P. J. Sheehan
Question:15 Mr. Sheehan asked the Minister for Education and Science his plans to ensure all children at secondary school receive adequate counselling and career guidance. [28239/01]
Written Answers. - Career Guidance.
There are now more guidance counsellors employed by schools than at any previous time and, as a result, schools, whatever their size, are in a position to ensure that pupils have access to counselling and career guidance by qualified personnel. I recently announced the allocation of 50 additional posts to schools in order to enhance the provision of guidance to young people at risk, to improve links between schools and the world of work and to improve the take-up of science subjects. This initiative, which benefits 103 schools, is being monitored by a group representative of the partners in education. The National Centre for Guidance in Education, NCGE, has provided a wide range of support materials for guidance counsellors and schools generally. It is currently finalising new and detailed guidelines for schools on guidance provision. It is important that schools should see guidance as an integral part of whole school provision, and guidance and counselling should form part of the school development planning process. Schools are also encouraged to use resources provided under other initiatives, such as the stay at school retention initiative, to enhance their guidance provision, especially for those pupils most at risk.
The results of an audit of guidance provision in all second-level schools, commissioned by my Department, have recently been published. It is clear from the audit that a significant number of schools are not fully utilising the resources currently being made available to them for guidance and, in many schools, the service is not adequately targeted at pupils at risk. In these circumstances, a priority for me is to ensure the resources made available to schools for guidance are fully utilised for that purpose. In line with the Government's priority to promote social inclusion, a second priority for me is to ensure that those young people who are most at risk of dropping out of education early are a major focus of guidance provision in schools. As a result, any future enhancement of provision to individual schools will be conditional on their making a commitment to providing a service to all their pupils which would reflect both Government priorities and pupils' needs.
Ireland is taking part in an international study of guidance provision currently being undertaken by the OECD in 15 countries. The study involves a detailed examination by an expert team from the OECD of all aspects of guidance provision for both school pupils and adults. This country will be the first country to be examined by the experts, whose report will be published by the OECD during 2002.