With the agreement of the House, I would like to begin the debate. The Minister will contribute later.
National Economic and Social Forum Report No. 11: Statements.
Is that agreed? Agreed. Senators have ten minutes each, and statements should conclude by 8 o'clock.
This is the first time we have debated in full one of the reports of the National Economic and Social Forum. The setting up of the NESF was a remarkable achievement by the Fianna Fáil-Labour Government. It brought various strands of the community, including voluntary groups, business, agriculture, trade unions and public representatives, together to debate a wide range of issues. The NESF report number 11 is entitled Early School Leavers and Youth Unemployment.
To set the tone of the debate I wish to quote some statistics contained in the report. CSO data for the period 1992-1995 indicates that the youth unemployment rate is almost twice that of the adult rate. Some 85 per cent of early school leavers now come from working class origins or from small farms. Some 55 per cent are from families where the father is also unemployed.
The report reveals that single motherhood is highly concentrated among the unqualified and those with a poor labour market history. Some 25 per cent of all suicides are in the 15 to 24 age group, and 90 per cent of those are male. Of all those seeking treatment for drug abuse, 54 per cent are in their teenage years.
The report paints a picture of multiple disadvantage and the one thing they have in common is that they left school early and are unemployed. It is no secret, therefore, that the most disadvantaged are those with few, if any, formal qualifications.
Young people leaving school without educational qualifications are most likely to become unemployed, ending up in long-term unemployment. What is needed, therefore, is to keep them in education and essentially to make sure that this education is relevant to their situation, skills and job opportunities.
Government policy is totally committed to the achievement of these aims. A key target of the White Paper on Education is that by the year 2000, 90 per cent of those commencing second level education will complete the senior cycle. This is vital in the face of what is called the "qualification inflation" of the last decade.
The NESF report emphasises that there has been significant qualification inflation for most occupations, even unskilled ones, and a significant upgrading of the desired employee profile. This, of course, highlights the need to ensure that young people have the skills to compete in the employment market. It also emphasises the fact that job creation must be to the fore of Government policy. Where job scarcity is a feature of the employment market, qualification inflation will occur. That means the simplest jobs will go to those who have most qualifications. It stands to reason, therefore, that the more jobs there are available, the better chance there is for those with less qualifications to secure them.
The Government is on the right track and is dedicated to job creation. Current economic policies have resulted in a reduction in unemployment levels. Since the end of 1994, unemployment has fallen by 31,000. The forum found there had been a 4.5 per cent reduction in the rate of youth unemployment between 1994 and 1995. However, that reduction applies to a high figure and the problem must be continuously examined to ensure that the reduction not only continues at this rate but accelerates so that by the year 2020 we will no longer have this problem. Hopefully, there will be no early school leavers then and we will have tackled the problem of those who have left school early.
Some of the problems that confront young people who leave school early are attributable to their low educational qualifications. However, that is not the only factor. Sometimes early school leavers are confronted by employers who have negative views of the area from which they come. This can mean that despite their qualifications, such young people are not selected for the jobs that are available. In this context, I pay tribute to the work of the local employment service in trying to match employers with young job seekers in the area. Too often, even in rural Ireland, factories open in areas of high unemployment but few people from the area secure jobs in them. More often one sees workers commuting to the factories, bypassing houses where young people with relevant qualifications live. There is a need for the local employment service to be extended throughout the country so young people with skills in various areas can be matched with the jobs that are available in those areas.
As young people get older unemployment can become a habit. They can settle into a pattern of unemployment. I support the NESF report's recommendation to overcome this problem, that places be made available on community employment schemes for people between the ages of 18 and 21 years, especially those with low educational qualifications. That will enable them to break the habit of being unemployed and get them into the workforce. Sometimes the social welfare system, which is necessary, becomes a slight disincentive to seeking employment. The longer a person is unemployed, the more negative the impression an employer has of the person.
The number of people in the youthreach programme must be increased. Youthreach, by specifically targeting people who have left school early, providing them with almost an alternative form of education and with confidence and job skills, is vital in overcoming the problems young people face when trying to enter the employment market.
The report, in its conclusions, clearly summarises the situation. It states:
The key principle underlying the Forum's analysis of the problem of Early School Leavers and Youth Unemployment is that the link between educational disadvantage and subsequent poor labour market experience and life-chances must be clearly acknowledged... The Forum's analysis of the characteristics of early school leavers show that:
those who leave school with primary qualifications only are most at risk of unemployment, particularly long-term unemployment; around 90 per cent of poor households are headed by early school leavers;
the social origin of early leavers is very pronounced with 75 per cent of leavers coming from working class origin or small farms; 55 per cent of early leavers come from families where the fathers are unemployed;
more boys than girls are likely to leave school early;
Traveller children are among those most likely to leave early, with only around 5 per cent of Traveller children aged between 12 and 15 years attending mainstream second level schools;
young women who leave early are more likely to withdraw from the jobs markets and to marry early or to be single parents with children;
the earnings differential between those with no qualifications compared to those with qualifications is large and remains so over time; and
rural areas have the highest level of disadvantage.
We will proceed later to show how the forum's recommendations can and should be put in place.
I welcome the submissions and recommendations of the report. A great deal of research has been conducted in this area. I conducted research on this matter for my masters degree in 1993. My research dealt with the problem of drop-outs, unemployment and the perceptions of both. I based much of my research on earlier research. Since then we have had the educational research centre report of December, 1995, the "Breaking the Cycle" report of May, 1996 which sought to identify disadvantaged areas and tried to provide supports in those areas, an EU evaluation report under the Department of Enterprise and Employment of February, 1996, which discussed early school leaving and was combined with the anti-poverty strategy, and the Forfás report "Facing our Future" which contained many sections dealing with the drop-outs in society.
We are not short of knowledge, information and research in this area. Although it is aspirational, I welcome the work that has been done by every sector of the forum to compile its worthwhile No. 11 report. It is excellent. However, what do we do now? We have the information in the report. Why are people dropping out of society? We must go back further and examine how we can break the cycle. Most drop-outs come from backgrounds where there are generations of unemployment. They do not know anything else. They are coming from backgrounds where it is difficult even to get children to attend school at the age of four years and to work within a normal school structure and timetable. That must be borne in mind.
There are various points of entry into the system and one of them is entry to primary school. We must get to children when they are four years of age and provide the necessary props in terms of remedial and one-to-one teaching and a psychological service. The Department of Education has only 37 psychologists. Of that number, 12 educational psychologists are allocated to primary schools while 25 are allocated to post-primary schools. How can we say we have a proper service for children of a young age?
