On behalf of the Minister for Education and Science, I am happy to reply to the Deputy and I thank him for the opportunity to outline to the House the position regarding this matter.
The school completion programme, which is a new and expanded programme to deal with early school leaving, was introduced earlier this year. The school completion programme incorporates the elements of best practice established by the eight to 15 year old early school leaver initiative and the stay in school retention initiative at second level, the pilot phases of which came to an end in August and July 2002 respectively.
The school completion programme is designed to deal with issues of both concentrated and regionally dispersed disadvantage and is a key component of the Department of Education and Science's strategy to discriminate positively in favour of children and young people who are at risk of early school leaving. Significant funding will be made available to this programme over the next three years, comprising €23.1 million in 2003, €23.5 million in 2004 and €24.1 million in 2005 under the national development plan with assistance from the European Social Fund.
The school completion programme recognises that a wide variety of home, community and school-based factors can contribute to low school attainment and early school leaving. Improving student retention to completion of senior cycle at second level can only be achieved by enhancing the educational experience of those for whom school may be irrelevant or unimportant. Consequently, strategies designed to address the needs of young people at risk of early school leaving must include a range of actions that impinge on these aspects of young people's lives; these strategies must therefore be holistic and child-centred by nature. The school completion programme aims to develop local strategies to ensure maximum participation levels in the education process. It entails targeting individual young people of school going age, both in and out of school, and arranging supports to address inequalities in education access, participation and outcomes.
The programme will focus on the areas of greatest need. Sites for participation have been selected on the basis of a detailed analysis of pupil retention rates at second level using the Department of Education and Science's post-primary pupils database. This analysis also identified the main feeder primary schools. A total of 82 projects – 65 new projects sites together with the existing 17 ESLI projects – have been selected to participate in the school completion programme.
A local management group must be established to manage each of the projects at local level. School completion projects must have representatives of relevant schools and parents, together with local statutory, voluntary and community agencies. This local management group will consult with the local home-school-community liaison committee, where one exists, on a two-way advisory basis. Evidence generated from the pilot phases of the school completion programme shows that the most effective way of addressing educational disadvantage is through an integrated services approach.
The local management group, therefore, will be required to assess the needs of marginalised, educationally disadvantaged young people at local level and to devise an integrated, costed, focused and targeted retention plan that will support these young people in their school, home and community life. Representatives of schools and agencies on the local management group must engage school staff and parents in a consultative and planning process in order that the retention plan supports the needs of all young people at risk. The retention plan will offer in-school, after-school, out-of-school and holiday time supports to young people at risk.
A national co-ordinating team that comprises a national co-ordinator and four assistant national co-ordinators supports the school completion programme. It is the task of the national co-ordinating team to advise on and monitor the integrated area based retention plans that support the young person at risk at local level.
In addition to the 82 school completion projects, the Department of Education and Science is continuing to support 53 second level schools, which were funded previously under the stay in school retention initiative but were not selected for the project phase on this occasion. These 53 schools, which include New Ross vocational college, will be supported under the stay in school retention phase of the school completion programme on a phasing out basis over the next three years to 31 August 2005.
Having regard to the amount of funding available to this programme in future, any decision to include further project sites will be based on a selection process using the most current detailed analysis of pupil retention rates at second level from the Department of Education and Science's post-primary pupils database.
