Written Answers. - School Attendance.
Róisín Shortall
Ceist:
451
Ms Shortall
asked the
Minister for Education and Science
if his attention has been drawn to the widespread concern among school authorities with regard to poor attendance due to students working, often late at night, and the serious implications this has for their education; the steps he will take to deal with this growing problem; and if he will make a statement on the matter.
[4935/01]
I share the Deputy's concern about non-school attendance, caused by whatever reason. Due to the link between non-school attendance and early school leaving my Department has initiated a programme comprising both legislative measures and special targeted initiatives to combat the problem of non-school attendance and early school leaving.
The recently enacted Education (Welfare) Act, 2000 will replace and reform current school attendance legislation. The Act provides for the introduction of a comprehensive school attendance service with responsibility for school attend ance being given to a newly established body – the National Educational Welfare Board. The focus of the national authority will be the provision of assistance and support, through locally based educational welfare officers, to schools and families rather than on penalties for non-attendance at school. The Act also includes specific measures for the early identification and support of children at risk of dropping out of the school system.
The Act provides measures designed specifically with early school leavers in mind. Section 29 provides that a young person, in effect in most cases 16 and 17 year olds, may register with the National Educational Welfare Board if they leave school before their 18th birthday. The board will then, following consultation with the young person, parents and others, prepare a plan for the young person's continuing education and training. Once that is done the board will issue a certificate to the young person concerned. The section goes on to provide that an employer cannot employ a young person unless he or she is the holder of a valid certificate. An employer is also obliged to inform the board within a month after a young person has been employed. The Act provides significant penalties for employers who breach these provisions. The overall thrust of the provisions is to place meaningful restrictions on the process whereby young people who are encouraged by an immediate earning potential to leave education and training and take up often low-skill work. The provisions do not prevent young people taking up employment but seek to ensure that a balance is struck between their employment rights and their future educational, training and social needs. My Department is in the process of implementing the Act.
The Protection of Young Persons (Employment) Act, 1996, precludes young people, between the ages of 16 and 18 and who are still at school, from working after 10 p.m. on any night when there is school the following day. My colleague, the Minister of State at the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment, has recently recruited a number of additional inspectors to assist with the enforcement of this legislation.
However, legislative solutions are not in themselves enough. For that reason I believe that it is vitally important that we also have in place strategies to encourage and support schools in retaining pupils to completion of senior cycle. In this regard the 8-15 year old early school leavers initiative was introduced in 1998. One of its key objectives is to test models of response to the problem of early school leaving, with a view to the integration of such models, after structured evaluation, into mainstream policy and practice. The projects strand of this initiative involves 17 specific projects in 14 areas. The initiative was originally introduced for the school years 1998– 1999 and 1999-2000. I have decided to extend the existing 17 projects for a further phase, for the period 1 July 2000 until 31 August 2002.
In June 1999 the stay in school retention initiative at second level was launched in 58 schools. This marks a significant departure from traditional policy in that funding of up to £40,000 per annum is being granted to targeted schools, on the basis of plans which they were helped to design themselves. The purpose of this initiative is to prevent early school leaving and raise senior cycle completion rates. At the end of May 2000 an additional 59 schools were invited to participate in the initiative.
The objective of preventing early school leaving is not a simple matter to resolve and in order to have a real chance of success the solution must be wide ranging and include strategies for identification, balancing of rights, statutory safeguards and school empowerment.