I maintain that the props of remedial teaching, early assessment, the district approach, where parents work with their offspring on their education and understand what is involved, and home schooling must be put in place. I welcome the "Breaking the Cycle" initiative which has been implemented in a few areas. However, yesterday I phoned three disadvantaged schools in north Dublin and asked if they were part of this initiative. To my surprise, they were not. I know the students in those primary schools and there will two or three dropouts from them next year. There is no doubt about that because I have done my research. The problem lies at primary level and must be tackled at that early stage. If psychological services, a one to one approach and the district approach are implemented at an early stage, they will go a long way to preventing dropping out at 11 or 12.
There was the sad example in Cork last week of a young boy of 11 losing his life because he was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Last weekend, a number of strange incidents occurred in this city which are again the result of children dropping out. These children have nothing else to do and nowhere to go so they naturally become involved in the subculture of drugs resulting in the eventual breakdown of law and order.
We must reallocate our resources. We have already sufficiently facilitated the advantaged by abolishing third level fees. It is difficult to be aware of children who come from dysfunctional backgrounds if there are 20 or 30 children in a classroom. There should be remedial teachers, reduced class numbers and one teacher per class in every primary school so that it would be easier for teachers to be aware of and detect problems. Children drop out of school at about 11 or 12. I compliment primary teachers for the superb job they do in keeping these children at school as long as that. When these children go to post primary school, they are assessed because they have problems. After a couple of months, they drop out.
I will give a case study. I am handling a dropout case at the moment who was psychologically assessed, underwent remedial teaching, had a poor school attendance record and had to go to court as a result. The presiding judge wanted the teachers involved to attend and make a report. He also called for an inspector from the Department of Education. The Department was not able to do anything for that child. It had no residential place in which to put him. The judge adjourned the case for two weeks to give the Department time to deal with the case. That is the latest example I can cite. Many similar children need residential care from Monday to Friday to help them.
A full debate is needed on the role of FÁS in this. If children leave school and drop out of the system at 13 or 14, there is a gap in services at that age. No one can handle them and there is nowhere for them to go. They are still supposed to be part of the education system until the age of 15. The Education Acts give the impression that other agencies should not intervene and I ask for that to be reviewed. Youthreach tries to intervene but is limited in what it can do as there is no co-ordination between the school system and the agency. I do not understand why FÁS cannot become involved in these situations by working with schools in some kind of hands-on education and training programme.
Even if one is older than 15 and wants to re-enter the education and training system, that reentry is on a competitive basis. FÁS accepts applicants on the condition that they have five passes in the junior certificate, among other things, after which applicants must undergo an aptitude test to see if they are suitable for a course. There are no suitable courses for those who wish to re-enter the system.
CERT is another prime example. It will not accept applicants until they are 17 or 18 years old. Excellent courses could be available through CERT for those who drop out and are unemployed but it will not entertain them. Qualifications are again necessary before one can enter any of the courses. I ask that the role of FÁS and CERT be revamped.
Support systems must be implemented where they are needed most, at pre-primary level. These systems must be organised on a district approach. There is a crisis in the community where structures are breaking down and, unless we break that cycle, we are simply throwing good money after bad. It is not always a question of money but of a reallocation of professional resources. The numbers in some schools are dropping so teachers will become available to be reallocated to help in crisis areas. Much work must be done in this area and I would like the Minister for Education to reallocate resources to help the disadvantaged. The earlier we start, the better chance there is of helping the dropouts to re-enter the system.
I welcome the opportunity to debate this topic this evening. Senator Kelly has given a good background to this issue. She was a member of the National Economic and Social Forum and would have an inside knowledge of it.
This is a difficult and awkward problem to deal with. Those of us with backgrounds in education appreciate how difficult it is to break the vicious circle nature of disadvantage. All of us would have had many instances during our teaching careers where we would have tried to motivate someone who was quite intelligent but from a disadvantaged background and would have failed and felt bad about that.
Everything is stacked against people from disadvantaged backgrounds and most early school leavers we encounter are from disadvantaged backgrounds. How does one motivate youngsters who come from houses where there is no appreciation of education and no library of books in the corner of the kitchen? How does one come to terms with this? It is easy to talk about throwing resources at the problem but I am not sure that we will ever obtain the key to unlock this door. I have spent many years teaching and running a secondary school and I do not know if we will ever find a solution to this vicious problem. However, we must try to do so and the approach adopted by all Ministers with an input into this matter is a good one.
There is a financial dimension to this problem. In many households youngsters of a certain age are expected to earn money. Once they get money into their hands their instinct is to keep earning. Money gives them a status which they wish to continue enjoying. This leads them to leave school early and their parents are happy about this because they do not put a strain on the family purse. A framework evolves which temporarily solves a financial problem for the household.
They then discover that those with low levels of skills do not get a good return on their efforts and when they reach 18 years of age they discover that they can receive £90 or £95 a week from the dole if they have a flat, regardless of whether they work. Many of these young people end up getting £65 dole, a supplement for a flat of, perhaps, £25 and a fuel allowance in the winter. If they are employed, they are in low added-value jobs because of their lack of skills. Such a job would pay them just over £100 a week, out of which tax and PRSI would be deducted, leaving them with less than £90. The wound continues to fester and there is no motivation for them to find employment. Once they reach their early 20s it is impossible to get them out of this frame of mind. This scenario exists in rural towns. People living in the inner cities realise that the problems I have outlined are not as bad as those which they experience but we have major problems.
How do we motivate parents to encourage their children to stay in school for the maximum length of time? Home schooling would help but every teacher knows that the very parents one needs to speak to do not turn up for parent-teacher meetings. These parents show the least response to any initiatives because of their own circumstances.
I know of cases where people who wandered through life without skills, education or confidence joined a FÁS course or a community employment scheme and discovered that they have an aptitude for some area. These people were motivated, they returned to steady employment and improved themselves in every way. It is wonderful to see this but for every such case there are 99 others who do not undergo such a change. These cases are the problem. We must continue to urge people to stay in school for the maximum length of time. This means that, even though the curriculum has changed dramatically over the past few years, we must continue to examine it. If these students complete a leaving certificate after five years it will have a relative value to them. If we can keep students in school until they complete their leaving certificate we will have achieved something because the school environment motivates students. It is often the case that a student's peers will have a more positive influence on them than their teachers or parents.
It is very frustrating for children when they feel that they cannot learn. No one wants to be put down in front of their peers. Many students opt out because of embarrassment and shame — they cannot handle the simple tasks of reading, spelling and addition, the three Rs although perhaps there is now a fourth one, computer training. They dodge subjects and play truant.
