Jonathan O'Brien (Cork North Central, Sinn Fein)
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223. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills the improvement that has been made in improving retention rates for students in second level schools. [25317/14]

Ruairi Quinn (Dublin South East, Labour)
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The second level Leaving Certificate retention rate has shown incremental improvement nationally in the past decade, rising from a 82.3% nationally for the 1997 cohort of entrants to second level education, to over 90% for the 2007 entry cohort.

The data also shows that retention rates for different groups have continued to converge over time. The gender gap has narrowed very significantly, with a gap of 3.6% between males and females for the 2007 entry cohort, compared to a gap of 11.3% for the 1995 cohort. The gap between different sectors of provision has also narrowed substantially, with an enormous improvement of almost 25% in retention rates in vocational schools since analysis of retention begun for the 1991 cohort (a rate of 61.5% for the 1991 cohort compared to 86.2% for the 2007 cohort).

The Delivering Equality of Opportunity in Schools (DEIS) initiative is an action plan for educational inclusion. Enhancing attendance, progression, retention and attainment are central elements of the DEIS Action Plan. DEIS schools continue to show an improvement in retention rates in recent years, with a rate of 80.4% for the 2007 cohort compared to 73.2% for the 2004 cohort.

The School Completion Programme (SCP) and the Home School Community Liaison scheme (HSCL), which are managed within the Educational Welfare Services of the Child and Family Agency (Tusla), are two key DEIS interventions to combat early school leaving and promote attendance participation and retention in school.

Note: The analysis of retention tracks a cohort of entrants to second level education up to the point where they leave the system or complete second level education. Therefore for example the 2007 cohort of entrants would have sat the Leaving Certificate in either 2012 or 2013 depending on whether they took Transition Year or not. The latest retention report is available on the Department's website at: