ALMOST ONE in five school students do not complete the Leaving Cert and the number of males staying on in school is much fewer than females, a new survey shows.
The survey tracked the rate at which students stayed on in school over 60,000 pupils who started their second-level education in 1999. It shows that almost 84 per cent completed second-level compared with just over 81 per cent three years earlier.
Responding to the report, Minister for Education Mary Hanafin said the department had 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.
"We have widened the range of curricula available to students by promoting the Junior Certificate Schools Programme, the Leaving Certificate Vocational Programme, and the Leaving Certificate Applied Programme in addition to the traditional Junior and Leaving Certificate curricula. We have also put . . . measures in place such as the School Completion Programme and the Home School Community Liaison Scheme."
Key results from the report are:
Retention rates have been increasing marginally since 1996. The national unadjusted retention rate for the class of 1999 is 80.5 per cent compared with 77.8 per cent in 1996.
When an adjustment is made for external candidates who complete their Leaving Cert in privately-funded institutions, emigration and deaths, the national retention rate is 83.7 per cent compared with 81.3 per cent in 1996.
However, adult education body Aontas said it was disappointed with the figures. Director Berni Brady said the small improvement was discouraging considering the amount of funding going into educational disadvantage.
'Over the past ten years, this Government has invested over €600 million in initiatives to target educational disadvantage. This minor increase hardly represents value for money for the Irish taxpayer," said Ms Brady.