The problem is a multifaceted one and there must be a multifaceted approach to solving it.
I welcome this debate and thank the Minister for her commitment to this and related issues during her period of office. I welcome the report, although its recommendations are not sufficiently focused.
The message in the report which has been reinforced in this debate is that being uneducated and unqualified almost certainly means being unemployable. The report gives statistics on the number of long-term unemployed who have no qualifications beyond primary level. The report should have gone a step further and shown the difference between early school leavers with qualifications and those without them in terms of the total number of long-term unemployed. This was done three or four years ago and it showed, to nobody's surprise, that over 50 per cent of the long-term unemployed had no qualifications beyond primary level. At that stage our unemployment rate was 18 per cent. It was pointed out that the 50 per cent constituted a core group who, in the long term, would be unemployable. Thankfully, in the meantime the unemployment rate has decreased to approximately 12 to 12.5 per cent. There will be a time when it will reach a minimum point beyond which the Minister cannot go, no matter what strategies are put in place. I use a rough rule of thumb: where the number of children who leave primary education without proper numeracy and literacy skills — plus 50 per cent — is a figure below which the unemployment rate will never go. There was a debate in the 1960s, 1970s and early 1980s as regards ROSLA — the raising of the school leaving age. We are now talking about keeping children in school rather than raising the school entry age. There was a time when 14, 15, and 16 year olds could leave school without qualifications and get menial jobs, which were plentiful. People do not seem to understand that those jobs are no longer there. On the other hand, there are important people in Irish life who bemoan the fact that these jobs have been exported to the Far East, Africa and the Third World. These jobs are no loss whatsoever because nobody in this country aspires for their children to sit on an assembly line or spend their lives doing menial tasks done by previous generations. The jobs are not there and if they were, they would not be done. At any level of employment, qualifications are required. This is the key to the problem.
We must look closely at the background of those who are unemployed. What have they in common and in what way do they relate to each other and to problems in society? That is dealt with in part by the report. The long-term unemployed, drug addicts and the potential prison population have at least two things in common. One is that they tend to come from the same areas. This is not a party point, we all share this view. It does not matter who is in Government, who has aspirations to be in Government or who is independent and will never be in Government — we all have to share responsibility for the fact that by looking at a persons' address or home background we can certainly say what way they are likely to turn out. By looking at their address we can say there is a 50 per cent chance that they will go to a primary school which is under-resourced, that they might get into post-primary, that they will certainly leave without qualifications, will eventually be unemployed, may turn out to be drug addicts and may finish up in prison.
In a debate in this House about six years ago, I said there are parts of this city where the State would save money on prison spaces by building a wall around them. We are doing the same thing by taking people from a ghetto, putting them in prison and doing nothing in between. Perhaps that is a simplification — we are doing things in between, but just not enough.
The second thing these people have in common is that they all go to their local primary school. Therefore, the primary school can prove to be the conduit through which we can begin to address societal problems. The pupil who is a failure — a term which people use in assessing students — in the primary sector will certainly not do any better at post-primary level. They will leave without any qualifications and will then have hardly any chance of finding employment.
The emphasis of the executive summary of the report, although the report itself is different, is on the second chance. Second chance should be second choice and first chance should be first choice. We should look at what is going on in those cases. The child who leaves primary school without the basics of reading and writing is almost certainly unemployable. It is no use taking that child, who has problems in numeracy and literacy, enrolling them on amazing state of the art training courses by FÁS or CERT or any of the other groups, giving them the glossiest of material and the best of overheads and locations, if they cannot make sense of what is put in front of them. They can only participate in those training courses if they have the basic skills of reading and writing.
We must begin by dealing with the long-term unemployed, and the first step must be to stop the problem recreating itself generation after generation with no attempt made to stop it. We should get to the source of the problem. We must begin by investing in basic education, particularly remediation. There are almost 1,000 primary schools in this country who do not have access to a remedial teacher. Admittedly, they are the smaller ones but they account for thousands of pupils.
When I put these questions, Senator Quinn always asks how will we pay for it? It is a valid question as we are all answerable to the taxpayer. The number of those in primary education is falling and will continue to do so. There is a democratic dividend. Every year resources become available on the basis that there are a smaller number of pupils coming into the system. As those resources are becoming available, they should be reinvested in the system. The psychological service is not there and does not or will not meet anybody's needs. The recommendation of the report is great, but we should get it done. It has not been done. The Minister's party has been in Government for five years.
The "Breaking the Cycle" scheme was broadly welcomed. Last Sunday evening there was a tragic accident in Cork where an 11 year old child was killed in a car driven by a 15 year old. The 11 year old was from Churchfield and the 15 year old was from Knocknaheeny, which are both highly disadvantaged areas and neither of which are in the "Breaking the Cycle" scheme. Both of the schools in those areas are left on their own without resources.
That is the level we have to deal with, although much is being done. There are 309 schools recognised as disadvantaged in the country and only 25 of them are in "Breaking the Cycle" schemes. I do not have the time to develop this theme any further. The Minister is to be congratulated on what is being done in this report. The direction is correct, but we need to look at it. There is no point in having FÁS and CERT if we do not look at what they have to do. CERT can provide people with qualifications. However, they need to enter an industry where they are valued, paid, recognised for their worth and given a feeling of success. We began the debate by saying that we need to motivate children at primary level and make them feel wanted and successful. However, this must continue into their careers. This report is a first step, but more needs to be done. We need to invest in our education in order to train people to earn employment. However, if they are unqualified and uneducated they are almost certainly unemployable.
Do we need the NESF report to tell us that such large numbers of young people are leaving our national schools without being able to read or write? It is an awful state of affairs in this day and age. The NESF report provides a statistical basis for the link between educational disadvantage and other forms of social and economic disadvantage, a link which Democratic Left has highlighted for some time. Investment in third level education does little to improve overall educational attainment unless the primary foundation is strengthened. Forty six per cent of the 15-24 year old age group without qualifications are unemployed and are likely to stay unemployed while much of the current debate focuses on third level and their role in preparing young people to enter the economy. Primary education remains the only educational experience many young people receive and it must be invested in. Years ago employers took on young people, paid them a wage and gave them a start in life. They learned from their experiences in the workplace and meeting other people. That is not available to them now.
Initiatives such as "Breaking the Cycle", which target resources at primary schools in disadvantaged areas, need to be consolidated and expanded. The criteria for inclusion in such schemes need to be reviewed. In this regard far more attention should be paid to rural areas. There is a tendency to mention the words "urban" and "disadvantaged" in the same breath. Pupils in many rural areas are as likely as urban children to come from economically and, therefore, educationally disadvantaged backgrounds. Their needs must be addressed by Government initiatives.
