It is about 1.7 per cent of the primary cohort. Another 2,200, 3.2 per cent, start post primary but leave school before completion of the junior cycle. Another 10,800, 15.9 per cent, leave school with the junior certificate but without completing the leaving certificate. Adding the second level element of that cohort, 81 per cent complete up to leaving certificate with 19 per cent dropping out. There have been dramatic improvements in participation rates in earlier years. For instance, the retention rate in 1986 was 70 per cent; now it is 81 per cent. The last couple of years have shown a plateauing, so to speak; it has varied from 82 to 81 per cent over that last three years of the survey. While we had a target to reach 90 per cent completion rate by 2000, the achievement of that target is not in sight.
My responsibilities are in the further education area, which are mostly adult education, adult literacy, VTOS, post leaving certificate courses but also the Youthreach programme for people who are over 15 but have left school without even a junior certificate. Youthreach is delivered jointly by FÁS and the vocational education committees. It is overseen by an interdepartmental steering committee and aided by the European Social Fund.
A number of evaluations have been critical. While they said that the Youthreach programme works in itself and is very successful, they were critical that there was an inadequate number of places and too few people were progressing to a second year of the programme. If people just come back, get a foundation programme and then take up employment it tends to be low skilled, unstable work and they can very quickly end up back where they started.
The other area of criticism was that the support services around Youthreach were inadequate and we have been lobbying for quite a while to get improvements on that front. As part of the mid-term review of the EU Structural Funds, we got a major package focused on early school leaving. As part of that package 2,637 extra early school leaver places were approved in 1998 across FÁS and the vocational education committees. That brings the total from 4,525 to 7,162.
It is a major expansion and took place for two reasons. First, to cater for the backlog of customers that had built up who did not have access to a programme and, second, to provide a second year so that people would have wider progression options to stay in second chance education and training. We have widened the options there by introducing tailor made programmes within Youthreach centres with opportunities to do the Leaving Certificate applied programme within a Youthreach setting and through expansions under the FÁS regime of extra places in Community Training Workshops, within FÁS mainline centres and linked work Experience and other major programmes.
We have moved from an under supply of places to a virtual over supply because in the meantime the employment market has picked up very considerably and now we have a difficulty keeping people on the programme because they are attracted outside. Although we pay a training allowance it does not equate with a wage and they are attracted out of the programme. This year we are trying to build up the flexibility of our overall suite of further education programmes through the development of part-time options so that even if people are pulled out into work they will be able to keep on their education and training. In the meantime we have made major progress in introducing national certification within Youthreach under the National Council for Vocational Awards.
Another element of the package was that we got money from the EU for a guidance counselling and psychological service for Youthreach and we convened an inter-agency task force which comprised the full range of interests to make recommendations as to how the measures should be delivered. It includes us, FÁS, the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment, the Probation and Welfare Service, the Department of Health and Children Promotion Unit, and the juvenile liaison service of the Garda. They made recommendations on a framework for the delivery of this counselling service.
We are trying to cater for a full spectrum of needs ranging from career guidance information to counselling, educational psychologists and psychiatric help for some people with acute problems. We have a district approach where at local level the vocational education committees convene meetings of all the interests in the area, including area partnerships, youth services, community groups, FÁS, vocational education committees, etc., so that they can decide and make sure they do not duplicate services and build up an expansion of Youthreach that denudes some other programme. We are trying to get a co-ordinated approach at that level right across the system.
Following from that, the priority at local level was expert counselling. The money was granted in the middle of 1998 to vocational education committees across the system to enable them to employ counsellors on an outreach basis so that they are scheduled to visit centres on a systematic basis but there is an emergency help as well. One of the difficulties is that if people are feeling suicidal or there is a major problem they must have the intervention there and then. It is no good giving them an appointment for three weeks time which was a difficulty we had to date. The counselling service is up and running and we will consolidate that development in 1999. We got an extra £250,000 in funding for it and so far about 1,700 Youthreach trainees have accessed specialist support under the counselling service.
The counselling and psychological service is twofold; one is to support the staff in dealing with the problem cases and the other is to give expert support to the actual trainees as and when they need it. It is up and running, working and we will consolidate development in 1999. In the meantime another priority is to give front line counselling skills to all the staff in Youthreach. With co-operation from an EU Community Initiative we have a consortium with the National Centre for Guidance in Education which has commissioned programmes that are starting on an in-service basis for the staff. They are run in co-operation with the universities in Dublin, Cork and St. Angela's College, Sligo, and one will start in Limerick in September.
The substance abuse prevention programme, which is a second level programme, is in use in all Youthreach centres throughout the country and staff from all the centres have participated in training. We also have a more explicit programme because we are dealing with the very acute end of the spectrum in that programme. We call it "Copping On" and it is jointly funded by ourselves, FÁS and the Prison Service. The Garda juvenile liaison service is involved but it does not have direct funds. It trains Youthreach staff, youth workers, juvenile liaison service and probation and welfare service workers together. Again, they are challenging their behaviour, promoting attitudinal change not just on the issue of drug abuse but also on crime and alcohol abuse, sex, handling conflict and dealing with relationships. It is an integrated model to challenge their behaviour. It is in use and has a full-time support service and has an inter-agency approach.
Youthreach is targeted at people from 15 years of age upwards and there are still gaps in the system for people who leave earlier and are not picked up until they reach 15 years. The other gap is in tracking. Despite the best efforts of schools working with FÁS, the Garda, the Youthreach centres, etc., we do not have systematic tracking to ensure that nobody falls through the loop. We introduced a new project last year called the 8-15 year old initiative which has a range of projects but also has a research strand. As part of that, the Education Research Centre has been commissioned to advise us on the development of a tracking measure to track people at primary level and into post-primary. Tied in with that are plans to shortly publish new school attendance legislation which will——