Monica Barnes
Question:14 Mrs. Barnes asked the Minister for Education and Science the plans, if any, he has to deal with the problem of early school leaving being twice as prevalent among boys as girls. [15526/99]
Written Answers. - Early School Leavers.
My Department has carried out a detailed analysis of data received from individual schools and this has allowed a more complete picture of the early school leaving issue to be developed than was ever the case in the past. On the basis of this data, the retention rate to completion of senior cycle for boys is some 10 per cent below that for girls. The reasons for the different retention rates for boys and girls have a social and an economic dimension which I intend to have examined further in order to advance policy in this area.
Increasing the retention rate to completion of senior cycle is a key education priority for this Government. There is already a range of strategies in place to help prevent early school leaving. These include the allocation of additional resources to schools in disadvantaged areas; the home school community liaison scheme; curricular reforms to allow students to make choices relevant to their abilities and aptitudes; support for junior and senior centres for travellers; the book grant scheme, and alleviation of examination fees, for necessitous pupils.
These measures have been successful but do not represent a complete answer to this complex problem. At present our retention rate to completion of senior cycle remains around 83 per cent and clearly more targeted responses are now needed. The projects strand of the eight to 15 year old early school leavers initiative was introduced in 14 areas during the current school year. The projects aim to develop models of good practice in the integrated delivery of in-school and out-of-school actions by schools and by other statutory and voluntary agencies.
The actions are designed to prevent early school leaving and support young people whose behaviours are predictive of leaving school early. The actions are also designed to support the return to the formal school system of young people who are not yet 15 years of age and are not in school. Information regarding effective models will be disseminated through the system generally and the models will be replicated in areas of disadvantage.
The Education (Welfare) Bill, which was published recently, is an important plank in the campaign to keep students at school. The recently announced stay in school initiative costing £4.5 million represents a further major step towards alleviating the problem. The core point is that schools themselves need to take charge of tackling early school leaving and under the new scheme these schools will receive the supports they need to make an impact. The underlying objective of the stay in school project is to establish a direct link with individual schools experiencing serious retention problems and agree a programme of action with clear targets which is matched by appropriate resources. Fundamental to the scheme will be a direct link between the continuation of resources and the achievement of agreed targets.
My Department will be evaluating these measures on an ongoing basis with a view to ensuring that the longstanding and entrenched problem of early school leaving is systematically tackled across a range of fronts.