Resources are only one part of the problem. We need to look at quality as well as quantity. Every parent has the right to know that when their child leaves education, whether at 14 or 21 years of age, they will have basic literacy and numeracy skills and will not only be able to take up a job but to write a letter applying for a job. We must ensure that all children leaving primary school can read and write.
Unless a conscious decision is made to further target education spending at the primary sector, particularly in disadvantaged areas, we will continue to produce a cohort of unemployed and unemployable young people whose children, as evidenced by the NESF report, will later find themselves trapped in the same cycle of disadvantage. We can see that happening already. We need to address the issue of how to keep young people in school and how to ensure they derive maximum benefit from their schooling. The promised School Attendance Bill is vital and I urge the Minister of State to lose no time in bringing it forward. There is legislation at present but I see no evidence where I live of it being implemented in cases where children have not attended school for a long period of time.
We also need to devise a system whereby the Department of Education is notified of all children who are expelled, suspended or otherwise excluded from school to ensure they are targeted by other education services such as Youthereach and, where possible, to ensure their integration into the school system. In my town of Mallow we have had a Youthreach programme for three years. It is a tremendous programme which is of great benefit to young people who have opted out of second level education.
The Government has an excellent record of job maintenance and creation. The number of those on the live register has been falling consistently and now stands at its lowest level for five years. However, less progress has been made on reducing the number of long-term unemployed, many of whom, as is evidenced by the NESF report, left school early without qualifications. The report confirms what many of us have long suspected — early school leavers are potential candidates for the live register. I welcome the report and hope it will not gather dust.
I thank my colleagues for allowing me to contribute at this stage. I congratulate the Labour Party Senators for tabling this motion. It is a very important issue which has been constantly raised by Senators O'Sullivan and Ormonde, among others. I am glad we have an opportunity to debate it. As Senator Kelly said, this is the first time a report of the National Economic and Social Forum has been discussed at length in this House.
We are all very concerned by the issue of early school leaving and youth unemployment. I know this is of particular concern to the Minister of State from her contributions to meetings of the National Economic and Social Forum, of which she is a member. The issue is obviously very close to her heart.
We would all like to see a situation where no child leaving school was faced only with the option of a life of unemployment. We are failing our young people if that is the only option we feel we can offer them. The purpose of this report was to make recommendations to address the issue of early school leavers and youth unemployment. The report recommends that targets should be set to eliminate the whole problem of early school leaving over the next five years and to ensure that anyone leaving school moves on to a Youthreach programme, FÁS training scheme or community employment scheme, rather than facing the prospect of a life on the dole.
We must end the movement from the school roll to the dole. It is very easy for those who are short term unemployed to move into the category of long-term unemployed with the prospect of never having a job. That is a very sad prospect for anyone and should be totally unacceptable to us all. Once a young person starts signing on the dole they no longer acquire any work experience, additional training or qualifications. Over a period of time that tends to remove them from normal economic activity and the prospect of ever getting a job and participating, as they wish to do, in the economic life of the country.
During the debate in the other House last night on the Prisons Bill it was stated that idleness and social exclusion are not reasons to turn to crime. However, none of us can be surprised if people who are socially excluded and do not believe they have any purpose or position in life turn to crime. We must be aware of that and do all we can to ensure that situation does not develop.
The report states in its conclusions that the forum is aware of the resource implications which arise from its recommendations. We must acknowledge that the recommendations cannot be funded at no additional cost to the Exchequer. However, that expenditure is necessary and justified on economic and social grounds, as is stated in the report. The amount of additional expenditure required should fall as changes occur in the population over the next number of years. The elimination of the target group of early school leavers over the next five years will also have positive consequences for the funding implications.
As Senator O'Toole said, the most important area is the targeting of resources at primary education. Children who leave primary school unable to read and write have, as Senator Sherlock said, little prospect of gaining a second level qualification. They are obviously the children who will tend to drop out of school because they cannot see themselves participating fully in the system and feel they are as well off outside it. That is a very sad situation.
The area of FÁS and training schemes must be looked at. Senator Ormonde has repeatedly made the point that there must be something seriously wrong with the State training system if it is not meeting the demands of the job market. Last week and article by Mark O'Connell in the Sunday Business Post stated that the Government is “urgently seeking tenders for the training of thousands of computer specialists to supply the labour market needs of Ireland's rapidly expanding technology sector”. There seems to be little point in the IDA bringing in high tech industries if we have to import workers to staff them. We spend approximately £150 million on training every year. Surely, we should direct that money to areas where there are prospects of jobs for our young people.
There is an argument to be made for letting companies do their own training and directing some of the State training budget to these companies which would train our young people in the skills which they require. It is a waste of resources to train young people for jobs which do not exist rather than for jobs which exist and which we have the prospect of attracting.
Over the years FÁS has made an important contribution in the area of training, especially with regard to community employment schemes. It has offered training and prospects to many of the unemployed, including the long-term unemployed. However, given the radical changes to its role and responsibilities, it may be time to review its operations to see if we are getting the best value from the resources invested in it.
I acknowledge the targeting of resources, especially by the Minister for Education into the primary school area and areas of disadvantage. However, there continues to be huge areas of disadvantage and large numbers of young people who feel that they have no purpose in life and that society has nothing to offer them. We must, therefore, concentrate increased resources on the primary school sector because it benefits all. While those fortunate enough to avail of the second level sector can often proceed to third level, those who drop out of school early tend to gain least from our spending on the education system. This is not an easy problem to tackle immediately and while I appreciate that time is required and that the Minister is addressing it, we would all like to see faster progress. While there are huge resource implications involved, society is already bearing the cost of not addressing it, both in human and social terms.
I have met many young people, especially girls, who on reaching the age of 18 years leave school, start to draw the dole and move into a flat because they will get an allowance. They face a very bleak future. We fail as public representatives if we do not accept that this is happening in society and if we do not do all we can to address it.
It is most important that we target disadvantage at the earliest stage in the education cycle. The Minister for Education has addressed this issue very effectively and has made a sizeable amount of extra funding available for home school liaison, disadvantaged schools and remedial education. The early start and "Breaking the Cycle" schemes are significant developments under her ministry.
The "Breaking the Cycle" scheme is revolutionary. It provides classes of only 15 students in size for children in 25 urban schools and 25 clusters of rural schools where severe disadvantage has been identified. Senator Ormonde and Senator O'Toole mentioned schools which they considered to be in especially disadvantaged areas and which are not included in the scheme. The terms for the scheme were drawn up by the Department's education research centre and the Combat Poverty Agency. The Minister did not pick the schools; they were selected on the basis of sound educational research. Both schemes need to be consistently monitored and expanded, and money must continue to be invested in this area of primary education.
