Post-primary students at risk of dropping out of school would be paid up to £36 a week to stay at school as part of a new £100 million plan by Fine Gael to eliminate educational disadvantage.
The party also envisages more accountability for parents, including access to each school's Leaving Cert results, and extended support services for teachers. While not supporting the 30 per cent pay demand by secondary teachers, the party leader, Mr John Bruton, signalled his support for better pay and a new career structure for teachers.
He said teachers who showed flexibility would get "rewards": for example, those who ran extracurricular activities such as summer camps in poor areas would be paid generously.
In a joint policy paper Mr Bruton, the party's new education spokesman, Mr Enda Kenny, and its director of policy and press, Mr Richard Bruton, said the Government had failed miserably in its efforts to combat educational disadvantage. The Irish education system, they said, reinforced inequality.
Reading standards at age 14 put the Republic among the weakest in the OECD, while over 20 per cent of this age group were low reading performers, compared to 5 per cent in France and Finland, according to the party's document.
The Educational Youth Wage of up to £36 per week would be used to encourage at-risk students aged 15 and over to remain at school. The scheme would be means-tested and targeted at low-income families where there was pressure on young people to take up employment.
The party said the £100 million in new investment would be targeted at those in most need.
On accountability, the party believed parents should enjoy full access to information about a school in their area, not just exam results but also the school ethos, its policy priorities, extracurricular activities, and so on. The information could be presented in an annual report.
On teachers' pay, Mr Bruton agreed levels had fallen behind, in common with others in the State sector who were doing a valuable job. He believed the current benchmarking review body, established as part of the new pay deal, could provide the opening for teachers to secure a substantial upgrading. School principals, in particular, deserved a very sizeable increase in pay because of their pivotal importance in the education system.
Fine Gael also renewed its criticisms of the Department of Education which it maintains is overcentralised.
The party proposes the establishment of local education networks in which local community partnerships would pitch for resources and make a more concentrated effort to eliminate educational disadvantage.