Finian McGrath
Ceist:483 Mr. F. McGrath asked the Minister for Education and Science the number of children who missed more than 20 days of school in 2002. [19903/03]
Written Answers. - Departmental Statistics.
The Education (Welfare) Act, 2000, was fully commenced on 5 July 2002. Under the Act, the National Educational Welfare Board was established to ensure that every child attends school regularly or otherwise receives an education. The Act repealed the previous school attendance legislation and provided for the transfer of the former school attendance officers to the board. The legislation outlines the functions and responsibilities of the board, parents and schools in relation to school attendance.
The board will employ educational welfare officers to provide welfare focused services to children, families and schools throughout the country. The new services will be phased in and my Department has allocated a budget of €5.4 million to the board for 2003 to begin developing the services involved. A management team was put in place earlier this year. Some 36 new staff are currently being recruited, which will bring the total number of staff delivering educational welfare services nationally to 73. Five regional teams will be established and the staff will be deployed in areas of greatest disadvantage and areas designated under the Government's RAPID programme. A service will also be provided in cases where children have been permanently excluded from education.
Schools are required to record, monitor and report on pupil attendance under the Act. Specifically, they are required to submit a report on the levels of attendance to the educational welfare officer for the school at the end of the school year. The board is currently consulting with school managers, principals, teachers and parents on the content of these reports and the arrangements for their submission. It is expected that guidance will issue to schools shortly and the first standardised comprehensive attendance reports will be received by the board at the end of the current school year 2003-04. These reports will provide the first substantive data on the levels of pupil absenteeism nationally and reasons for it. l look forward to seeing an analysis of this data which will inform the future plans of the development of the new service.