Severe problems exist for those who are dropping out of school at a young age and who face long-term unemployment. Smaller children need role models. For example, they need to see their older brothers and sisters getting into training and into work. However, society has changed enormously in recent years and the old pattern of children following their parents' line of work, whether it was a trade or a business, no longer exists. Children now encounter an amorphous society. In view of this, insufficient work has been done on the transition from school to work.
We need much more flexible systems than we have at present. We must think in terms of progression for individuals and in linking the various agencies involved, whether it be education, training such as FÁS, and the world of work. In this regard I welcome the recommendation in the NESF report that there should be a cross-departmental committee to deal with those issues as they relate to the different Departments. I hope schemes and plans will be drawn up which will address the problems of the young people concerned.
Given the rate of change, we urgently need a national survey of the skills required by the workplace. For example, a couple of recent newspaper headlines referred to staff shortages being the main challenge facing tourism and to too many vacancies in the catering industry. In view of this, we need more flexibility within the training system and I support the proposal in the report that 15 to 17 year olds should have access to CERT courses. While there are problems of insufficient remuneration, many young people with innate skills in this area should be trained.
There is also a need to get people back into VTOS before the age of 21 if they missed out earlier on an education. The report also recommends that the Youthreach programme should have proper certification. Many of those involved in the programme continue to have difficulty getting employment because of certification difficulties.
FÁS is a crucial factor in this area and we should not decry it. According to its end of year statement, FÁS in the midwest put 12,000 people through its hands in 1996. It takes a variety of approaches, including working with employers with regard to the training needs of their employees, the community employment schemes and the provisions of a number of programmes in its various centres, such as Shannon and Raheen.
However, sometimes young people who drop out of school do not get into these courses because they lack basic requirements. FÁS will have to be more flexible in providing accessible training courses. Many of these young people drop out at 15 or 16 years of age and do not come back into the system to sign on or gain access to programmes until they are 18. We must target these young people and the training area is likely to be the most productive in establishing patterns of work. They should go into training programmes as soon as they leave school. There should not be a haphazard approach to young people who drop out of school, but a direct link between the schools, the local employment service and FÁS. I support Senator Kelly's call for local employment services to be extended throughout the country. That service is ideal for these young people because it tends to have locally based offices and the schools should be obliged to notify the local employment service or FÁS so that these young people can be reached. Many of them do not have the skills, the self-confidence or the motivation to go to these agencies and a formal system of identifying them is needed. They should not necessarily be forced into doing something they do not want to do, but it should be as easy as possible for them to get into these courses.
The unemployment rate is coming down. It is now 11.8 per cent, which is quite an improvement on the past. The number of young people in school is also going down so we should be able to deal with this problem if we set up the systems. I am not as negative as some of the other speakers appear to be.
We must deal with the specific issues such as CERT, access to FÁS courses, the LES and links between schools now rather than leaving them until next year or the year after. On community employment schemes, I have seen an advertisement for one relating to the Limerick Charter 800. It involves community arts, street performance and costume-making. It would be perfect for young people but they cannot apply because they are not eligible for community employment until they are older. They should have access to community employment schemes.
I hope the Minister of State conveys the importance of dealing with these points to her colleagues.
I compliment Senators Kelly and O'Sullivan on raising this matter. I join with all Members in complimenting the Minister of State, Deputy Fitzgerald, on her incisive contributions to and regular attendance at the forum. Having observed all sides and the three stands, it is unfortunate that the forum's deliberations take place behind closed doors and that the public do not get a flavour of what goes into the reports.
It may surprise people to learn that 100 people contributed to this document. I would have said that number included the best brains in the country until I remembered I was one of them. I commend Senator Ormonde for her excellent contribution. The Minister of State should transfer 10,000 of her votes to Senator Ormonde at the next election so that both can be elected to the Dáil.
What has happened to the LES scheme? The Minister of State and I have spoken about this and it has been one of the great disappointments of the last two years' deliberations on unemployment and school-leaving. The local employment scheme is a good concept and I have tracked its progress over the last two years. It is a combination of the community, employers, educators and various State agencies at local level to identifying employment needs and the unemployed in their midst, then mentoring on a one-to-one basis. If that scheme were as effective as we hoped it would be, it would have made a considerable dent in unemployment figures and given hope to youngsters all over the country. If the scheme is still in operation, will it be expanded and will resources be allocated to it?
There were seven drafts of this report, which may suggest to some the old cliché of the camel being designed by a committee, but in the end we agreed to it.
A pet subject of mine, sport, is covered by part of the report, which states:
The Forum notes that in a recent survey of 84 young unemployed people in the inner city, 12 per cent of males and 2 per cent of females expressed an interest in training and sports coaching. However, according to a recent survey of 365 second-level schools, 67 per cent stated that they had no sports coaches, while 98 per cent provided sports as an extracurricular activity.
In the public debates following the murder of Veronica Guerin last summer, all agreed that crime among young people was not exclusively a social or justice problem but was also an educational one. In that context, and as a sports plan was launched by the Government yesterday, the Minister of State should take that element of the report to heart in her discussions. There is a view shared across the political divide and by academics that if we could adequately resource sporting education with more teachers and facilities at schools level, especially in the areas of deprivation to which Senator O'Toole and others referred, it would help concentrate the minds of youngsters away from anti-social activities.
Other speakers referred to the staggering figure of 1,000 youngsters who do not go to second level education and have no qualifications other than what they learned at primary school level. What happens to them? Where do they go? Senator Ormonde highlighted the problems for those in the 15 to 18 years age group. There seems to be a vacuum in officialdom as far as this group is concerned. They are among the group who progresses to anti-social activities and end up as long-term unemployed.
I suggest to the Minister that a more imaginative approach could be taken to the national literacy schemes which Governments undertake. As a broadcaster I have visited Nashville in Tennessee. Despite the international perception of it being the home of country music its main industry is bible making. I have met people there not just from the music industry but some who have moved from music to politics. Over the last decade the state of Tennessee has adopted a very imaginative literacy programme. They harness role models in the music industry on a pro bona basis to do public service announcements and general media activities targeting the socially disadvantaged who have slipped through the system at first level and who cannot read or write or whose literacy and numeracy skills are limited.
On a regular basis they carry out campaigns which involve, for example, asking Garth Brooks, an international star, to record a number of pro-educational advertisements using the language of the young to say: "It is not cool to be unable to read. Do you not understand that you will be unable to watch the subtitles on MTV or read your favourite music magazine?". The Minister should adopt a similar attitude in Ireland by using role models from Boyzone to Manchester United's Ryan Giggs. An imaginative approach should be taken rather than the sterile, conservative approach of putting some advertisements in the newspapers and hoping for the best.
