Ruairi Quinn (Dublin South East, Labour)
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Question 57: To ask the Minister for Education and Science if her Department is notified, on a regular and structured basis, by secondary school authorities of the numbers of young persons including their name, address and PPS number who drop out of secondary school before taking the junior certificate examination or who have not reached the age of 16; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [28452/07]

Mary Hanafin (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)
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My Department is notified annually of the details of all pupils attending post primary schools. This information is provided by each school via the October return and is used for a number of purposes, including the production of statistics on the retention of pupils in the post primary school system. In addition to this the Education (Welfare) Act, 2000, places an obligation on schools to report on school attendance to the National Educational Welfare Board. Schools are asked to submit information about individual student absences under various categories including students who drop out of school.

My Department has adopted a broad-based approach to tackling early school leaving. We established the National Educational Welfare Board to monitor attendance and help to get young people back to school. The Board runs promotional campaigns on the importance of attendance and finishing school and provides a service locally through its Education Welfare Officers to parents, children and schools. It is encouraging to note research findings that attendance at school in the areas where EWOs are working intensively improved by 4% in 2004/05 compared with the previous year.

My Department is also currently implementing DEIS (Delivering Equality of Opportunity in Schools) an action plan for educational inclusion. DEIS is an integrated educational inclusion strategy developed for 3-18 year olds and represents a shift in emphasis away from individual initiatives, each addressing particular problems to a multi-faceted and more integrated approach. In addition to the NEWB there are some 620 staff, within the education sector, deployed in education disadvantage programmes of which over 130 are additional posts allocated under DEIS. The School Completion Programme and the Home School Community Liaison Scheme (HSCL) are preventative measures designed to combat issues of poor attendance and early school leaving. Children at risk of early school leaving are targeted under the School Completion Programme for a variety of extra supports aimed at encouraging them to stay in school. The supports cover both educational and non-educational interventions and are provided during and outside of school time. The Home School Community Liaison Scheme works to involve parents in their children's education which is a crucial component in convincing young people of the value of education.

Other measures facilitated through the DEIS action plan include extending access to Schools' Business Partnerships, school meals, guidance counselling and student councils. Increased integration is also being promoted between the work of second-level schools and centres catering for young early school leavers, particularly Youthreach centres and Senior Traveller Training centres. The range of curricula available to students has also been extended to include the Junior Certificate Schools Programme, the Leaving Certificate Vocational Programme and the Leaving Certificate Applied Programme. These options provide an alternative for many children who might otherwise opt out of formal education at an early stage.

This Government has shown a sustained commitment to providing greater opportunities in the further education sector by supporting second chance educational opportunities for young people who leave school. Many of these young people take up places in Youthreach centres, while others pursue options such as FAS apprenticeships. In line with the commitment in Towards 2016 we have already created 400 of the additional 1000 Youthreach places to be put in place by 2009. A further measure to combat the contributing factor of poor behaviour on early school leaving was to put in place the National Behaviour Support Service (NBSS). Fifty schools were identified to receive support and the NBSS is working intensively with these schools. An allocation of €8 million has been provided in 2007 to support the work of the NBSS to help schools promote positive student behaviour at second level.