Dáil Éireann Debate, Wednesday - 22 February 2006
365 Mr. Curran asked the Minister for Education and Science her plans in view of a very high rate of absenteeism of pupils from schools in the Clondalkin area, to take additional specific measures to address this major problem for the academic year 2004 to 2005 (details supplied). [7469/06]
Amharc ar fhreagraA key focus of the Government's education policy is to prioritise investment in favour of those most at risk and to optimise access, participation and outcomes at every level of the system for disadvantaged groups.
The total provision for educational inclusion programmes in 2006 is more than €640 million across all levels of education, as compared with almost €600 million in 2005. This includes additional funding for the implementation of measures under the DEIS action plan at pre-school, primary and second-level, additional funding of €7 million for further education programmes and a €20 million increase in provision for third level student support schemes.
The wide variety of measures in place for tackling educational disadvantage and social exclusion range from pre-school interventions, supports for tackling children's literacy problems, reduced pupil-teacher ratios, increased capitation grants, measures to tackle early school leaving and strengthen ties between the school, the family and the community.
With regard to curriculum, my Department's strategies have included widening the educational experience available to students, which aim to achieve a greater level of inclusiveness in curricular provision and meet the needs of the diversity of pupils in our second level schools, by expanding funding for programmes such as the leaving certificate vocational programme, LCVP, vocational preparation training, VPT, and the leaving certificate applied, LCA.
The school completion programme was implemented to directly target those in danger of dropping out of the education system and 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, and in line with current thinking favours an integrated cross-community and cross-sectoral approach based on the development of local strategies to ensure maximum participation levels in the education process. It entails targeting individual young people aged four to 18, both in and out of school, and arranging supports to address inequalities in education access, participation and outcomes.
The home school community liaison, HSCL, scheme is concerned with maximising active involvement of children in the learning process, in particular those who might be at risk of failure; promoting active co-operation between home, school and relevant community agencies in promoting the educational interests of the children; raising awareness in parents of their own capacities to enhance their children's educational progress and to assist them in developing relevant skills; enhancing the children's uptake from education, their retention in the educational system, their continuation to post-compulsory education and to third level and their attitudes to lifelong learning and disseminating the positive outcomes of the scheme throughout the school system generally.
The Education (Welfare) Act and the establishment of the National Educational Welfare Board is an important plank in the campaign to keep students at school and will provide a comprehensive framework for promoting regular school attendance and tackling the problems of absenteeism and early school leaving.
In regard to school attendance, the Deputy may be aware that up to 2004, Ireland had no national data on the levels of student attendance in our schools. This matter was addressed by the Education (Welfare) Act 2000, which requires all schools to submit a report to NEWB on levels of school attendance.
The new action plan for educational inclusion, DEIS — delivering equality of opportunity in schools — which will be introduced on a phased basis, starting during the current school year, aims to ensure that the educational needs of children and young people, from pre-school to completion of upper second-level education, three to 18 years, from disadvantaged communities are prioritised and effectively addressed.
A key element of the new action plan is the putting in place of a standardised system for identifying levels of disadvantage in our primary and second-level schools, which will result in improved targeting of resources at those most in need and a new integrated school support programme, SSP. The SSP will bring together, and build upon, a number of existing interventions for schools and school clusters-communities with a concentrated level of educational disadvantage.
