Early school leavers who left without completing their Leaving Certificate are being urged to take part in research into how and why the Irish education system has failed them.
Local Fine Gael senator and Seanad education spokesperson, Fidelma Healy Eames says one in seven second-level students do not complete upper secondary education. This leaves Ireland “lagging perilously” behind a number of its European counterparts such as the Czech Republic (10 per cent ), Finland (seven per cent ), Switzerland (11 per cent ) and Norway (nine per cent ).
Reports from the ESRI 2006 School Leavers’ Survey indicate an even higher drop-out rate and estimate that as many as 18 per cent of students leave school prior to final exams, she outlines.
“Where gender is concerned, there is a marked difference in dropout rates with boys being more prone to dropping out of school early than girls. The facts speak for themselves. Our current education system is failing a huge number of our children. As a result these young people are hugely disadvantaged and their life chances are curtailed.
“For this reason, and with the support of the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Education and Science, I am undertaking a comprehensive study entitled ‘Underachievement in Second-Level Education: The Way Forward’ in collaboration with the Educational Research Centre in Drumcondra.”
The Oranmore senator says the study aims to determine why students drop out of education system and in what way is it failing them.
It will also examine the characteristics of students who are at risk of dropping out and who have dropped out, what school and student characteristics predict drop-out, and what strategies might help increase retention rates and how might these be implemented.
“Ireland is still a considerable distance from its target of a retention rate to Leaving Certificate of 90 per cent and with ESRI reports stating that drop-out rates have remained largely unchanged since the early 1990s the situation does not look hopeful.
“I am urging early school leavers, who are interested in taking part in this essential research to contact me at my Galway constituency office at (091 ) 768466 or at my Seanad office at (01 ) 6183742. By working together we can attempt to find a school system that works for all.”
