Dáil Éireann Debate, Wednesday - 31 March 2004
153 Mr. Neville asked the Minister for Education and Science the progress on the election promise that the Government will ensure that reducing absenteeism in early school leaving is a core priority over the period of Government. [10156/04]
Amharc ar fhreagraMy Department's commitment to tackling absenteeism and early school leaving is reflected in the national anti-poverty strategy, the National Action Plan Against Poverty and Social Exclusion 2003-2005 and the latest social partnership agreement, Sustaining Progress, which contains a special initiative on tackling educational disadvantage: literacy, numeracy and early school leavers. My Department's approach comprises legislative and curricular reforms as well as preventative interventions. The Education (Welfare) Act was fully commenced on 5 July 2002. Under the Act, the National Educational Welfare Board, NEWB, 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. At this stage of its development, the aim of the board 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 now been established with bases in Dublin, Cork, Limerick, Galway and Waterford and staff have been deployed since early December 2003 in areas of greatest disadvantage and in areas designated under the Government's RAPID programme.
Thirteen towns with significant school-going populations also now have an educational welfare officer allocated to them. These towns are Dundalk, Drogheda, Navan, Athlone, Carlow, Kilkenny, Wexford, Bray, Clonmel, Tralee, Ennis, Sligo and Letterkenny. In addition, the board will follow up on urgent cases nationally where children are not currently receiving an education.
Section 21 of the Education (Welfare) Act requires the principal of a recognised school to inform an educational welfare officer in writing where a student is absent from school for more than 20 days or where the officer is of the view that a student is not attending school regularly. This covers the situation in which a student under the age of 16 drops out of school entirely and the NEWB has put procedures in place to classify all such cases as urgent and prioritise them accordingly. The board issued an information leaflet to 330,000 families and 4,000 schools in early March 2004. The leaflet targeted parents and guardians of children aged between six and 16 years of age and young people aged 16 and 17 who have left school early to start work. It outlines the role that parents and guardians play in ensuring that their children do not miss out on education and training and also gives information about the National Educational Welfare Board. In addition, the board launched a new lo-call telephone number to inform parents and guardians about their legal role and responsibilities under the Education (Welfare) Act 2000.
As provided for under section 10 of the Education (Welfare) Act 2000, my Department is working 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, such as the school completion programme, the home-school community liaison scheme and the visiting teachers for Travellers service, are exploited to the full.
My Department operates a number of programmes, including the Giving Children an Even Break programme and the home-school community liaison scheme, which provide additional supports for children in primary and post-primary schools from disadvantaged backgrounds who are most at risk of educational disadvantage and early school leaving. My Department's main programme for tackling early school leaving is the school completion programme which was launched in 2002.
The school completion programme incorporates the learning, experience and best practice derived from previous early school leaving initiatives and assimilates the eight to 15 early school leaver initiative, ESLI, and the stay in school retention initiative at second level, SSRI. It is a key component of my Department's strategy to discriminate positively in favour of children and young people who are at risk of early school leaving. The programme is based on an integrated cross-community approach to tackling early school leaving. There are currently 405 schools, 295 primary and 110 post-primary, participating in the school completion programme.
With regard to curriculum reform, my Department's strategies have included widening the educational experience available to students. These strategies aim to achieve a greater level of inclusiveness in curricular provision through such programmes as the junior certificate schools programme, JCSP, the leaving certificate vocational programme, LCVP, vocational preparation and training, VPT, and the leaving certificate applied, LCA.
