Vol. 576 No. 3
81 Mr. Wall asked the Minister for Education and Science the reason the stay in school retention initiative for Athy Community College, Athy, County Kildare has been cut by half in 2003; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [29583/03]
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, namely the eight to 15 early school leaver initiative, ESLI, and stay in school retention initiative at second level, SSRI.
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 services approach involving primary and post-primary schools, parents, communities and relevant statutory and voluntary agencies. This is the approach my Department is now taking to address the problem of early school leaving, which replaces the previous process of funding individual second level schools under the stay in school retention initiative. A total of 82 projects are currently supported and the remaining 53 SSRI schools not originally selected for the project strand are supported on a phasing out basis under the school completion programme.
My Department is currently considering the inclusion of further schools in the project strand of the school completion programme. Some of the remaining 53 SSRI schools could qualify for inclusion in the project strand and they will be notified of the outcome as soon as the process has been completed.
