Ceist:
94 Mr. Hayes asked the Minister for Education and Science the plans, if any, he has to urgently address problems in implementation of school attendance, particularly in disadvantaged urban areas. [16691/97]
Written Answers - School Attendance.
My Department is currently considering the drafting of new legislation to replace the School Attendance Act, 1926.
In addition, I would like to inform the Deputy that an extensive range of strategies is already in place to help prevent truancy and early school leaving. These include intervention measures such as pre-school services, remedial education, the home school community liaison service, the teacher counsellor scheme, youth encounter projects, the breaking the cycle scheme, and the disadvantaged areas scheme; curricular reforms such as the junior certificate elementary programme, the leaving certificate vocational programme and the leaving certificate applied, which are designed to cater for a varying range of aptitudes and abilities and thereby encourage an improvement in retention rates; second chance education and training through the provision of Youthreach for unqualified early school leavers; provision over the next two years for bridging and progression options for early school leavers through the FÁS training system; and an initiative, over the next two years, focused on structured pilot projects in urban and rural disadvantaged areas for the development of an integrated area based co-ordination of services to cater for young people aged eight to 15 who are at risk of early school leaving.
All of the above initiatives have a particular relevance to children and young people from disadvantaged urban areas.