The proportion of students staying on at school to do the Leaving Certificate has dipped for the first time in many decades, according to Department of Education and Science figures.
The figures show that in 199495 the number taking the Leaving Certificate as a proportion of overall school-leavers was 81 per cent, compared to 82 per cent the previous year.
Since 1965 the proportion of 16 to 18-year-olds staying on to do the Leaving had risen from 20 per cent to over 80 per cent.
The 1995 Education White Paper set a target of 90 per cent by 2000 staying on to do the Leaving Certificate. The Minister for Education, Mr Martin, committed himself to achieving this target shortly after taking office last year.
He admitted last spring that the number staying on had "probably plateaued" at around 82 per cent, and was "at best rising very marginally". He suggested that one reason for this was the economic boom of recent years, which was encouraging children from poorer families to leave school early to take up low-paid jobs.
However, a Department of Education memo dated last January had already indicated that the proportion of school students staying on to the Leaving Certificate had not only levelled out, but had fallen to 81 per cent of school leavers in 1994-5, compared to 82 per cent in the previous year.
A draft report for the Junior Certificate review group last March posed the question: "Can the junior cycle curriculum as it now exists ensure that 90 per cent or more of students will remain on in second level, not only through junior cycle, but also continue on to senior cycle?"
That report also analysed the statistics for early school-leavers. It found that the proportion of students who did not complete the first three years of the post-primary junior cycle fell from a high of 7.8 per cent in 1990 to 3 per cent in 1994-95. The ESRI estimates that around 60 per cent of these early leavers are male.
The National Economic and Social Forum has estimated that 85 per cent of early school-leavers come from working class or small farming backgrounds. According to the NESF, rural areas have the highest level of disadvantage, yet provision of disadvantaged schools is over eight times better in Dublin. Over half of early leavers come from families where fathers are unemployed.
The NESF found a direct relationship between levels of educational attainment and employment status. Only 30 per cent of young people who leave secondary schools with no qualifications have jobs the May after they leave school, compared to 71 per cent of those with a Junior Certificate and 85 per cent with a Leaving Certificate.
The review group's report noted that the ESRI had found a deterioration in job prospects of those leaving school after the Junior Certificate, with 46 per cent of them unemployed in 1993-94 compared to 39 per cent in 199192.
Those students who leave school before the Junior Certificate have the lowest chance of getting jobs, with employers demands' for credentials "seeping down through the recruitment process for all levels of work, further marginalising the early school- leaving group". The economic boom has thus done little to help them.
The report concluded: "A significant number of pupils are under-achieving in terms of participation rates and our current education system does not, in reality, provide equally for the needs of all 12 to 15-year-olds."
Elsewhere the review group's report remarked on how girls outperformed boys in the 1995 Junior Certificate examination: 11.6 per cent of girls compared to 9.1 per cent of boys achieved a grade A at higher level; 30.7 per cent of girls gained a grade B compared to 26.2 per cent of boys.
At the lower end, 7.9 per cent of boys received grades of E or worse, compared to only 4.4 per cent of girls.
It also noted that in most subjects the proportion of girls taking higher-level subjects was greater than boys: 55.5 per cent of the candidates taking higher-level English were girls, as were 58.7 per cent of those taking higher-level Irish.
More boys than girls were also taking subjects at foundation level.