Centres for disruptive pupils urged

SPECIALIST education centres urgently need to be created to meet the needs of continuously disruptive pupils and those with persistent, challenging behaviour, say school managers.

Students who have been either expelled from school or discouraged from going back are the responsibility of school welfare officers but often the students have nowhere to go, vocational school managers said at the IVEA annual congress yesterday.

Youthreach centres, which were set up to meet the training and pre-employment needs of people with no qualifications, may now have to accommodate these wayward students, Vocational Education Committees say.

“In the past they disappeared from our roll books and became statistics without trace. Now they are being tracked.

"A place will be needed for them in Youthreach programmes if they are to abide by the law as laid down in the Education Welfare Act,” according to Peter Kierans, president of the chief executive officers’ association.

“New centres will be needed and existing centres will need approval to grow. Youthreach is not the ideal response to continuous challenging behaviour by students.

"VECs may be called upon to develop special centres for education for students who continuously disrupt class and present with challenging behaviour but wish to complete their education through the normal school curriculum,” said Mr Kierans.

He also proposed a motion at the congress that the Department of Education and Science enforce part of the Education Act right across all sectors of education, including the voluntary and VEC sectors, to ensure there are fair, just, open and legal admission procedures for all children.