Vol. 521 No. 4
322 Mr. Howlin asked the Minister for Education and Science if his attention has been drawn to the fact that a stay in school initiative to tackle the problem of early school leaving has been developed by the Christian Brothers secondary school in Wexford town; the specific supports which he will provide to the school in its endeavours; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [17432/00]
In June last year the major new stay-in-school retention initiative at second level was announced. This provides funding to targeted schools on the basis of plans which they are helped to design themselves. The intention is to empower the schools themselves to tackle early school leaving. At the core of the initiative are multi-annual retention plans drawn up by the individual schools and agreed with my Department. This will provide for a range of targeted measures directed at the particular needs of the individual schools, together with clear targets in terms of increased retention.
Late last year 58 post-primary schools, including one school in County Wexford, accepted invitations to participate in the first phase of the project. In May this year a further 59 schools were invited to participate. This includes two schools in County Wexford. The selection of schools for invitation to participate has been based on overall enrolment figures and the number of pupils failing to remain in school up to the completion of the senior cycle, with particular emphasis on junior cycle retention. For some time, my Department has been involved in a detailed analysis of data from individual schools, which has allowed a more complete picture of early school leaving to be developed. This in turn has allowed resources under the stay-in-school initiative to be targeted at schools in a focused way with the objective of helping as many students as possible who are at high risk of dropping out of school.
