The Department of Education will offer schools with high numbers of early school leavers large sums of money to "take the lead" in devising their own plans to tackle the problem. Many schools will be offered well over £100,000 each and some more than £200,000.
In an internal memo, seen by The Irish Times, the Minister for Education, Mr Martin, says "increasing the number of young people who successfully complete the senior cycle is the single most important educational goal for this country".
He says the "very supportive stance of the Minister for Finance provides us with a great opportunity to get this right and implement what could be a radical new approach to tackling early school leaving".
He expresses concern that in the past three years the proportion of second-level students going on to the Leaving Certificate, which rose steadily from the 1960s onwards, had levelled off at 82-83 per cent. This year's Leaving Certificate results will be published tomorrow.
"The message is very clear: we must do more if we are to achieve the medium-term objective of increasing completion to at least 90 per cent," writes Mr Martin. This figure was originally set both by the 1995 Education White Paper, and by the Minister when he came into office two years ago as a target to be achieved by next year.
The present retention level masks much worse figures for early school leaving in a significant minority of schools. In 9 per cent of second-level schools fewer than 50 per cent stay on until the Leaving Certificate; in 16 per cent fewer than 60 per cent stay on, and in 27 per cent fewer than 70 per cent stay on.
The Minister's plan includes the establishment of a fully-operational Education Welfare Board, provided for under school attendance legislation currently before the Oireachtas, by September 2000. This will set up the first national "tracking" system of school "drop outs", and will require that all early school leavers register their availability for further education before they are allowed to take up work.
Mr Martin says raising the school leaving age to 16 "must take effect next year and we must be in a position to help schools meet the challenge of providing for the retained pupils who will, by definition, be those least committed to school".
On the funding of individual schools to tackle early school leaving, he writes: "We should be prepared to devolve very significant funding under this initiative. I can see many situations where we might devolve well over £100,000 on the basis of research-based interventions."
He emphasised the need for "constant review" by the schools involved of their progress, and a readiness to scrap initiatives that were not working. There would be "distinct bands of support" for schools suffering different levels of disadvantage, so that those with smaller numbers of early school leavers would also be eligible for some extra funding.
The new intervention is a dramatic expansion - in the words of one Department source - of a £4.5 million package to tackle early school leaving announced in June. It will be funded by a provision in next December's budget.