As principal of Collinswood Community College, Clondalkin, Dublin, Brian Fleming has had a bird's-eye view of educational disadvantage and has tackled it head on, writes Kathryn Holmquist, Education Correspondent.

We tend to regard educational achievement as the result of intelligence and discipline, when in reality social background is a far more important factor than most of us are willing to admit.

"The middle-class child who makes it to Trinity College Dublin has undoubtedly achieved something, but nothing like the achievement of a disadvantaged child who goes as far as the Leaving Cert, Leaving Cert Applied or even the Junior Cert," believes Brian Fleming, principal of Collinstown Community College and PRO of the National Association of Principals and Deputy Principals.

At Collinstown Community College, 35 per cent of students go on to third level - very high by comparison with similar areas and up 500 per cent since 1997. The success of Collinstown reflects the dedication of the school's teachers, the ongoing communication between the school and parents and the fact that students know that the teachers understand and care about them, says Fleming.

But such progress is still way below the national average of 75 per cent of Leaving Cert students going on to third level.

In general, the child who eventually goes to university comes from a healthy, middle-class, financially-secure and well-educated background. Such children tend to have parents who drop them at the school-gate every morning. This is an advantage that it is hard to replicate in areas where these things are not taken for granted, which is why schools in disadvantaged areas find themselves fulfilling roles that are far beyond the realm of traditional education. In order to encourage students to remain in education, teachers have to work with parents to replicate the cultural capital that is taken for granted in middle-class areas, says Fleming.

This includes providing after-school supervised study and offering students who regularly attend a scholarship worth €80 per month. The school also gives extra help with oral Irish and French and offers students "mentors" - undergraduates originally from Collinstown who can testify to the value of remaining in education. All of this has been done with the support of the Clondalkin Area Partnership, which provides the seed capital for good ideas.

"The education coordinators involved in locally-based area partnerships have, pound for pound, been the most important educational development of the past 10 years," says Fleming.

We spend €120 million per year on educational disadvantage in the Republic, yet many still fail to benefit from the system, Fleming points out. This may be because we fail to understand how intense the level of disadvantage is in the worst affected areas.

The term "disadvantaged" has become ubiquitous, especially in education circles, and we tend to forget what it really means. It could mean being a 13-year-old whose mother has a cascade of worries about money, health and housing. Education may be at the bottom of the list and she may find it impossible to push her children out to school in the morning. Without a tradition of educational achievement in the family, there may be a lack of faith that the effort involved in pursuing an education will be rewarded.

"I don't think working-class parents are less interested in education; they just have a longer list of things to cope with. It is not that they view education as less important," he says.

This is why Fleming believes that the single most important task now is to get education welfare officers into schools as soon as possible, so that they can support families in getting their children to school. A whole range of interventions may be required to get a family to the point where going to school in the morning, on time, is routine.

School attendance used to be regarded as the job of the Garda, which made it a custodial issue. "We've been talking about school attendance since 1970, but we still haven't come to grips with the problem," says Fleming.

Only 76 of the 300 new education welfare officer jobs have been filled, due to financial constraints.

A school in a middle-class area will have an average daily attendance of up to 95 per cent, while in a disadvantaged area that figure may be 85 per cent. That's only an average, though, and hides the fact that some children may attend school only 50 per cent of the time.

"Irregular school attendance is a symptom of disadvantage, but it is also a cause of further disadvantage. Irregular attendance affects the momentum of the teaching of the whole class, so the regular attendee suffers," Fleming says.

Our education system is good for 85 per cent of the population, but comparisons such as the recent OECD report that reflected well on the Irish system, fail to reveal the fact that our education system is not meeting the needs of up to 15 per cent, he says.

The OECD does not measure outcomes for individuals - nor do league tables showing which schools send the most students to university. "We need to develop a means of evaluating schools which will include whole school evaluation and measurements of "added value" (the educational improvement and attainment that a school achieves with an individual student from first year through to sixth)," he believes.

Fleming doesn't blame people for being interested in league tables: "We have no other source of information about schools." League tables are inadequate, in his view, in that they imply that university is the most important objective of education. "What we are hoping to do is help people grow into well-rounded individuals. It implies that only academic careers are valuable. What's wrong with being a plumber? You can't get them."

Fleming is one of the fifth generation in his family to work in education. Two of his grandparents were school principals, as was his father, and his mother was also a teacher. Having become a teacher 34 years ago, Fleming has been principal of Collinstown since 1984.

The school has 630 students - 100 of them adults - and a staff of 70. "They say property is about location, location, location. Well, education is about resources, resources, resources," he says. "If you can get enough teachers and staff to work with, you can achieve an awful lot."

One of the 25 most-deprived areas of the country, Collinstown Community College has been so successful in changing the educational culture of the area, that three of its teachers are former students. These teachers are "visible role models" for the students.

Teaching in a disadvantaged area carries far greater demands than teaching in a middle-class area, he believes. "Teachers are in the middle of a partnership between the school and the parents. If the parent and the child are facing more problems in their lives, then the teacher has a more difficult job," he says.

The Minister for Education, Mr Dempsey, has said that he is reviewing current arrangements in relation to educational disadvantage. Fleming finds himself growing impatient. "We have had on average one report per year since 1990 concerning educational disadvantage. I'm delighted he is interested but why do we need to keep reviewing the situation?

"Kids are going through the system all the time. For every year you wait to act, you are failing significant numbers of young people."

Fleming would like to see the Minister targeting the areas of greatest disadvantage. He would also like to see the Department building in a research element to see if the methods used to counter disadvantage do or do not work. And, most importantly, he would like to see the various State departments working cohesively to integrate health, social and educational services.

For example, occupational therapy and speech and language therapy should be based in the school as they are in Sweden, he believes.

Fleming doesn't doubt that Mr Dempsey understands all these things: "I think the Minister is genuinely interested in educational disadvantage, but as timepasses I get more impatient. He has the potential to be an outstanding Minister, it's a question of whether he gets the resources to do it."