The number of pupils in second-level schools is set to surge by 30 per cent over the next two decades, placing further strain on the education budget.
New Department of Education figures show the number at second level will increase from 340,000 to 440,000 by 2029.
The projections reveal that the education system will come under unprecedented pressure, with at least 5,000 additional students in the system every September for the next 20 years.
The figures were released by the Teachers Union of Ireland (TUI) at a conference on investment in education, which resumes in Dublin today.
Its general secretary, Peter MacMenamin, warned yesterday that student drop-out would reach crisis levels without concerted investment in education.
The education system, he said, was not equipped to support the most vulnerable students now and this situation would greatly worsen unless the correct interventions were made.
Of the 60,786 students who entered first year of second-level education in 1999, just 80 per cent stayed in the system to sit the Leaving Certificate. In Dublin, only 72 per cent stayed on in school.
Yesterday, the TUI proposed a three-point plan to boost student retention amid a backdrop of much higher enrolment.
The main features include full restoration of funding for programmes which help vulnerable students, such as the Leaving Certificate Applied and Leaving Certificate Vocational; removal of the ban on middle-management posts in schools to provide vital support and guidance for vulnerable students, thus helping to keep them in the system, and restoration of substitution cover for teachers to allow more field trips, extracurricular activities etc.
Such activities, the TUI says, underpin the social and personal development of young people.
The TUI has cautiously welcomed the education concessions in the revised Programme for Government.
