Dáil Éireann díospóireacht -
Tuesday, 16 Dec 2003

Vol. 577 No. 3

Written Answers. - National Educational Welfare Board.

Eamon Ryan

Ceist:

52 Mr. Eamon Ryan asked the Minister for Education and Science if recommendations will be made by his Department regarding further funding for the National Educational Welfare Board in the wake of a recent ESRI paper, Educational Expenditures: Implications for Equality, that stated that savings of at least ?14 million a year could be made if the Government simply prevented young people from dropping out of school before the leaving certificate. [30969/03]

Ciarán Cuffe

Ceist:

56 Mr. Cuffe asked the Minister for Education and Science when will the NEWB be fully resourced to carry out its statutory remit. [30964/03]

Thomas P. Broughan

Ceist:

63 Mr. Broughan asked the Minister for Education and Science the reason only ?5.7 million was allocated in the Estimates for 2004 for the NEWB, when it had estimated that ?25 million was required to allow the provision of a full service; if his attention was drawn to the concerns expressed by the teacher unions and others regarding the board's inadequate level of funding; his views on whether it is satisfactory that one single school attendance officer may have to look after an entire county; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [30907/03]

Thomas P. Broughan

Ceist:

74 Mr. Broughan asked the Minister for Education and Science if he will make a statement on his address at the official launch of the NEWB on 1 December. [30908/03]

Minister for Education and Science (Mr. N. Dempsey):

I propose to take Questions Nos. 52, 56, 63 and 74 together.

The Education (Welfare) Act 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.

To discharge its responsibilities the board is developing a nationwide service to provide welfare-focused services to children, families and schools. It appointed a chief executive officer, directors of corporate services and educational welfare services and a management team of eight staff. To date 53 educational welfare staff have been appointed. This includes 29 former school attendance officers who transferred to the board from the pre-existing service. Recently the board advertised a competition to fill a further 15 vacancies that will bring the total staff complement to 84.

At this stage of the board's development its aim is to provide a service to the most disadvantaged areas, including areas designated under the Government's RAPID programme and most at risk groups. Five regional teams have been established with bases in Dublin, Cork, Limerick, Galway and Waterford. For the first time an educational welfare service is available in the cities of Limerick, Galway and Kilkenny. As many as 12 towns have significant school going populations and 11 are designated under the Government's RAPID programme. They now have an educational welfare officer allocated to them. These towns are Dundalk, Drogheda, Navan, Athlone, Carlow, Wexford, Bray, Clonmel, Tralee, Ennis, Sligo and Letterkenny. In addition, the board will follow up on urgent cases nationally where children are not receiving an education.

The board will provide a service to families who decide to have their children educated in places other than in recognised schools. A small number of people with the appropriate skills have been allocated to this work and assessments will commence shortly. Recently my Department issued guidelines to assist the board in meeting its responsibilities in the area. An information leaflet and an application form are being prepared for issue to families who are educating their children at home. Work is also proceeding on the establishment of the register for 16 and 17 year olds who leave school to enter employment.

Guidelines are being prepared for schools on the reporting of student absences. A protocol outlining the interaction between schools and educational welfare staff is being developed with the assistance of the school implementation group recently established by the board.

As provided for under section 10 of the Education (Welfare) Act 2000, I have arranged for officials of my Department to work with the board to ensure that any opportunities for integrated working between educational welfare officers and staff on other educational disadvantage programmes whose work involves a school attendance element are exploited to the maximum. I consider the implementation of protocols for such integrated working on attendance matters between the board and, in particular, the home-school-community liaison scheme, the school completion programme and the visiting teacher service for Travellers to be very important. When in place they will assist the board in carrying out its remit and ensure that all available existing resources are utilised to the full. I consider it essential that the board should focus on ways it can deliver the service with the personnel it has at the moment and with the help of other people involved in the area. When this has been achieved I will consider the position again taking into account the available resources.

The board's 2004 provision is €5.7 million as indicated in the recently published Abridged Estimates Volume. The provision has been determined in the light of developments to date, the overall resources available and the need to ensure a collaborative and co-operative approach by all involved in addressing issues of disadvantage.