Sorca Clarke (Longford-Westmeath, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I recognise that a lot of the Bill is an exercise in housekeeping. Do I think what is being proposed is perfect? No, I do not, to be very honest. It represents a real opportunity that will need to be monitored carefully. The return of the educational welfare service, the school completion programme and the home liaison scheme to the Department of Education makes common sense. Sometimes this is missing when it comes to legislation.

I know it has been touched on by other speakers but I want to speak about the benefits and the potential of the school completion programme. The reason I want to focus on this is because I want to speak from my perspective as somebody who was an early school leaver. I left school after I did my junior certificate for myriad reasons. Ultimately, I did my leaving certificate when I was 21. I went on to study with the Irish Tax Institute, the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants, the Institute of Certified Public Accountants and a variety of others. There is no doubt in my mind that the long and winding road I took to my career in auditing could have been made a hell of a lot more straightforward had there been access to a school completion programme. I would very much like to see others benefit from the resources and skills that a school completion programme can bring.

Recently, I spoke to the transition year students in Columba College in Killucan in County Westmeath. What struck me about the class was not only the range of personalities in it but their engagement and their wanting to be in school. They are not just there coasting. They want to learn. This is not always the experience of young people in our secondary schools. Often, and I have seen it in my constituency of Longford-Westmeath, where there has been an event in family life, often sadly due to the death of a sibling or a parent, it throws a young person into absolute chaos. One of the main consistencies in any young person's life at that stage is school. For me it makes sense for the school completion programme to be a major part of restructuring that young person's life and keeping him or her on the road to the next point. It is simply about keeping these young people on the train and getting to the end of it.

There is a role for school completion programmes in all of our schools because nobody is exempt or immune from unexpected events or unexpected trauma. If we can identify a child who is struggling or perhaps slipping at a much earlier stage, perhaps due to an event or a learning difficulty, the response will be an awful lot more effective the quicker we can put it in place. We know, because we see it time and again, that when a young person starts slipping it can lead to a cycle whereby if they are struggling in school they struggle with homework and if they are struggling with homework they struggle in school. They get caught in a cycle of negativity. There is also a role for homework clubs in these situations where there is access to somebody who can be an additional support.

We also need to recognise, and I saw it as a former member of the Longford and Westmeath Education and Training Board, that in many cases the successful completion of school has nothing to do with exam results. Simply completing school is the result. This does not happen by chance. It takes a lot of work by the school, school completion workers, the parents and the students themselves. It is vital for these young people to be able to say they have done this and to be able to stand up and say they have achieved.

When we look at Covid and the impact that Covid has had on our educational system, I firmly believe the school completion programme will become a much more needed resource as we continue to go through and out of Covid. We have heard of the thousands of children who have not re-engaged in formal education. This is not something anybody in the House wants to see. Where there is the potential for this not to repeat itself, or the potential for these young people to come back into an educational setting, we should be taking it with both hands.

As a Deputy, a parent and an early school lever I will be deeply concerned in the coming years if we do not see additional resources being put into the school completion programme. If it is properly invested in, the level of return on that investment in terms of the positive impact it will have on these young people's lives and on our future workforce cannot be overestimated.

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