Aengus Ó Snodaigh (Dublin South Central, Sinn Fein)
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Question 186: To ask the Minister for Education and Science if she has satisfied herself with the support given to young mothers to stay in school or return to education. [31001/05]

Mary Hanafin (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)
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My Department provides for home tuition to be made available to pupils who are absent from school during the later stages of pregnancy or immediately following the birth of a baby when attendance may be impractical. Grants are available for nine hours tuition per week for a period of up to ten weeks.

In addition, under the school completion programme, as a specific gender equality measure, my Department currently supports the educational element of six teenage parenting projects under the teenage parenting support initiative. Following an evaluation of the pilot phase, this initiative was mainstreamed under the Crisis Pregnancy Agency and my Department is represented on the advisory committee. Each teenage parenting support project has made links with a school completion project in their area, assisted by the school completion project national co-ordination team and the teenage parenting support initiative co-ordinators.

The young parents supported by the teenage parenting projects are given the opportunity to reach their full potential through continued participation in education and training. It is envisaged that this will improve their life opportunities and reduce the likelihood of the young family experiencing poverty and social exclusion and being long-term dependants on State support.

To facilitate the participation of people with child care responsibilities in further education, my Department provides funding to VECs to assist towards the child care expenses of participants in certain further education programmes. These are the vocational training opportunities scheme, Youthreach and senior Traveller training centre programmes. The administration of these grants is a matter for individual VECs and students in the relevant programmes can apply for them, as appropriate.

I recently launched a booklet entitled information for young parents in education, published by Treoir. The booklet provides information on the various options which are available to young parents and pregnant teenagers to enable them to remain in or return to education. It contains information on various programmes which are currently available for young parents, including financial supports and supports for child care. In addition to programmes provided under the remit of the Department of Education and Science, these include the back to education allowance scheme. This scheme is administered by the Department of Social and Family Affairs and is a second chance educational opportunities programme designed to encourage and facilitate unemployed people, lone parents and people with disabilities to improve their skills and qualifications with a view to joining or returning to the workforce.