‘Frightening’ report on pupils in deprived areas

A “FRIGHTENING” report on children attending schools in disadvantaged areas revealed yesterday that 50% of them have very low reading scores and two-thirds have a poor grasp of mathematics.

This prompted the opposition to demand that Education Minister Mary Hanafin publish her long-awaited action plan for pupils living in disadvantaged areas.

“This action plan was ready to roll when former Education Minister Noel Dempsey left office over six months ago - it is time for Ms Hanafin to produce her proposals now,” said Labour education spokeswoman Jan O’Sullivan.

Fine Gael education spokeswoman Olwyn Enright said: “This frightening report shows the current system is just not working and this minister should have published her own action plan along with these reports.” Fine Gael proposes extra resources as well as a more teachers to reduce class sizes. Labour says the best way to tackle this problem is a pupil/teacher ratio of 15:1 in areas of chronic disadvantage and early intervention for pupils as young as three and four.

The survey of 12 schools in particularly disadvantaged areas carried out by Department of Education inspectors also found that many of these children had very low attendance records.

This low level of achievement is “worrying” and many of these pupils are transferring to secondary schools with very limited prospects, the report on Literacy and Numeracy in Disadvantaged Schools also found.

The schools’ inspectors say there is a need for focused teaching, greater learning support for pupils and more involvement of parents and the community in education.

Ms Hanafin said yesterday that her action plan for children in disadvantaged areas is with the printers and will be published within the next month.

“There’s nothing in this report that anybody should feel threatened by, but there’s plenty we should feel challenged by,” the minister added.

She said the report showed that teachers and class sizes could not on their own solve the problems of disadvantaged children.

She pledged additional supports for pupils who attend disadvantaged schools. Her department gave €540 million to this programme in 2004 and there is a commitment to additional investment in the next school year.