Dáil Éireann debate -
Tuesday, 25 Feb 2003

Vol. 562 No. 1

Written Answers - School Completion Programme.

David Stanton

Question:

350 Mr. Stanton asked the Minister for Education and Science his views on whether the school completion programme has been a success; the number of pupils catered for by the programme; his further plans for the expansion of the programme; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [5709/03]

Minister for Education and Science (Mr. N. Dempsey)

In 2002, my Department introduced the school completion programme, SCP, which is a new and significantly expanded programme to deal with early school leaving incorporating the learning, experience and best practice derived from previous early school leaving initiatives and assimilates the eight to 15 early school leaver initiative, ESLI, and stay-in-school retention initiative at second level, SSRI.

My Department's decision to amalgamate the two programmes was based on the grounds that the two schemes shared the same objectives and targeted similar young people. The objective of the school completion programme is to provide a range of interventions in areas of disadvantage that support the retention of young people in education. Evidence generated from the pilot phases of the school completion programme shows that the most effective way of addressing educational disadvantage is through an integrated approach involving primary and post primary schools, parents, communities and relevant statutory and voluntary agencies.

Due to the success of the initial phase of the eight to 15 early school leaver initiative, it was decided to extend the 17 ESLI projects until August 2002. The extension of these projects into a second phase was encouraged by clear evidence of successful developments. Local voluntary and statutory agencies were giving support to young people at risk and the school attendance and attitudes to learning of many of the young people were improving noticeably.

In 2002, 82 school completion project sites, including the 17 ESLI projects, were selected to participate in the school completion programme. Figures in relation to the number of young people targeted by this initiative have been compiled from the retention plans submitted from the projects. These projects have identified 15,293 pupils as being most-at-risk of early school leaving.

As the school completion programme only commenced in October 2002, it is not possible to provide a full evaluation of it's success to date but it is expected that the progress made as a result of the ESLI and the SSRI initiatives will continue under the school completion programme. Having regard to the amount of funding available to this programme in the future, any decision to include further project sites will be based on a selection process using the most current detailed analysis of pupil retention rates at second-level from my Department's post-primary pupils database.