When skipping school is a habit

The first countrywide report on school non-attendance rates indicates that we don't value education as highly as we used to, …

The first countrywide report on school non-attendance rates indicates that we don't value education as highly as we used to, writes Louise Holden.

The National Education Welfare Board (NEWB) was established last year to take a national roll call in Irish schools. Education welfare officers working on the ground knew that rates of absenteeism had reached unacceptable levels. The first report of the new national agency, compiled from returns sent in by school principals last summer, has now confirmed that many Irish children are missing damaging amounts of school time.

Eddie Ward, NEWB chief executive, believes that this first report of the new agency is a cause for great concern, and that it indicates a need to "sell" education to Irish parents at all social levels.

"While the figures indicate that children from disadvantaged backgrounds are missing the most days at school, there is not a vast difference between these children and the national average. I wonder has the Celtic Tiger economy caused us to let our high regard for education slip?"

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"Monday and Friday syndrome", students holding down part-time jobs, foreign holidays in term time and sloppy timekeeping are all contributing to the worrying national averages. Primary students are missing an average of 10 days per academic year; post-primary students miss an average of 14 days per academic year.

Armed with these figures, Ward is gearing up to tackle the issue head- on. His agency has been given unusual powers to mobilise the services available in the community. Once a child has been identified as high risk, one of the State's 68 education welfare officers can visit the child's school and their home to identify any problems and draw in the appropriate supports. There are as many reasons for absenteeism as there are absentees, and unique solutions are needed for every family.

"It starts with the relationship between the family and the school. We provide letter templates to schools, which they can send to families of absentee children. We also counsel families on the importance of working with the school to get to the bottom of the problem. Every household with a child over the age of six has been issued with a leaflet advising them of the importance of good attendance and how to foster it."

The NEWB's LoCall helpline, set up last year to support parents, has brought many of the underlying causes of absenteeism to light. Bullying, refusal by the children to attend and special educational needs were the top three issues raised by the 2,805 users of the helpline to date. Other factors will come to light as education welfare officers get deeper into the community, Ward believes.

"Last year we followed up on a report from a school with concerns about a student who had been absent for several weeks. Social workers had been calling to the house but could not gain entry. We discovered that the child was caring for her mother, who was a drug addict. We mobilised the appropriate services locally, and now the child has a key worker to get her fed and out to school in the morning and another who checks in with her in the afternoon. Her mother has been referred for addiction treatment."

This incident provides a salient example of how absenteeism highlights problems in the home and the community. Education receives little priority when there is dysfunction, addiction or hardship in the home. As a diagnostic tool for the detection of social ills, non-attendance monitoring could prove invaluable in the future.

This is why the NEWB and its 78 staff place so much value on the rigorous reporting now demanded of schools. In the process of examining attendance rates so closely, says Ward, schools are thrust into an exercise in soul searching.

"Schools must ask new questions of themselves," Ward explains. "Sometimes a school may have to face up to the fact that they are contributing to a student's disengagement with the education process. Perhaps the child is not offered anything that suits his aptitude on the school curriculum. Perhaps behavioural management structures in the school are failing some children. This is an opportunity for schools to reflect."

The reality for school management is a legal requirement to do a lot more work. While the NEWB has a good relationship with schools, the National Association of Principals and Deputy Principals (NAPDP) has complained that the new system of reporting is punitively bureaucratic. The NEWB is working to reduce the amount of paperwork required and an online reporting service (www.schoolreturn.ie) will be available soon. "Of course we are creating work for schools, but we need information on individual students in a standard format if we are to identify our priorities quickly," Ward insists.

Although the agency's ethos is anchored by the principle of early intervention, the best description of its work to date is crisis management. Like all services dealing with children in the State, the NEWB is stretched, says Ward. Board members are currently preparing the latest budget submission, which Ward hopes will secure funds for a more holistic approach to the problem.

"Dealing with non-attendance early is more cost-effective, apart from anything else. The older the child gets the more difficult and time consuming it becomes to get them back to school. Sometimes a letter from the NEWB when a child is aged seven is more effective than a series of home visits when they are 15."

The NEWB is all about welfare, rather than sanction. The agency has legislative powers to prosecute the parents of chronic absentees, but they would much rather foster respect for education in Irish homes.

"Many families have real problems that have pushed education far down the agenda," says Ward. "But the scale of non-attendance nationally is a big problem. Perhaps some families have just become a bit casual about the importance of education in a child's life."