Dáil Éireann Debate, Wednesday - 30 June 2004
164 Mr. Eamon Ryan asked the Minister for Education and Science the steps being taken to address the high incidence of early school leaving in rural areas such as Donegal; if an additional third level facility or appropriate life skills programme will be considered as part of the solution; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [19592/04]
View answerMy Department's policy in regard to the retention of young people who are at risk of early school leaving is to support young people in school and to support schools to adapt to the needs of the young people experiencing difficulties. It also involves the development of a range of appropriate interventions in the community to support pupils, who are still of compulsory schoolgoing age and are outside the formal school system, with a view to supporting their progression over time back to mainstream education.
The school completion programme, SCP, which was introduced in 2002, is a key component of my Department's strategy to discriminate positively in favour of children and young people who are at risk of early school leaving. Eligible schools were selected on the basis of their retention rates from the Department's post-primary pupil database. Schools are grouped into 82 clusters of one or more second-level schools and their major feeder primary schools. To date, 405 schools have been included in the SCP, 110 post-primary and 295 primary, with six post-primary schools and 22 primary schools participating in County Donegal.
With regard to curriculum, my Department's strategies have included widening the educational experience available to students, which aim to achieve a greater level of inclusiveness in curricular provision and meet the needs of the diversity of pupils in our second level schools, by expanding funding for programmes such as the junior certificate schools programme, JCSP, the leaving certificate vocational programme, LCVP, vocational preparation training, VPT, and the leaving certificate applied, LCA.
In addition, the National Educational Welfare Board, NEWB, was established under the Education (Welfare) Act 2000 to ensure that every child attends school regularly or otherwise receives an education. The board has recently written to all primary and post-primary schools requesting an annual attendance report for the school year 2003/04 which will provide comprehensive data on the levels of non-attendance by pupils. Such data are essential for the planning of the development of the National Educational Welfare Service and for the development of services and programmes designed to prevent non-attendance. My Department will be guided by any recommendations and advice on school attendance and early school leaving received from the NEWB following an analysis of the annual attendance data.
At present, there are no plans to build a further third level institute of technology in County Donegal. The north west region is currently served by two third level institutes of technology, namely Letterkenny Institute of Technology and the Institute of Technology, Sligo, in addition to the Tourism College, Killybegs. It is deemed that these institutions provide adequate provision of third level places for the region.
