Dáil Éireann díospóireacht -
Wednesday, 7 May 1997

Vol. 478 No. 7

Adjournment Debate. - School Attendance Legislation.

Mr. E. Byrne

Thank you for facilitating me this evening.

Most people will be aware that a recent report of the National Economic and Social Forum involving a study of early school leavers highlighted a startling figure of some 3,200 children who leave school annually without any qualification.That figure was broken down to demonstrate another frightening fact, that approximately 1,000 children drop out of school even before reaching second level. That report also confirmed what we had suspected for a long time, that each early school leaver represents a potential addition to the live register. There are sufficient figures to demonstrate that 46 per cent of 15 to 24 year olds are unemployed, something with which not many will be familiar. Unfortunately they are likely to remain unemployed because of their low educational achievement.

These statistics come as no surprise to those of us who work in marginalised, inner city communities, in places such as Tallaght out of which my party colleague, the Minister of State, Deputy Rabbitte, operates or our party Leader, Deputy De Rossa who operates out of the Finglas area. Those of us who are elected to represent the inner city and other marginalised communities know where the jobless blackspots are. In one large inner city community in my constituency of Dublin South Central as many as 55 per cent of adults left school before reaching the age of 15. In housing estates adjoining the inner city the figure is 40 per cent. A recent survey of primary schools in the south-west inner city of Dublin found that 34 per cent of pupils in education need remedial teaching and 5 per cent do not attend school regularly.

At a time of unprecedented job creation we must focus resources on education to ensure our young people are equipped with the skills they need to take up those jobs. Programmes designed specifically for early school leavers such as Youthreach have an important role and I congratulate the staff and students engaged in Youthreach projects. We must take preventative action by ensuring children stay in school for as long as possible. I applaud proposals to raise the school leaving age from 15 years to 16 years.

As well as increasing the school leaving age, however, we must ensure attendance in school is rigorously enforced, which is not the case at present. We must devise a system whereby the Department of Education can track pupils and intervene before they join the early school-leaver statistics. That would be best achieved by obliging school principals at primary level to report on the destination of every pupil who leaves the school and notify the Department of Education or FÁS of any drop out or suspected drop out within three weeks of the student disappearing from class.

This is one of the issues which I hope will be addressed in the proposed legislation. I urge the Minister to bring forward this legislation as quickly as possible to reverse the present trend where an increasing number of people find themselves marginalised and long-term unemployed, with no hope of a job in the future.

Mr. Allen

I am glad the Deputy has given me the opportunity to outline to the House the current position regarding the introduction of revised school attendance legislation. The Government's programme of renewal identified among its priorities pilot initiatives to address the problems of truancy and early drop out.

The Minister of State, Deputy Currie, has been charged with specific responsibility for this area. In April 1994 the Minister published the Report of the Working Group on Truancy. This report followed a comprehensive review of the operations of the Acts governing schools attendance. In publishing the report on truancy, the Minister invited submissions from interested parties in order to tap the knowledge and expertise of all relevant interests in developing proposals on school attendance. A significant number of submissions and views on the report's contents were received.

It is evident from the report that truancy is a complex issue which demands a comprehensive solution and that the question of truancy and non-school attendance is an issue which can have its roots in a wide range of social, personal and educational problems. The Department of Education has a wide range of strategies currently in place to help prevent early school leaving and under achievement. At primary level these include early intervention measures which provide additional supports for young people at risk. These measures are aimed at optimising their participation in and benefit from the education system. These include major initiatives such as pre-schooling, remedial and home-school-community liaison services, co-ordination with other agencies, guidance and psychological services and ancillary services and resources for schools in disadvantaged areas, as well as the recently launched Breaking the Cycle initiative. A number of youth encounter projects are also provided for young people who have either become involved in minor delinquency or are at risk of doing so, and who have become alienated from the mainstream school system.

The Minister for Education also introduced a pilot scheme under which special counsellor teacher posts have been allocated to assist certain schools in addressing particular difficulties with disruptive pupils. A total of 27 counsellor-teacher posts have been allocated under this initiative to schools serving disadvantaged areas. This pilot scheme has been introduced in Dublin inner city schools and in schools in the Tallaght-Clondalkin areas.

The strategy at second level includes curricular reform such as the junior certificate schools programme, the leaving certificate vocational programme, and the applied leaving certificate programme, which are all designed to encourage an improvement in retention rates to completion of senior cycle to up to 90 per cent of the total cohort of second level pupils. There is also a significant emphasis on second chance education and training through the provision of Youthreach for unqualified early school leavers over age 15. This programme is provided jointly by FÁS and the vocational education committees in community training workshops and vocational education committee Youthreach centres. Some 2000 Youthreach places are provided in the education sector and an additional 450 places are currently being allocated.

The Minister of State, Deputy Currie, is conscious of the need for a comprehensive solution to the problems of truancy and non-school attendance, which can be best achieved by a mix of legislative, administrative, educational and social measures. As a first step in the process of addressing these problems, the Minister of State announced the establishment of a task force in the Department of Education to examine submissions received in response to the truancy report and consider and make recommendations as to future action required to address the problem of truancy at first and second level. The work of that task force is now concluded. Proposals regarding school attendance legislation have been circulated to all Departments for their observations and these have been returned in recent weeks. The general scheme of a new school attendance Bill will go to Cabinet shortly for approval to draft.