Vol. 477 No. 7
37 Ms O'Donnell asked the Minister for Education the progress, if any, which has been made in relation to the truancy and school attendance report of 1994; the action, if any, which will be taken to address the problems of truancy at primary and secondary school levels; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [10171/97]
The school attendance/truancy report was published in April 1994.
In 1995 I established a truancy task force with the following terms of reference: to examine the submissions received from interested parties in response to the truancy report, and to consider and make recommendations as to future action required to address the problem of truancy at first and second level.
Following on the recommendations of the truancy task force, work on the preparation of the heads of new school attendance legislation is now well advanced.
There are already a range of strategies in place aimed at the prevention of early school leaving. These include the Early Start pre-school programme, the allocation of additional resources to schools designated as disadvantaged, the home-school-community liaison scheme, the remedial teacher service, the pilot teacher-counsellor scheme and the Breaking the Cycle initiative.