In the course of preparing the NESF report we discovered that CERT, probably the most successful State agency in that it has a 100 per cent placement record, cannot be accessed by those under 17 years of age:
The forum recommends that the existing lower age limit be amended to allow 15 to 17 year olds to participate on CERT courses. The arrangements for such training could form part of the Youthreach Programme.
I again ask the Minister to take this recommendation on board. It seems a simple recommendation although the forum report later says that there might be a conflict because the White Paper on education proposes that the school leaving age be raised to 16. This is a policy matter but I am sure some accommodation can be reached in the context of 15 new hotels being built in Dublin and the extreme skills shortage in this area. It is an opportunity for young people who like the leisure and hotel industry and who see it as something to which they can relate.
I am glad that I have waited until now to intervene in the debate as I have had the opportunity to listen to the very constructive contributions, echoing the contributions of all parties represented in the forum.
Everybody has made the point that today's early school leavers are heading towards becoming tomorrow's long term unemployed unless we intervene. The earlier we intervene the more effective it will be. Ensuring that the main stream school system serves youngsters with educational disadvantages and social handicaps must be the primary concern. We also need a response that will identify the young people whom main stream school has not served. The school's role is not simply turning out academic geniuses. It is responsible for serving all children whatever their abilities.
Thirty per cent of those under 30 who have left school before the junior certificate are long-term unemployed. That is a higher proportion than an equivalent earlier generation. The relative handicap facing early school leavers is much worse for today's young people than it was a generation ago. This is a serious matter. The early school leaver with no qualifications is three times more likely to be long term unemployed than a school leaver with the leaving certificate and eight times more lightly to be long term unemployed than a graduate.
One of the most effective things we can do is to hold young people in school by making the school system serve them. I pay tribute to the work Senator Quinn has done in chairing the group on the leaving certificate applied which is a recognition that the leaving certificate curriculum must reach out and serve people who have different kinds of abilities as well as those who are good at conventional subjects.
The determined effort to invest in education and to hold young people in school is paying off. However, as this report illustrates, we still have a long way to go and it is important to keep this issue on the political agenda. I am very pleased with the all-party support for the recommendations in the report.
In the past four years the number of people staying on to leaving certificate has increased from 74 per cent of the age group to 84 per cent. The number of early school leavers has halved from 5,000 per year to 2,500. This is still a big problem and we cannot become complacent. However, these positive results have not happened by accident. We need to develop the work already being done such as investing in pre-schools. Research into the Helpstart programme in the United States shows that a person with pre-school education is more likely to stay in school for longer. Investment for the first time in pre-school education in disadvantaged communities is a very important part of an anti-unemployment policy. It holds children in school and ensures that they stay on to a point where they are sufficiently qualified to get jobs when they leave.
Another significant programme is the "Breaking the Cycle" initiative. Senators Ormonde and O'Toole spoke about a scatter gun approach. There is a choice to be made between doing something for every school and doing something in the schools where there is most disadvantage. Some of Senator O'Toole's members threatened to go on strike because there were no reductions in pupil-teacher ratios in every school as distinct from focusing help on schools where there was disadvantage. We have a real choice as to whether we want to do something for everybody which means much less for the schools which are disadvantaged or whether we are prepared to bite the bullet and do more for the schools where there is disadvantage. The 25 urban and 25 rural Breaking the Cycle programmes are not enough but if we try to do it for 4,000 schools we are missing the point that we need to concentrate resources if we are to make a real difference.
The demographic dividend has been used to employ more remedial teachers, reduce pupil-teacher ratios, increase funding to schools in disadvantaged areas, increase the number of Youthreach and community training workshop places and develop the leaving certificate applied and home school liaison.
Early school leavers are disproportionately drawn from families and communities which are disadvantaged, where 55 per cent of parents are out of work and where there may be no books, or tradition and maybe no value on education in the home. Therefore, an important part in encouraging young people to stay on in school is involving the parents. Home-school liaison is very important.
The heads of a School Attendance Bill are to go to Government in the very near future. It will raise the school leaving age to 16. It will also assign responsibility which is one of the points made strongly in the report and for which I have argued very strongly as a member of the committee which wrote the report. When youngsters drop out of school, schools should be given the responsibility of following up these children to see if the parents have moved house or if they have been re-enrolled in a different school and to ensure they are referred to appropriate services. That is proposed in the School Attendance Bill.
Research done by Damien Hannon of the ESRI shows that the transition to second level is a dangerous drop out point for young people. The fact 900 to 1,000 children do not make that transition is extremely significant. Senator Kelly chaired the final stages of the task force on travellers. Most of those young people are traveller children. There is a culture among the travelling community that girls, in particular, leave school once they make their Confirmation. We need to address that issue because we are not doing these young people a service by validating that as a cultural practice.
Damien Hannon's research shows the importance of school plans in terms of a whole school approach to the child. The school plan is being built into the new education reforms. As regards discipline which focuses on suspension, if a school expels the child causing trouble we are sending a signal that we do not want them in the school system, at which point the child will not come back. We need a different approach to discipline, one which holds these young people in the school system.
There is an interesting EU-funded project in Cox's Demesne in Dundalk where children are referred to this particular house. They follow a school curriculum and do not have to wear school uniforms. Instead of discipline resulting in them going on the bounce or sitting at home watching videos, there is an alternative structure which deals with these children who may have other problems. Often children who drop out may be in trouble at home or have difficulty getting on with teachers and have not managed to make the transition from primary to secondary school. We need to look at the pressure points at which young people drop out and ensure schools have appropriate policies and that we are not penalising children and forcing them out of the school system.
A number of Senators raised the question of signing on at 18 years of age. The report talks about offering young people alternatives to signing on the dole. Since last October a programme comes into effect when an 18 year old has been out of work for six months. It tries to direct them into alternative programmes of intensive guidance counselling, work experience, training and so on. I strongly believe that programme should begin the first day a person signs on and not six months later, particularly for those who face long-term unemployment. Young people who have dropped out of school early need that intervention the first day they appear at the dole office and not six months later. Young girls who get pregnant often do not go back to school after having their babies. Schools need to be alert in this regard and should encourage them back into the school system.
I am pleased to say the Government has appointed an interdepartmental working party to report back to it in six weeks on the recommendations, so there will be action in this regard. I will lend my weight to that because it is something about which I, and I believe all Senators, feel strongly. We need to ensure schools serve young people with problems better and that Youthreach centres and community training workshops, which are picking up youngsters who drop out, are better resourced and that more places are provided.
