Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 25 March 2004
90 Ms O’Sullivan asked the Minister for Education and Science if his attention has been drawn to the alarm felt in the 55 schools that have been included in the stay in school retention initiative, due to the reduction from €50,000 per annum to €12,000 per annum per school; his long-term plans for the scheme; the way in which the good works being done under the initiative can continue; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [9447/04]
View answerIn 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, which 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.
Some 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. The options for the future of the School Completion Programme are being considered in the context of a broad review of all of the initiatives to tackle educational disadvantage and early school leaving, which is currently underway in my Department.
