehow intellectually inferior to its predecessors – that is, to the generation of the naysayer. This is hogwash. There are new and different demands of knowledge – new technologies, new means of communications – and the skills young people need in 2008 are vastly different from the skills and pool of knowledge required in 1968, 1978 and 1988. But different does not mean they are less worthy.

What does it matter if the shape of knowledge changes, so long as the quest for knowledge continues?

However, though education is blessed in many ways, there are no guarantees in this world. Whereas a graduate of the 1960s could all but be guaranteed a professional job, today's skilled and talented young graduates often have to work in cafés and bars – serving chips and pulling pints. Often they have to leave in search of opportunities and Ireland has been too quick to export her young in times of economic difficulty. With a current recession, there is a danger that foreign cities will benefit again from the talents of our young. That should not be so. While it is often good and useful to spend time broadening outlook and experience abroad, forced emigration is nothing short of political failure.

As a nation, we must do all we can to hold on to our youth. They are our future and, in their quest for learning, they are our salvation.