During the debate the point was made that youngsters who end up in prison are disproportionately drawn from those who cannot read or write, left school with no qualifications and who face enormous handicaps. They are not only drawn from young people in disadvantaged communities but from those whom the education system has failed. If we want to reduce and nip crime in the bud, we must provide special help at an early stage and hold these children in school by giving them educational experiences which are worthwhile and equip them with the tools to make their way independently in the world. As Members stressed, those basic tools are reading and writing, because one cannot access education unless one can read and write.
A number of Senators mentioned the role of FÁS. Recently, I launched the good practice guidelines for FÁS for recruiting people to apprenticeships which were worked on with the apprentice employer organisations. I made the point at the launch that a person does not need a leaving certificate to do an apprenticeship but five passes in the junior certificate. A person may also become an apprentice if they are a graduate of a Youthreach course. I asked employers not to engage in qualification inflation as regards young people for whom apprenticeships would be extremely suitable and would match their talents and abilities.
Senator Cotter spoke about the embarrassment caused by under-performance being a factor in youngsters dropping out of school. Teachers need to be sensitive in this regard. Often teachers find it easier to deal with children who are motivated and are performing well. An example of a whole school is one which reaches out to all children. Every child should be valued whether they are troublesome, weak or heading towards six or seven A's in the leaving certificate. The school must draw out the full potential of all children.
There will be opportunities with the demographic dividend. Those aged 17 years who are in fifth or sixth year and doing their leaving certificate represent the peak of the birth rate and in two years time they will have left the school system. More resources will become available even if we do not commit an extra penny to education. I believe the first call on those resources must be to those young people whom the system has failed to date and to early school leavers and potential early school leavers.
Senator Sherlock spoke about the application of school attendance rules. There are no school attendance officers outside urban areas and the gardaí, who have other priorities, must fulfil this function. I hope the School Attendance Bill will address this problem by appointing education welfare officers who will encourage parents and schools to work together for children whom the school system as failed.
Senator Mooney asked about the local employment service. There are now 18 areas, including the original 12 partnership areas plus Kildare and Clare. Last week the scheme was extended to Clondalkin, Ballyfermot, Blanchardstown and Drogheda and is based on a criteria of disadvantage. The intention is to implement the scheme nationwide.
When?
The scheme has been extended to four further areas this year. The advice given by the interdepartmental group, on which the unemployed were represented, was to take it step by step and to get it right rather than going into something blindfolded which did not work. To some extent, the reason the forum recommended a local employment service was that the FÁS services were not meeting the need. It is important to do the job right and to learn from mistakes. An evaluation is being done by Forfás on the local employment service, which is almost complete.
Does the Minister of State have the report on the partnership areas?
This scheme is up and running in 14 areas and another four have been approved.
What have they being doing for the past year or so? They have been doing nothing.
The appointments made by CERT highlight the need to ensure that young people, particularly those who have dropped out of the conventional school system, have access to training. CERT training programmes will be available. The Youthreach and community training workshop programmes do a lot of work in the area of catering and similar skills and in the foundation year they also offer a second chance to learn literacy and basic numeracy skills. That is extremely important because without those skills people cannot even begin to access the world of work. They also place much emphasis on personal development because young people who drop out of school often have extremely low self-esteem or a chip on their shoulder and employers will not believe in people who do not believe in themselves or who see themselves as failures of the system. They do not need their disabilities, handicaps or failures to be noted, rather they need their abilities to recognised and validated. I agree that Youthreach should be certified and that will be a priority in the new Teastas.
I believe we have by and large succeeded in cracking the problem of short-term unemployment for people with skills. An additional 150,000 jobs have been provided in this economy during the last four years and last year one in ten of new jobs in Europe were created in Ireland. The most difficult area is that of long-term unemployment, which is linked with low skills. We must attack this on two fronts. First, we must try to re-integrate today's long-term unemployed into the world of work by building up their skills, providing them with personalised help and guidance and ensuring that employers are willing to take on people who are ready for jobs. That task has been given to the local employment services. It is slow, painstaking and must be done on an individual basis. It is not a matter of providing a system and making individuals fit into it; one starts with the individuals, who often have many difficulties, and changes the system to cater for them. The second part of the job is preventing the flow into long-term unemployment. The key is to prevent early school leaving and to invest in the potential of young people who are currently leaving school early, are likely to leave early unless we do something about it or have already left school. That is the great employment challenge we face as we head into the millennium.
I welcome the report and congratulate Senator Kelly and Senator O'Sullivan for bringing it before the House. I am glad the Minister mentioned the leaving certificate applied because it is both a huge opportunity and the secret for success. Its first graduates will not emerge until June so as yet we cannot show examples to prove it is a success, but I am enthusiastic about the scheme. It will succeed because the key factor is motivation. If we manage to make youngsters want to go to school we will succeed. That may sound like an airy-fairy dream but it is possible if we use the leaving certificate applied.
I am in the supermarket business; a large supermarket employs perhaps 200 people and deals with 20,000 customers and 10,000 products. The manager of a supermarket has a big, tough job. A number of managers in my company do not have a good traditional leaving certificate yet they are brilliant at the job. The traditional leaving certificate measures one's academic ability to take a three hour exam after two years of study and to write down everything one knows about a topic. Some people are not necessarily good at sitting in an exam hall but may be brilliant at doing things and we see many examples of such successes around the world.
I am excited about the leaving certificate applied because I have seen young people blossom and grow through finding they are good at doing something. The new examination identifies and continually assesses a person's strengths. A student does not wait for two years but is assessed during the period; only one-third of the total mark depends on the examination. The student gets the results as he or she goes along during fifth and sixth year.
A supermarket manager has to communicate in writing but it is much more important for him or her to be able to communicate orally. That talent is not measured in the traditional leaving certificate, apart from a couple of language subjects. The new leaving certificate applied also gives students the experience of work, which is hugely valuable when they approach future employers. The students have passed an exam which is certified by the Department of Education, so the employer knows it is a real leaving certificate; but they also have the experience of work, which is an extra benefit. There are many types of intelligence other than academic ability and the leaving certificate applied concentrates on those. The real achievement is that people develop because they have been identified as successful.
I am concerned about the economic aspect of dropping out, as many of those who leave school have the alternative of simply not attending. I did not realise until recently that students had to pay £46 to sit the leaving certificate. The overall revenue to the Department of Education from examination fees is £6 million out of the total budget of £2 billion. That £46 fee is a hindrance to many people doing the leaving certificate, so could we consider dropping the charge in order to encourage people to finish school? As the Minister said, many of those who drop out are financially disadvantaged.
It is already clear that the distinctive approach of the leaving certificate applied can have a dramatic effect on the motivation of young students. In school after school that I have visited, teachers have told me that the leaving certificate applied students have by far the best attendance record and are the most punctual, because they are motivated to learn. Yesterday morning, a young student from the Mercy Convent in Sligo, Ms Georgina McLoughlin, was interviewed on "Today with Pat Kenny" and spoke with great enthusiasm about what the course can do. She is just one of many who have found it worthwhile to go to school and would not have found it attractive otherwise.
I encourage the Minister to continue her work. The objective of this report is to conquer the problem of early school leavers and thereby tackle youth unemployment and I am delighted that steps are now being taken. There is a long way to go but we are moving in the right direction.
I wish to share my time with Senator Henry.
An Leas-Chathaoirleach
Is that agreed? Agreed.
I am delighted to have the opportunity to contribute to this useful and welcome debate. Most of us are baffled that, despite our huge economic success, huge numbers of young people cannot get employment. Not only that, many highly educated and qualified young people cannot get experience of work. We have two problems. First, massive numbers of young people leave school early without qualifications and are not suited to the positions which are currently available. Second, there is a mismatch in that highly qualified people are holding down jobs which less qualified people might take. At present, young graduates are holding jobs for which they are overqualified and which could be done by less qualified personnel. This has created a bottleneck which is not helping the economy and not helping to obtain the full benefit from people who are highly qualified. I know of three young people with degrees who were forced to emigrate recently because they could not find job opportunities in Ireland, particularly in the computer business. This is unfortunate. In spite of the media hype about the availability of jobs for computer graduates, I am aware that several students who qualified this year went from agency to agency and company to company and were, in the main, very badly treated by companies. They gave them no indication of whether they would get a job. These companies continue to advertise even though there are no jobs available.
I had occasion to check with several companies in the high technology area in the mid-west region and found, to my disappointment, that in spite of the so-called boom in the computer business, many companies did not have vacancies for computer graduates. I noticed recently that the Government is taking steps to train people for technical jobs. Quite a number of graduates in my region, from the University of Limerick complain that they have been forced to take jobs which could be done by technicians. Companies are now endeavouring to train technicians so they can avoid paying high salaries to computer engineers. This is an area which must be examined very carefully and very soon, otherwise further problems will arise in that we will be producing graduates for whom there are no jobs. They will be forced to emigrate.
I welcome the work of the forum. It is very important and useful because anything that will give us an indication of how we should proceed in this area would be very useful to us as Members of the Oireachtas. I am baffled as to where we should go from here. In spite of all the announcements and pronouncements about jobs in the last year, I am still contacted every weekend by young people wanting to know where there are job opportunities. It is frightening and it is important for the Minister to determine as soon as possible the current position on young graduate unemployment. The report has put forward a number of very important initiatives which, at a cost of £12 million, are relatively cheap. If £12 million can go some way towards solving this problem, it will be a small price to pay.
This report clearly identifies that there is a definite link between lack of education and poverty, crime and drug abuse. There is a grave onus on the Government to find some mechanism to bring together the various professionals from areas such as education, health, social welfare, finance and so on. The Government must find a formula to give effect to the recommendations in this report. It must identify precisely who are the unemployed and where they can get jobs. This is a very serious issue which, in my view, will deteriorate further. It is also very depressing in view of the country's economic success.
What I have to say ties in closely with what Senator Daly said. We must be very careful not to encourage people into what was traditionally viewed as straight academic education. Education is splendid in itself and I would be very much in favour of seeing young people progressing through second and third level education where possible. However, we should also look at more imaginative areas of education. Senator Quinn's initiative has been very important as are Senator Daly's comments about graduates depriving unskilled people of jobs. If I were an early school leaver who was not employed, I would just pull the sheets over my head and stay in bed if I had to listen to all the talk about our affluent, booming economy.
I was given the following figures on unemployment from the Higher Education Authority. Of all primary graduates in 1995, only 52 per cent of respondents were in some form of employment by April 1996. A further 40 per cent had proceeded to do higher degrees, a phenomenon which was unknown ten years ago when only about 10 per cent proceeded to do higher degrees. Of those who were employed, 21 per cent were employed overseas, and 50 per cent were employed in the private services so we have no idea whether they were working in banking or in pizzerias. Most of those employed were in the eastern region. The Higher Education Authority received an 80 per cent response rate to their questionnaire and of those with postgraduate degrees only 70 per cent went straight into employment. There is a very serious problem here.
With regard to salaries, there seems to be a notion at the moment that people are very highly paid in Ireland. Of people with primary degrees, 21 per cent were earning less than £9,000 per annum, 15 per cent were earning between £11,000 and £13,000 and 22 per cent were earning salaries between £13,000 and £15,000. There were very few in jobs which were paying high salaries. We must be careful to tell unskilled people that they are not necessarily being offered very low paid jobs when people with degrees may not be earning that much.
I thank the Minister for her reply and my fellow Senators for an excellent debate. We were broadly in agreement and had a very full debate. There is a problem and we must recognise it for what it is and adopt a three pronged approach to solving it, as the Minister mentioned.
First, we have to look at children of four and five years of age who are likely, ten years on, to become early school leavers and we must seek to prevent them leaving school. We are doing that through the Early Start Programme. Second, we need to look at the current ten and 11 year olds and recognise that they will be potential early school leavers, in a couple of years. We must put in place procedures within the schools to ensure that children stay in school for the maximum length of time. We must ensure that the school responds to their needs and gives them skills that will allow them to take their rightful place in the world of work. The School Attendance Bill will help in that regard.
The third prong concerns those students who have just left school. Their needs must be addressed before the habit of being unemployed becomes too deeply ingrained; they must be retrained and given the confidence and skills to allow them to participate in the workplace. I recognise what Senator Daly said about the problem of graduate under-employment. However, one of my biggest fears is that as those graduates start to find their rightful place in the workforce as, for example, engineers rather than shop assistants, their places will not be filled by unskilled Irish people. I suspect there will be an inflow of highly educated people from other countries who will be prepared to work for low wages. It is already happening in the catering industry where people are coming from Africa and elsewhere. We should share our wealth with people from Africa but not while we have unemployed young people who are facing a less than adequate life. We should look after our own first.
I thank the Minister of State for the news that the interdepartmental group will report in six weeks. Hopefully, that will lead to positive action. The Minister of State also reported that four new local employment services are being set up. While much needs to be done, the Minister of State has our support.